Of all the things I expected from Nicol seeing me at work, my private shame being helpful to him was not an option I’d considered. Amara needing me to please Nicol emboldens me. ‘How’s being the co-head of a union? Does Nicol allow you to be an active participant or do you get the pleasure of sorting the tea and sandwiches?’ Amara becomes very interested in her shoes, a pair of shiny oxblood Doc Martens that are scuffed to buggery at the toes in a way that every time I’ve ever seen them I’ve admired how worn in and effortless they look. The compliment I say by default upon sight of them, that I think they are so cool, is swallowed down to make space for, ‘Ams, whether you know it or not, you’re putting me in a horrible position. I know if I say I won’t do you this favour, Nicol is going to be a fucking nightmare to you. He’s going to spend days being so huffy, snappy, blaming you for failures that are not yours.’
She bites her lip, looks back at her boots or the pavement. It is probably quite unpleasant to hear someone reflect back at you the truth of your new but awful boyfriend. ‘If he’s like that it’s because he’s so passionate about the cause.’
I remember that dread so keenly I feel a flicker of it now. I offer her a lifeline. ‘If he wants something from me, he has to ask me himself.’
Her heavy brows lighten. ‘So it’s not a no?’
By not allowing her to experience Nicol at his very worst, I have gifted him to her at his happiest. Amara can expect a gesture from him that she can look back on when he’s next upset with her for a minor infringement as a signifier of his good heart. Maybe a cup of tea she didn’t ask for, a soft look she can interpret to mean any number of deep emotions, a text message containing extra kisses when she wasn’t expecting it. I can’t help myself from trying to take the edge off. ‘It’s not a yes either.’
Amara tells me Nicol will be in touch and dashes off; the person who walks away is more like the person I was friends with. When she’s disappeared from view I keep the keys in my grasp, unable to shake the sensation that I need to defend myself.
21
Obviously there were issues with Willie, but I really feel I’m fantastic at this going-after-landlords malarky. This may be the only thing I’ve a natural talent for. Or is it that I have been forced to be good at it because of the life the universe has gifted me? Ruminating can wait, because Pete hasn’t actually been punished yet. But he will be. I have a good feeling about it; this is going to be easy-peasy.
I came to this realisation bang on 9:00 this morning – never ever turn up earlier than your employer pays you to be present is my only piece of career advice, it’s the one thing you have control over in your working day – when Brian chucked his car keys at me. ‘You drive, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ is all Brian needed to know. No need to mention I haven’t actually driven a car since about six months after I got my licence fifteen years ago. I’ve never really needed to, I could always get anywhere I ever needed to go on the bus or train. When I sat my test I passed first time, which has to count for something.
‘Brilliant. You and my phone can go to myvaluationover on the Southside.’ Momentarily, I was speechless. Any faraway wandering me and the phone have done so far has involved a taxi, but here was a car of my own with specific instructions to go to the Southside – where Pete goes to the gym. It felt too perfect, like a trap. ‘I didn’t think we represented properties in Glasgow?’
‘Usually naw, but a guy I play football with inherited it from his uncle. I went the other day. We’ll get the pics and the survey done next week and then I’ll get it on the site. It’s a wee dilapidated house that’s been split into two flats. The dead guy owned the whole place and lived in the ground-floor flat while the top one’s been empty for years. It all needs to be totally gutted, and my pal isnae the kind of guy who’s getting his hands dirty so I said I’d help him find a person who is willing to.’
‘I’m sure the commission had nothing to do with it.’
Brian acted like Gavin hadn’t said a word and chucked me another set of keys. ‘These are so you can go for a wander inside. Be warned, it’s fucking stinking. The uncle died in there and they didn’t find his body for a month.’
This entire interaction was all it took for me to know that what’s going to happen to Pete needs to be dealt with by the end of today. See, gifted. While I’m proud my brain can put together all the pieces of what needs to happen in mere seconds, in truth, I would have preferred to have been a brilliant singer or skilled in a way that would help me earn a higher wage. But this is something, and for a long time I thought I had nothing.
Getting to Glasgow was not without its trials and tribulations: I stalled four times before I left Hamilton, and there was a particularly hairy exit of a roundabout where multiple drivers honked their horns at me. We all survived, no biggie. Then I performed my job dutifully and took Brian’s phone into the house which was, as warned, absolutely honking. Someone had tried to bleach away the smell of rotten flesh, but it was there, catching the back of my throat. Still, I needed to see what was what so I persevered.
In the downstairs flat, the interior was entirely shades of brown. Brown shag carpet, beige walls, chocolate-brown velvet sofa. Home improvements of a sort had begun – a patch of wall in the kitchen had swatches of shades of olive green painted on it in neat squares, a shelf was leaning against the dining table waiting to be attached to a wall. The musty air had a tinge of nicotine-yellow to it, like the uncle smoked all day every day and never cranked a window. That, mingled with the stench of death, was making me nauseous, a sensation you’d have thought would have worsened when I went into the bathroom and got hit with the source of the bleach smell, which was so strong it made my eyes water. It was here the uncle had died. On the bare wooden floorboards was a dark brown stain which was surrounded by ombré halos of brown. If this was it after heavy bleaching, I hate to think of the state it had been in before. But it did not disgust me; I stood over it for ages. Fascinating, I thought to myself. If I’d left Colin in my flat, this would have happened. It’s honestly so interesting that one day I too might become a puddle of fluid, rotting into the ground, my family trying to bleach away any trace of me.
After taking some pics for Dave, with the shag carpet peeking through my toes, I went to the flat upstairs, which is the one vital to the plan. It had the same layout minus all the brown (as a rental property, it was, of course, all white instead) and there were no human remains scattered on the floor, although the pong of downstairs had infiltrated. Going down the staircase to the building’s front door, I noticed one step was a little off compared to the others. I had to grab onto the handrail so as not to stumble. Brilliant, I thought, starting the car back up. This place is brilliant.
Except, there is one part of the plan that has the potential to ruin things. Brian. See, I need him not to ask for either set of keys to be returned. So now I’m sat in the office, staring at the door, waiting for him to reappear from wherever and whoever he’s been shagging. It’s making me proper antsy. I tap my fingers on the desk and stare at my computer screen, the words swimming on BBC News,where I keep trying and failing to read the story ‘One in five tenants spend over half their salary on rent’.
Eventually, hours after I got back from my mission, Brian reappears, which is very poor form on his part. There’s no point doing all the fannying about with phones and diaries if he doesn’t keep to schedule. If you didn’t know where he’d been you’d think his hair had got a bit messy at the back from him scratching it or maybe not doing it properly when he got ready. I know where he’s been and what he looked like this morning – immaculate – so it’s clear to me he’s been on his back getting ridden. The visual of this is more disturbing than the body slurry in the flat.
‘Awright?’ He fiddles with the button of his suit jacket; his head is ducked down like the naughty boy in class trying to get to his seat after turning up late.
‘You need tae sort your barnet out. The back of it’s gone wild.’ The blatantness of how he behaves really is outrageous. I haven’t forgotten about him getting his comeuppance, by the way. It’ll just have to wait until the more-pressing-for-society wrongs are corrected.
His hands fly up to his skull, patting it down and running his fingers through the tufts that are sticking up while he shuts himself in his office, where he stays for the rest of the day, not saying a word to me until I’m putting my jacket on, the keys to the car and the house in my pocket.
‘See you when I’m back from Leeds. Mind when I’m away no slacking with oor Gav.’ He chuckles to himself at his own chat; he’s still laughing as I leave. The fact that he never asked for me to return the keys is essentially permission to use the company car and the flat how I please. If he didn’t want me to have free use of them, wouldn’t he have asked for their return? Exactly. He’s a squiggle, remember. That book taught me he ‘makes decisions based on gut feelings’, and his gut has decided I can borrow the car whether his brain knows it or not.
The drive in the dark is a wee bit scarier than the one in the daylight. I’m sure motorways had better lighting the last time I drove, and headlights were definitely not this bright. But I make it, parking at the far end of the car park because it’s not covered by CCTV. In the gloom, collecting my stuff from the boot, I get confused about whose gym bag is whose. Brian keeps his in the car all the time and it’s a similar style to mine. I only realise I’ve picked up the wrong one when I open it up to check I have everything I need and find one crusty towel, a rabbit vibrator, a strap-on and the largest box of condoms I’ve ever seen inside it.
I take my time walking through the car park. Pete has posted pictures on his socials of his car, which is like the one I’ve just driven here in, also a black Range Rover. Brian’s has the registration 123 BRI, Pete’s is P333 ETE. It’s a shame they’ve never met, they seem like they’d get on. Pete is not here. Not yet, anyway.
As soon as I enter the gym, I wince. The darkness of outside is contrasted with the kind of brightness I imagine one experiences upon visiting the sun. No time to dwell, I have to inhabit the role I’ve given myself for the evening – Jennifer MacMillan, a lady who has recently moved to the area and is having a free trial day at the gym. I filled in the online form earlier, taking a break from anxiously waiting for Brian’s return. I pull down my black hoodie as I approach the reception, which is manned by a guy who looks exactly how a guy who works in a gym should: too-tight black T-shirt with the gym’s logo on it, biceps like thighs, a shaved bald head that’s glistening with beads of sweat. I pass him the piece of paper I printed off in the office that permits me into the gym. He reads it like it’s a legal summons. ‘Jennifer, is it?’
‘That’s me.’ I make myself not fiddle with the toggle of my hoodie; I don’t want to appear nervous or bubbly or anything else memorable. I am a woman who wants to try out a new gym, that’s all.
‘You need me to show you around the machines?’
‘No, I’m good thanks.’ I already ticked the box on the website saying I didn’t want the induction and I used the equipment at my own risk.
