Chapter 34
SHANE
On this warm and humid evening, Shane tries to appreciate the shabby charm of his street. He is lucky to live here he reflects as he parks Doris as close as he can to his block.
It’s not the London of artisan bakeries and speciality coffee shops with tasting notes on their various bean varieties.
(He can’t fathom how they can have ‘bursts’ of citrus, clove and jasmine.
And if he’s honest, Shane doesn’t fully understand what matcha is.).
But it’s his London, and he loves it. From the very first day when he and Paula landed here, he felt as if he belonged.
Even so, he’s been putting off going home – to the point where he stayed away for an extra night, at a campsite in some random spot in the Midlands.
He just needed a little more time to try and get his head together.
All was fine with the shop, Fletch said.
‘No need to hurry back. Glad it’s all worked out so well, mate! ’
Shane wouldn’t have put it that way exactly. He’d sat there alone in the van, drinking beer, missing Josie with an actual ache, and trying to piece together exactly how everything had gone so wrong.
The other reason for being in no hurry to get back is the fact that his home doesn’t feel the same to him any more.
As he approaches his block, with his rucksack on his back, Shane’s chest is taut with tension.
It’s not that he is afraid to enter his flat; that he is primed to intercept an intruder or find blood on the walls.
More that he is hoping with every cell of his being that Elaine won’t be there.
He needs, more than ever, a bit of time to himself. Just to sit and think in a quiet room, without Elaine chattering about her Crafternoon sessions and what does he think of her polka dot gel nails and thrusting her phone at him with a picture of an outfit she wants to buy.
What was the last thing she wanted his opinion on? Something green and pink, emblazoned with peacocks? ‘Jesus, Shane, it’s a co-ord set,’ she’d cackled. He’d thought they were pyjamas.
Thoughts of this type always make him feel guilty, as Elaine can’t help her situation.
In recent years she’s lived in terrible flats and done some pretty grim jobs.
She’s worked in shabby clubs and cleaned budget hotel rooms favoured by stag and hen crowds.
Of course she’s entitled to kick up her heels and have some fun.
And this situation is only temporary, he reminds himself as he climbs the short flight of metal stairs, lets himself into his flat and steps into his hallway.
Setting down his rucksack, he looks around and listens and inhales.
The door was only on the Yale lock – no Chubb lock – but that doesn’t mean anything.
Elaine never bothers to double-lock it. Still, no TV is blaring, and no one is clomping about or singing loudly in the bathroom.
There is no smell of burnt fat hanging in the air.
‘Hi?’ Shane calls out tentatively. No reply comes. He still expects her to bound out from her bedroom, or the bathroom, in her pink satin pyjamas with her face slathered in some kind of creamy mask. It’s almost noon, but it’s not unlike her to lie in until lunchtime after a heavy night.
The realisation that he has returned to an Elaine-free home triggers a small wave of relief. He wanders into the living room and sees that, instead of lying all over the room, as if tossed about by a gale, her puzzle magazines are sitting in a neat stack on the coffee table.
Curious behaviour, he notes, making his way to the kitchen where – shockingly – there is no chopping board left out, no dirty frying pan left on the hob. All that’s out on the draining board are two wine glasses, washed and placed upside down to dry.
He registers the vase of carnations on the table, their pastel colours reminding him of Love Heart sweets, and for about a billionth time he checks his phone.
Still no message from Josie. He feels stupid for even thinking she might contact him because she’d made it absolutely clear that she didn’t want anything more to do with him.
That’s why Shane hasn’t messaged her. And anyway, what would he have said?
With a heavy feeling in his chest, he makes himself a mug of builder’s tea and a slice of toast with the lone, stale crust that’s left in the bread bin.
Again, he studies the carnations. Weird, he thinks. Elaine has never bought flowers for the flat before.
Carrying his tea and toast through to the living room, he places them on the coffee table and stretches out on the sofa, a little achy from driving the rattling biscuit tin. Without Josie at his side, even with his stop-off in the Midlands, the drive home had seemed interminable.
He chews on his toast, remembering those motorway toasties they’d had, when it had still felt so weird and awkward between them.
Yet even then, he’d felt glad that they were doing this mad thing together.
He’d had a feeling about it, even then. That it might heal things somehow – perhaps even repair their friendship.
He reaches for his phone and messages Boris, confirming that he’s back in London, and would he like him to drop off the van at his flat, or the shop?
Boris
Shop’s fine. Did the old girl behave herself?
Then, in quick succession:
I’m talking about Doris, not your esteemed lady friend!
Shane picks up his mug and blows across it, wondering what Josie is doing now.
Whether his esteemed lady friend is busily searching recruitment sites, and has given that cuddly llama to her granddaughter yet?
She’ll be cracking on with things, he reckons.
Getting on with her life. He takes a sip of tea.
Shane
All good, mate. Really appreciate it—
He breaks off and sits bolt upright. He heard something there – a heavy thud. Just somebody upstairs, he decides. The walls and floors of this building are paper-thin. He often hears the ping of a microwave in the flat above.
No, it’s not upstairs, Shane realises. Someone’s here in his flat – in the hallway he thinks. ‘Who’s there?’ he calls out sharply.
Another thud. He leaps up, still clutching his mug, his heart banging hard.
‘Whoa, sorry, mate!’
‘What the hell—?’ Shane reels back, sloshing tea onto himself as a man appears in the doorway. It takes him a moment to register that this tall, powerfully built individual is entirely naked.
‘Didn’t realise you were here!’ the man exclaims.
Shane stares at him. ‘I fucking live here, mate! Who are you?’
‘So you’re Shane,’ he says, ignoring the question.
It’s my flat! Who else might I be? Casually, the stranger tugs earbuds from his ears, reaches for a pair of black joggers from the back of a chair – Shane had assumed they were Elaine’s – and, seeming in no particular hurry, pulls them on.
His man bun, Shane notices, is secured with what looks like one of Elaine’s glittery scrunchies.
‘I’m Valter,’ he adds belatedly. ‘Didn’t mean to shock you there.
Also, I think you’re out of cereal. Sorry, mate. ’
He’s been strutting around with his cock out yet is apologising for eating the last Weetabix. ‘Where’s Elaine?’ Shane barks at him.
‘She’s away for a couple of days,’ Valter says blithely.
‘What?’
‘Yeah, some friends of hers are having a girls’ thing in Brighton,’ he explains with a throaty chuckle. ‘Livin’ it large.’
Shane baulks at the phrase he hasn’t heard since circa 1998. ‘Right,’ he says as Valter lands heavily on the armchair, swipes the remote from the coffee table and flicks on the TV. Shane watches him with a blend of amazement and quickly rising fury.
If there’s anything he finds difficult in life, it’s confrontation – a legacy from keeping his head down as a child, never wanting to anger Pete or rock the boat.
He’s too soft on the kids, Paula is always telling him: rushing over to school that day Liv had forgotten her packed lunch.
Replacing Ryan’s football boots after he’d left them on the bus.
However, he knows with absolute certainty that, on this occasion, he will not be ‘soft.’
Picking up his plate and mug, Shane heads for the kitchen where he stands at the sink, exhaling fully and staring down at the scrubby playground below.
Then, even though it’s not even lunchtime, he reaches into the cupboard for the bottle of whisky that Fletch gave him for Christmas.
He pours himself a generous measure and studies it, holding it up against the light.
This is too much. Not the measure – he might even have another after this one, a triple – but Elaine. She’s overstepped it this time and he’s about to go back in there and switch off his telly and tell Valter to get his stuff together and leave his flat.
But first, Shane lifts the glass to his lips and takes a huge swig of Scotch. And then, without pondering it or wondering what to say, he taps out a message to Elaine.