I remember the Colin Firth lookalike who fancied the ‘Brunette with the tits,’ and wonder again what that makes me. The brunette without the tits? I glance down at my chest. I’ve had some slap-downs in my time, but no one has ever implied I was lacking in the bust department.
It’s a tough assignment, but I’m determined not to reach the obvious conclusion that all men are cheating, sexist arseholes. Because that thought doesn’t do me any good; that thought removes hope. And life without hope leaves nothing but a basin of icy water.
I think about Darren too, of course, and for the first time I imagine the actual act of his suicide. And I realise that of course it won’t have been a single act. He will have got rid of his collection of porn, cleaned up or perhaps deleted his email account . . . He will have written the note, and visited his dealer for Ketamine. Maybe he cleaned the flat. Perhaps he thought about which room he preferred to be found in, in what position, by whom . . . I had imagined it as a sudden act of desperation, but I realise now that of course, it wasn’t. He had been planning this for years.
At Andover the sun begins to set. The twilight is tough on my eyes, so I pull over into a Little Chef and take a table at the window where I can watch as the sky flames red, and then glimmers and dims. Other than the big plate-glass window, there is not one feature of the Little Chef that pleases me, and I’m sure that any of the pubs I passed would have had better food and more comfortable chairs, but there’s something to do with the anonymity of the place that makes it less uncomfortable to eat alone . . . something to do with the fact that everyone here is like me, simply pausing on their way to somewhere else.
After a reasonable if somewhat predictable lasagne and a Diet Coke, I head on along the A303 towards Plymouth.
As I pass Salisbury I think about my shrink and admit to myself that it might be doing me some good. I couldn’t, for now, say exactly what form that good is taking, for other than raking over the past, I don’t seem to be achieving anything . . . But then maybe that’s it – maybe to rake over the past is the whole point. After all, the stuff I have been discussing – it’s actually more of a monologue than a discussion – is stuff I have simply never vocalised to anyone. For who else could I possibly have told? For anyone who knew Dad or Waiine it would be way too painful. And for anyone who didn’t, way too personal. And I suppose that in the end, that’s what a shrink is. A friend who is paid to listen to things that are too painful or too personal for anyone else.
Just as I park the car in the hotel car park, my phone rings but seeing that it’s Mum’s landline I decide to ignore the call and phone her back after check-in.
Ten minutes later I open a beer from the mini-bar, kick off my shoes, and hurl myself onto the bed. I dial her number and lie back and close my eyes. They feel, after my night drive, as if they have been pickled in vinegar.
‘Hi, Mum, it’s me,’ I say, when she answers. ‘I was driving when you phoned, so . . .’
‘Driving?’
‘Yeah, I’m in Plymouth.’
‘What are you doing there?’
‘Oh, work stuff. I’m seeing a client tomorrow. So what’s up?’
‘Your father and I went to Plymouth once. Stayed in a very nice hotel.’
‘Well this is just your basic Premier Inn, I’m afraid. Cost- cutting measures and all that.’
‘What a shame.’
‘Oh it’s fine. I don’t really care to be honest, Mum. As long as it’s clean. And it is. Anyway, you called me on my mobile. What’s up?’
‘Nothing really. But I need to see you.’
‘OK. Why?’
‘I need some daughterly advice.’
‘Daughterly advice?’
‘Well yes. Don’t sound so surprised.’
‘Well . . . when did you ever ask my advice?’
‘If you’re going to be . . .’
‘Sorry, Mum, I won’t. What’s wrong?’
But she won’t tell me. It’s something, she says, to do with Saddam. It’s something we need to discuss face to face. Which means either that she and Saddam are having problems, or that they want to move forward with the marriage thing. I can only pray that it’s the former.
I click the phone off and glance out at the Victorian façade of the building opposite. And then I close my gritty eyes for a moment’s rest before heading out to explore Plymouth.
When I open them again the bedside clock says 00:02 and my first thought is that there has been a momentary power cut and that the clock has reverted to zero. But when I check my BlackBerry, it turns out that it’s my body-clock that has gone haywire. I have been asleep for four hours, not, as I’m convinced, ten minutes.
And so, too lazy even to remove my make-up or clean my teeth, I wriggle out of my clothes and slip between the crisp white sheets.
The meeting with Roger Niels at Cornish Cow is so low-key it’s an embarrassment. I’m just glad that no one is here to witness it.
I obviously didn’t expect (even if I secretly hoped) to meet Niels in the middle of a cowshed, but all the same . . . looking around the two spartan rooms they have rented in this serviced office complex it’s hard to spot a single visual clue that they are in the dairy business. Indeed Niels himself couldn’t be further from the ruddy-faced west-country bumpkin I had imagined. He’s a young (late thirties) wiry man wearing cords, brogues and a white open-necked shirt. He looks like a banker on his day off.
It quickly becomes evident that not only has he not given much thought to marketing, but he’s not quite sure who I am or why I am here either.
All of this I explain patiently between multiple phone calls he seems unable to resist answering.
When I produce a folder of roughs that the boys in Creative have knocked up, he seems more confused than impressed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘But do we have a contract with you people? Because I haven’t seen a single budget entry for any of this work.’
I explain that we don’t yet have a signed contract but that because we see Cornish Cow as a strategic diversification of our agency portfolio we have decided to stun them with our enthusiasm.
But Niels is having none of my silver tongued ad-speak. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he says. ‘The slowdown is hurting everyone.’ He flicks through the mock-ups and comments coldly that none of it looks ‘very organic.’
‘I didn’t know Cornish Cow was organic,’ I say, making him laugh out loud.
‘That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t look organic,’ he says.
The only other comment he makes before flipping the portfolio closed and handing it back is that the cartoon cow drinking from a straw on the final sheet is ‘cute.’
‘Yes, Darren did that,’ I say. ‘He’s good isn’t he . . .’ And then I frown, and think about reformulating the phrase with a past tense, and then decide that it’s best not to go there. Not for sales purposes, and not for myself.
Within forty minutes of meeting him, I’m back on the street, the folder under my arm.
I drink a cappuccino in Starbucks to gather my thoughts, and consider phoning the office, but decide that in the interest of at least creating an illusion of a fruitful meeting it’s better to wait until this afternoon. Not that I think that this rudely summary meeting has been a wasted journey. I know from experience that business heads like Niels are famously difficult to impress with creative stuff. But at some point, a flick of his pen will send their marketing budget this way or that, and often an inauspicious meeting like today’s will end up being what influences in whose direction his pen will flick.
I walk briskly along the rather splendid seafront, inhaling the iodine air, and then, spotting clouds forming to the west, I double back to the hotel to drop off the folder and change into jeans and trainers.
Rather excited, if still unsure whether this will turn out to be the first act in a new chapter or a simple fantasy, I pull my list of properties from my suitcase and grab the car keys from the bedside table.
Body Double
I
have worked out that my flat in Primrose Hill is worth the obscene sum of three-hundred and eighty thousand (though apparently in the process of plummeting because of the crisis) so I have listed only cottages below two-eighty (to give myself a little financial cushion) and with enough land to have at least a large kitchen garden if not cows or goats.
I have four properties on my list, though sadly, I have left the second page concerning property number four behind, so I have nothing but a photo and the name of the town to go on. Still, I’m hopeful that this will suffice. If the place looks anything like the picture I should be able to see it for miles around.
I haven’t booked viewings with any of the estate agents for the simple reason that I can’t even convince myself that I’m a serious buyer, let alone anyone else. I have a job and a life and a flat in London, and no realistic plan whatsoever how I might earn a living here. For the moment this is just about daydreams. But if I find the right kind of place at the right kind of price, well, who knows? Daydreams can sometimes become reality, right?
As I drive along the A38 I look out over the moors and start to smile. I wonder if it could really be this simple. Could human happiness be as basic as a glimpse of green? Could this sensation of focusing in the distance, focusing, for once, on infinity . . . could that be all I really need?
Finding the house in Liskeard should be easy. The address turns out to be on the main road into the town, and yet, when I reach the town centre, I realise that I have somehow missed it.
After a few repetitions of the roundabout at one end, and a few three-point turns at the other, I finally realise that it can only be the house behind the wall of thirty-foot Leylandii. I bump the car up the kerb, climb out, and surreptitiously edge towards the gate wondering if in addition to the trees-from-hell a clone of Mrs P is living next door.
The first surprise is that the place is so small, and so close to the road. Comparing it with the printout, I realise that my brain has assumed the windows to be of a certain size – about five-foot-square, whereas in fact then are more like three-by- three. The house around them is therefore correspondingly smaller – minute in fact. Still, it’s a pretty cottage – grey stone walls, a white painted outhouse, and it even has roses around the door, albeit straggly ones. But the main road is a whooshing, roaring presence that even an impenetrable wall of Leylandii can’t temper. And the lawn, in complete shade from the monster trees, is in the same, sorry, sun-starved state as my own.
I shrug and return to the car. I never expected to find my dream-house today anyway. At least looking is turning out to be fun.
The house in Bodmin is far harder to find, because each of the houses on the lane are set at the end of their own track, and half of these are entirely hidden by trees or hedgerows. This leaves me hugely optimistic though – clearly traffic noise isn’t going to be a problem here.
I park the car at the entrance to a farmer’s field and climb back out. Incredibly the temperature has dropped at least five degrees since Liskeard ten minutes ago, and I can see that the cloud cover is about to obscure the sun. The air smells like rain. I remember this smell from my childhood and I think how the air in London never really smells of anything except perhaps traffic pollution.
I edge as far down each of the tracks as I dare, enough to see that the house is not the one I’m looking for. They are all incredibly small though, as if built for a race of tiny people. I wonder what they would make of my mother’s cavernous house in Surrey.
After forty minutes I have only covered a third of the lane, so when I cross paths with an old man walking a dog I show him the sheet and ask him if he knows it.
He peers at the house and then says, in a Farmer-Jack voice worthy of children’s TV, ‘Arrr yes, tha’ll be ole Margaret’s place, tha’ll be. Come on, I’ll show you. I’m only walking Boris anyway, so . . .’
He walks incredibly fast for an oldie – the tempo apparently dictated by the dog. I myself am virtually jogging to keep up.
‘So looking to move to Bodmin, are we?’ he asks.
Hyper aware that I don’t want to slot into the cliché of London professional moving to the moors, I slip into my thickest Irish lilt. ‘I am so,’ I say. ‘I think it’s beautiful down here. Though I’m just really having a mosey around today. Having a peek to see what’s on the market.’
‘It’s all become royt pricey,’ he says, yanking at Boris’ training collar. ‘All these strangers buying everywhere for holiday homes. A crime it is. No offence meant.’
‘Well if we do buy here, it won’t be a holiday home, that’s for sure,’ I say, grimacing inwardly at my invention of a ‘we.’ And then I think of Guinness, and decide that I haven’t lied after all.
‘They’re building houses all over now, but it doesn’t stop the prices going up, oh no.’
We round a huge privet and the house in the photo appears, complete with for-sale sign. It’s a pretty, white-painted bungalow. Again, it’s much smaller than I thought.
‘This is the one isn’t it?’ the man says, glancing at my printout, and forging on.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, this is it.’
Spotting a woman at the rear of the property, I pause and try to grab my guide’s arm to bring him to a halt. ‘This is fine,’ I say. ‘I only wanted to have a peek.’
‘Nonsense,’ he says, already waving. ‘Maggie? Maggie!’
The woman stands and places a hand in the small of her back, that universal gardening gesture, then shades her eyes and waves. The dog barks and when the man releases the lead it tears around the house and jumps up, putting its paws on her shoulders.
As we near the house, I see that it has a fairly extensive vegetable patch at the rear – not much growing right now, but clearly these rows of cloches and bean-poles are Maggie’s pride and joy.
As for the house, though, despite its supposed three bedrooms, the entire thing can’t be much bigger than my flat.
Just as the dog-man says, ‘I found this lassie out in the lane. She wants to buy your house,’ I raise my eyesight and look beyond the end of the garden and see that I don’t want to buy it, I really don’t. Just beyond the furthest limit of Maggie’s garden is a parked bulldozer, and beyond that, at far as the eye can see, the hillside has been divided into swathes of tiny plots. At the top of the hill, on the horizon, Barrett are building hundreds of tiny, red brick houses. And as the red corrugated tubes poking from the earth reveal, they are clearly heading this way.
‘Hello,’ Maggie says, removing a gardening glove and holding out a hand. ‘The agency usually calls before visits – there must have been a mix-up.’
For half an hour I pretend out of politeness to be interested in Maggie’s pretty little house, a pretty little house soon to be surrounded by a hundred Brookside Closes, a pretty little house with ceilings so low that if I were to put on a pair of Jimmy Choos – I know, I know, there would be little call for them here – but if I did put on a pair, I would only be able to pace up and down lengthwise between the beams. Walking across the room would require either a shoe change, or a stoop.
I wave goodbye to the dog-walker and slump into my car.
I know about house-hunting, of course. I know from experience that nothing ever lives up to unreasonable expectation, and that finding the right house is as much about slowly tapering that expectation as anything else . . . But even with that knowledge, those first visits, that initial realisation that it’s going to have to be smaller, and uglier, and more remote or if not, noisier than imagined . . . well, it’s always just a tiny bit soul-destroying.
I sit in the car and watch the hill to my right as it turns a deep, dark grey, and figure I can make out a slanting texture in the light that indicates that it’s already raining up there. I wonder, for a moment, if I could really imagine myself living here? And the only answer I can honestly give myself is, ‘No.’
I glance back at my list of properties and decide that number three in Tregony is a bit too far for today, and settle fo
r a final peek at number four, the house on the hill, if I can find it.
Ten minutes later, I’m just driving past the Welcome to Bolventor sign, and I can already see the house to my left. It’s not immediately obvious how to reach the lane that leads to it, but as I drive around in ever decreasing circles, I start to become seriously excited. For this house is in a completely different category from the others.
‘So where’s the problem?’ I mumble, as I park the car in a siding a hundred yards below the house and climb out.
The sky is now blackening and a chill wind is humming vaguely in my ears. I wish I had brought a hat.
I look up at the house. It’s big – at least three bedrooms I’m guessing, though of course I don’t have the details with me.
It’s another white painted farmhouse, though this time with two storeys and a slate roof. It dominates the landscape in all directions, and I wonder if someone is already watching me from behind one of the blackened windows. A VW van is parked on the gravel drive and smoke is drifting from the chimney. For some reason I decide that the presence of a VW hippy bus rather than the classic Land-Rover Freelander implies a far nicer class of person inside.
As I start to walk past the wooden fence separating the land from the lane, the sun suddenly dips below the cloud-line, bathing the side of the house in a warm, pink glow, and I think, God! How beautiful!
I stride nonchalantly past the house as if on a mission to somewhere else, though I doubt anyone would be convinced . . . the lane clearly doesn’t go anywhere else.
As I pass the big bay window, despite feeling something of a voyeur, I peer into the uncurtained lounge. The right-hand wall is entirely covered with book-cases and a man of regular build in jeans and a simple grey hoodie is standing with his back to me, staring, I think, at the flames from the log fire. The walls of the room flicker and jump as the light shimmers.
The Case of the Missing Boyfriend Page 33