Hence the lack of instructions for the piece of crap. Muttering about the injustice of it all, Vince lugs the various components through to his study and stares at them. He’s found the famous ‘packet’, although there’s nothing in it that could possibly be an Allen key. It’s just metal nuts and bolts and whatnots. They might as well be mammoths’ teeth for all the use they’re going to be.
Vince feels foolish now for calling Kate. Ridiculously, he’d expected her to come up with some miracle solution: a spell he could chant, to make the unit self-construct. Now it’s apparent that that isn’t going to happen.
And she’s been in Scotland all this time, cleaning out some dead woman’s house! Why hadn’t she told him? Vince fetches a beer from the fridge to try and settle himself, and turns to Jarvis, who’s been watching him intently. ‘It’s not rocket science,’ he announces.
You know you can do it if you take it step by step.With Kate’s advice still ringing in his head, he starts to try and fit things together. However, the pieces are huge and surprisingly heavy, and at one point the biggest section topples over and slams into his legs. Maybe this is how it’ll end for him. He won’t collapse dramatically on stage, to a collective gasp in the packed venue, as he has fantasised occasionally. He’ll merely be found flattened on the dingy blue carpet in his mother’s former sewing room, beneath a pile of MDF.
‘Fuck it,’ he says out loud, gulping his beer and raking at his hair. With ceilings a mere foot above his head – at least it seems that way, especially today – the bungalow can feel claustrophobic. Back in London, their flat had high ceilings and big, spacious, light-filled rooms.
Another beer down, Vince adjourns for a lie down on the sofa. He dozes fitfully, feeling even more irritable as he wakes. He checks the time, baulking at how late it is. Ten past six already and he’s achieved precisely nothing!
Craving air, Vince gets up and grabs a third beer from the fridge. Then he strides to the front door, flings it open and stands there, sipping from the bottle and surveying the street. Weak sunshine has broken through the greyness, and the evening is unseasonably warm. At the sight of Agata Kemp, pedalling towards him on her bicycle, he stands up straighter and tries to rearrange his expression from one of quiet desperation to something more neutral. As if he’s just enjoying a beer on his doorstep – and why not? – rather than trying to anaesthetise himself.
‘Hello, Vince!’ Agata comes to a halt in front of his house.
‘Hi, Agata. You’re putting me to shame, cycling about on your bicycle,’ he says inanely.
A quick, bright smile. ‘I’m trying to cycle to work most days,’ she says.
‘Good for you!’ He knows she works with Deborah in an office in the old town, doing something with the council. Town planning or roads or something like that. Designing car parks maybe? He should know more about it, but feels that too much time has elapsed now to ask either of them what they actually do.
‘I really must dust my bike down,’ he adds.
‘Oh, what d’you have?’
‘Um, a foldable one,’ he says, flushing slightly as, in truth, he’d splurged an enormous amount on it, lured by the idea of being an urban warrior cyclist in London. He’d lost his nerve after an elderly lady with a wheeled shopping trolley had yelled ‘Wanker!’ at him when he’d jumped a red light.
It’s a jungle out there, he’d realised. Not so much here, but since the move to Shugbury the bike hasn’t emerged from the shed.
‘We could go for a cycle sometime,’ Agata says. ‘There are some lovely routes around here.’
‘Yeah, definitely,’ he says, trying to sound as if this is something he’d love to do.
Agata steps off her bike and smiles at him. She has a slight, boyish build, wears her fair hair in a crop and has an air of lightness and efficiency about her. He remembers now that Kate had gone on about her perfect macarons at the baking stall, and he can picture it now; that she’d approach such a task with thought and care. Not like Kate with her boxed cake mixes.
‘So... how have things been?’ she asks.
Beyond passing pleasantries, they haven’t spoken since Vince humiliated himself over Deborah’s tagine. ‘Oh, not too bad,’ he says, ‘considering...’
‘That’s good.’ He wills her not to quiz him any further. ‘What’ve you been up to today, then?’ she asks.
‘Building some shelving thing,’ he fibs, not that he wants to impress her especially. But it sounds better than, ‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, right.’ She smiles, showing perfect little teeth. ‘How have you got on?’
‘Erm, not too well,’ he admits, before he can stop himself. Then, thinking to hell with it, he adds, ‘It’s actually more Kate’s department than mine. The building-things thing, I mean.’ He shrugs and senses himself reddening.
‘Oh, is it?’ Her smile edges towards sympathy now. ‘I can’t imagine it’s been easy lately, Vince.’
‘No, you could say that.’ He shrugs and sips his beer.
She stands there for a moment, clutching the handlebars of her bike in the weak early evening sunshine. She’s not one of those zippy, coiled-over-the-handlebars cyclists. More the sitting-bolt-upright type, wearing a spotty dress and cardigan and those old-fashioned flat shoes with a strap across the front, which fasten with a kind of button. (Baby Janes? Is that what they’re called?) Of course Agata’s bicycle has a wicker basket at the front, containing a small bunch of pink tulips – and it’s definitely abicycle, not a bike.
‘To be honest with you,’ Vince adds, ‘I haven’t even got started. With the shelving, I mean. It doesn’t seem to make any sense...’
‘D’you want some help?’ she asks.
‘Oh no, I wouldn’t want to bother Lenny with that...’ Catching her bemused look, he realises his horribly sexist mistake.
