He’s on my mind with each chair and table I lump into a warehouse full of bougie furniture destined for eateries and rustic wedding venues. That’s where I hear his voiceas if he’s right beside me instead of heading for the Isle of Harris empty-handed.
The real money is in renting it out over and over.
Money is one of my main problems to solve. I don’t earn enough to make that northward journey more than once in a blue moon. And that’s what I want—more of Dair, not less.
I can’t help thinking he feels the same way.
Making enough cash to find out for sure is on my mind at an auction house, where I unload boxes full of china packed by Heppel Exes who came through for me when I needed. They’dcome through for me again if I sent another SOS message to our group chat. I know it.
The thing is, their help would be short term.
Dair feels like a long-term proposition. An investment. One worth making, despite my minimum wage occupation. I can’t ask the Exes to fund that, but I do raise my phone to do what else I told Dair—I reach out to ask my herd of highly sexed cats a question.
“I should pay Dair a visit ASAP, yeah?”
No one reacts to my voice note with a thumbs-up. A flood of love hearts fills my phone, so many I have to mute my notifications while thinking over my second problem.
If I want to see him regularly, I’ll need to take a lot more time off.
I can’t scrimp and save my way around that roadblock. I carry it up and down each flight of stairs I trudge all afternoon with my cousin. It echoes through the homes we empty together, then tags along to each new location.
Kev has to notice. Once we’re done for the day, he sits in the cab of his van in rare silence that he breaks with a blunt statement. “He wasn’t just a punter to you.”
I shake my head.
“Want to know how I can tell?”
I nod, my chest prickling.
“Because punters don’t offer to split their auction profits fifty-fifty, do they? That’s what partners do.”
“Fifty-fifty?”
“That’s what he wanted. For you to keep half of whatever his stuff sells for, like you two were equal partners.” He surveys me, squinting. “Wouldn’t sign the contract until he was certain you’d get half. I warned him it would be half of almost nothing. No one’s buying old china. Your Alasdair still insisted.”
I don’t tell Kev how much I like that wordyour. I do ask, “When did he tell you that?”
“When you were loading up the van this morning, I went through the auction paperwork with him. He told me to split any profit right down the middle. Because of the work you put in, Vince. He wanted you to have it.” Kev studies my face. Who knows what he sees to sound as soft as butter for once. “You gonna see him again?”
“I wish.” There’s no changing these facts. “The Outer Hebrides ain’t exactly just up the road.” That brings me to the one fact I do have the power to change. “I gotta make a lot more cash.”
Kev squints again, hard-faced. I also catch a glimpse of Stacey—he’s curious the same way his mum always was about her mudlarking treasures. “How you planning on doing that? By going it alone again, instead of working for me?”
“No. I’m thinking about you and me sharing a different business model.” I must have absorbed that phrase during meet-ups with corporate high-flyers. Today I voice it for the woman who taught both of us that working for free is sometimes the right decision. “I’ll always want our midnight flit service to be available. Whatever other changes we decide on, they’ve got to stay.” I don’t know what reaction I expected. Kev’s visible relief keeps me talking. “You still want to paintCousinon the side of the van?”
“I want you to be happy, mate.”
He’s raw.
I am too.
“If you do, I’ll never be able to read it. But if it’s important to you, how aboutKevin & Cousin Removals & Restoration. Because that’s what will make me happy and make both of us more cash. Restoration work. I’ll still help with removals if I alsocan have the time to do a lot more of that. There could be some real money in it.”
We both know there would be. The profit I made for Flynn already proved it. It just sucks that I never got my share of that cash. If I had the five bags or more he owes me, I’d be on a train already to pick up from where Dair and I left off way too soon for my liking. Fuck it, I’d spunk half of that cash on a plane ticket, even if it only meant seeing him again once.
I don’t have that cash, so I keep talking.
“The thing is, I got lucky.” And not just by meeting Dair. “That little desk was a once-in-a-lifetime find. If I want to make bank like that again on the regular, I need to get accredited as a master craftsman.” And that certification could be my ticket to see Dair more often.
