Chapter Seven
‘Liam!’ Lydia smacked him on the shoulder, ‘Come on!’
My eyes stung, and my head lowered, hanging off my shoulders in defeat. Why was I even doing this? Why didn’t I sell as my mum had suggested? Did I care all that much about my dad’s legacy anyway? He’d been AWOL for most of my life, for fuck’s sake.
It’s because of the funeral.
I felt so much shame and anger at myself for fucking up at my dad’s funeral that renovating the house felt like a path to some sort of redemption.
Lydia continued with her campaign to convince Liam, but I ignored it.
I needed to come up with a new plan. I could sell it.
Yeah, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I’d sell and move on.
If I went home tomorrow, Mum wouldn’t need to know I’d been gone.
I’ll get the train back and forget any of this happened.
This could all be some strange, vivid dream.
‘What renovation?’ Jack asked, pulling me from my mind.
‘It’s Kat’s house,’ Lydia explained. ‘She was… left it recently and wants to renovate it.’
I was grateful she left out the dead dad details.
Lydia continued, ‘It’s a 1930s semi. It’s a fixer-upper, but it has tons of potential. But Kat has a tight turnaround to renovate it before she moves back to London. She wants to buy there.’
I coughed, my voice croaky. ‘The market is a nightmare, so I need as much cash as possible.’
‘How tight a turnaround?’ Jack scratched his jaw.
‘Two months.’ I shrugged. ‘That’s how long I’ve been given off work. I might be able to stretch it a bit, but not much more.’
Liam huffed a laugh. ‘Two months.’
Lydia frowned now. ‘Is that not possible? There isn’t any major structural work to do.’
‘I’ve seen her house. It needs gutting.’
‘I know. This is my last resort.’ A scowl overtook my features. ‘You are my last resort.’
‘Charming.’ Liam looked at me, then frowned, like my foul mood disappointed him. ‘There isn’t anything I can do. It should have been booked months ago. In fact, if you could ask all of your lot to schedule in your gentrifying in good time, that would be great.’
He stared straight ahead and took a large gulp of his drink.
‘Well, unfortunately, I couldn’t conveniently schedule my dad dying,’ I smiled sardonically. ‘And who exactly is “my lot”?’
Lydia rolled her eyes. ‘He means Londoners. Southerners. He’s bitter because we’ve had a load buy up here recently.’
‘They’ve priced themselves out of London, so they’ve decided to price us out of houses here instead,’ Liam rumbled.
‘I don’t know what’s up your bum,’ Lydia said. ‘They all want building work.’
‘And they want a personal trainer and their green juices,’ Liam said pointedly.
‘I know. Unlike some, I’m not complaining. We doubled members at the gym this month.’ Lydia shoved Liam, causing him to almost spill his drink. ‘Stop being such a downer. I know Kevin manages to squeeze people in all the time.’
Liam’s eyes flared. ‘Yes, and now his knees are fucked; he doesn’t know the meaning of “retirement”, and he hasn’t had a holiday in about fifty years.’
‘Kevin is fine,’ Lydia insisted.
According to Liam’s tense expression, this was a sensitive topic, and I was struck that my cousin and Liam must be very close if she could comment on Liam’s family like that.
‘Kevin is fine because I pick up the slack. I’m sorry, but no.’ He turned to me, his eyes glimmering with intensity, ‘Even if we had the right “synergy”, we don’t have any time.’
Jack cleared his throat. ‘We’re finishing early on the Joneses’ extension, Liam. I can take over from you, and you could take on this project,’ Jack suggested in a light tone as if he was used to pitching ideas carefully around Liam.
‘Absolutely not. The Joneses have sticks up their arses. I need to manage it.’
‘Manage the stick up their arse?’ Jack asked in mock confusion, making both Lydia and me laugh. Liam delivered Jack a droll look.
‘Liam, come on,’ Lydia protested. ‘Mum, Dad and I will help too. We can all chip in.’
‘That sounds like fucking chaos.’ Liam crossed his arms, all corded muscle and veins.
Gym bros were a turnoff for me, but Liam didn’t look like he hit the gym. I knew without seeing… all of him… that Liam didn’t have one of those perfectly sculpted bodies. His arms were a byproduct of his job, freckled, tanned, and defined from lifting heavy materials.
‘Take a picture, Red. It will last longer,’ a male voice whispered.
I lifted my gaze to find Liam’s eyes sparkling, his lips struggling to stay straight. I flushed and opened my mouth to protest, but a mic made a horrible squeak, making everyone wince.
Lydia’s hands came to her ears, and Jack and Liam grimaced.
‘Excuse me!’ Sandra’s voice pierced the room. ‘The club committee meeting starts now. If you are attending, please take your seats. If not, the back room is free, and Beverly will be there to pull pints.’
‘I only like you pulling my pints, Sandra!’ a rather portly man with a receding hairline shouted, making everyone, including Sandra, laugh. Even Liam huffed beside me. It made me wonder what his actual laugh sounded like, if he ever made the noise in his miserable life.
‘Oi!’ Brian shouted. ‘That’s my wife.’
My uncle can’t have noticed me when he came in, sitting front row to his wife’s performance. The man who flirted with my auntie held his hands up in defence, and more laughs pealed through the room.
‘God, Mum and Dad make this a bleeding pantomime. Come on.’ Lydia shifted us to find seats. ‘They fill up fast. This is like a stand-up special, with juicy court proceedings and a dash of a Corrie Christmas special all in one. You do not want to miss it.’
Lydia leaned down to pull out a bag of Wine Gums, silently handing them to someone above us. I looked up to find Liam looming above me. Silently, he took the sweets from my cousin.
‘You’re sat in his seat,’ Lydia whispered with hushed humour. ‘I’ve never seen him so stressed.’
‘I’m not stressed,’ Liam grumbled, ripping open the Wine Gums and throwing three in his mouth. Our chairs were so close that our arms were brushing, sending a cold shiver up my arm. Liam flinched like I’d burnt him, so I shifted in my seat further away from him.
God, why did I ever think I could persuade him to help?
‘Right,’ Sandra announced. ‘Let’s get started. Chair, would you like to come here and give us an overview?’
A tall woman with braids approached the stage, and it wasn’t until she turned around to address the crowd of about seventy people that I recognised her.
‘She’s my neighbour,’ I whispered to Lydia.
‘Oh, yeah. I forget Pat lives on Evanshore, too.’
Pat adjusted the mic. ‘Good evening, everyone. It’s lovely to see all your shining faces.
Yes, even yours, Peter.’ She gave Peter a sickly smile.
‘We’ll move onto your –’ she picked up several pieces of paper like they were Noodle’s dog poo – ‘several proposals after I’ve given an overview of the club’s achievements for the last few months. ’
Pat presented the club’s financial successes and called for volunteers for the dementia-friendly afternoon tea and announced a whole roster of events: kid’s crafts, yoga, vinyl nights, and the makers market, which I made a mental note to put in the diary because the barbecue sounded amazing.
‘Jesus, it never stops here.’
‘Since Mum and Pat orchestrated their coup, things got busier around here.’
‘Now these meetings take forever,’ Liam grumbled. ‘The best kind of committee is a committee of two when one doesn’t turn up.’
I snorted and Liam looked at me curiously.
I shrugged. ‘What? It was funny.’
‘Right, let’s move on to member proposals.
A reminder that if you want to make a proposal, you should submit it a week before the meeting, but we’re not as strict as we used to be, so if it’s late, we’ll do our best to include it,’ Pat said, causing some grumbles to break out amidst the grey and balding of the meeting.
‘Peter,’ Pat barked, ‘as you’re like a dog with a bone about these proposals, why don’t you come up here and have your say?’
A man dressed in browns and greens stood bolt upright from his seat and approached the stage.
His flat cap hid his face until he turned around.
I never liked to judge someone by their looks, but with Peter, it was inevitable.
He resembled Ebenezer Scrooge, with a surly expression and a face lined by frowns and scowls.
He stood by the side of the stage, bickering with Pat about something or other, and nattering broke out across the crowd.
‘He doesn’t look happy.’
Liam huffed. Did that count as a laugh?
Lydia chirped up, ‘Peter is bitter because he used to be chairman, but Mum, Pat and some of the other ladies managed to swindle him.’
‘How?’
Lydia grinned. ‘They managed to sneak a vote past the committee, which meant a public vote for the chairman. Before, it had been decided by a select few deemed “proper members”. It was very cliquey. An old man’s club. Women weren’t allowed in until 2010, let alone be on the committee.’
Liam grunted. ‘And I bet they wish they’d kept it that way when Pat won by a landslide.’
‘Have you got something against women?’ I levelled at him.
‘No, I haven’t got anything against women, Red.’
‘Liam is grumpy because now everything is a lot –’
‘Louder.’
Lydia leaned forward and whisper-shouted at him, ‘And that’s because women like to communicate, unlike you, you caveman.’ She glanced at me. ‘Mum oversees the subcommittees.’
‘There are subcommittees?’ I asked, incredulous. I had no idea so much… administration went into running a social club.
Liam piped up again. ‘They’ve got subcommittees about the subcommittees.’
Liam was chattier when he had something to complain about.
‘There is a grounds committee to keep the beer garden nice and tidy, a wine and beer committee, and a membership committee. Those are the boring ones. Pat and Mum gave those to the old guard to keep them happy. Then, there is the Christmas committee. I head up that one,’ Lydia said proudly.
‘Lydia the Elf.’ Liam shoved another three Wine Gums into his mouth.
I turned to him. ‘Are you overseeing the snacks? I hope not, or there wouldn’t be any left.’ Liam followed my eyeline to the half-finished packet of Wine Gums, his expression souring.
‘I haven’t eaten all day.’
‘Nutritious. You’re a regular Joe Wicks.’
My traitorous brain couldn’t help but flicker down his large hands clasped around the bag of sweets. Liam tracked the motion, and I could see the penny drop. Liam’s lips curved, but my head whipped to the front to stare at Peter stepping onto the stage.
Peter cleared his throat and tapped the mic, making a screeching noise erupt over the speakers.
‘Is this working?’ His voice was sooty, like he smoked fifty a day. ‘I propose that dogs be banned from the social club. It is no place for smelly, snorting creatures who piss on the carpets. All those who agree, raise their hands.’
About a third of the room raised their hands.
Lydia hummed. ‘That’s more than last time.’
‘He’s proposed this before?’
Lydia rolled her eyes. ‘He does it every meeting. And he gets closer every time. He does it to spite Pat because she brings in Noodle. But he’s good as gold.’
‘Next,’ Peter announced, ‘I propose we ban the insolent makers market that we have used club money to fund –’
‘We aren’t funding it, Peter. We bought a new marquee. The old one had holes in it,’ I heard a woman shout across the room. Peter’s face went bright red.
‘I am speaking, Eman.’
‘Eman is the treasurer,’ Lydia explained.
‘The markets are a public nuisance. Closing the high street on a Saturday? What if there is an emergency, and the police can’t get through?’
‘This is a waste of our time,’ Liam muttered under his breath.
Peter continued, ‘And that doesn’t even mention that we are letting non-members into the club. Now, in my time, this was fine on the odd occasion. But every month? Absurd. We are a members’ club.’ Peter pounded his fist like he was at the pulpit.
I jumped when Liam piped up beside me, ‘People pay thirty quid a year to drink discounted pints of warm ale, Peter. This isn’t Soho House.’
I raised my eyebrows, surprised that Liam had even heard of Soho House.
‘Liam, I would have expected you to understand –’ Peter said, indignant.
Liam stood up. ‘Well, I don’t. Would you get a move on? Some of us want to get home for tea.’
A small, unexpected glimmer of respect grew in my chest. Liam sank back down into his seat, and I’m sure my eyes were bugging out of my head.
‘Those in favour,’ Peter grumbled, and a few hands, maybe three, were thrown up.
Lydia raised her hand. ‘I don’t get his problem. The markets are fun! They only allow independent businesses to rent a stall. I know for a fact his daughter has a jewellery business. He’d rather short-change his own daughter over letting Pat win.’ Lydia shook her head. ‘Unbelievable.’
I grinned. ‘This is kind of fun.’
‘Right?’ Lydia grinned, throwing more popcorn into her mouth.
Pat returned to the mic, and a hush fell over the crowd.
‘Next, we have AOBs and general notices. We have one from Sandra Williams.’ Sandra made her way up onto the stage.
‘What is she going to speak about?’ I leaned towards Lydia, curious.
‘I have a quick one. We need some help.’ Sandra scanned the room. Who was she looking for? Her face lit up when she spotted where I was sitting.
My stomach swooped.
No, she wasn’t – no.
‘Or I should say, my niece, Kat, needs some help.’ Sandra pointed, and my palms began to sweat as every single head swivelled towards me.