Chapter 21 #3
‘Mick Lafferty,’ he says, extending a hand towards Scott first, then Heather second, despite Heather being closer to him. ‘Mum and dad, I presume?’
‘Yes. Well—’
‘Aye, grand. So, in you come. In you come.’
Scott mouths the words “Five grand deposit” as they follow Mick Lafferty into the dimly lit hallway.
Scott’s seen student doss houses before, but nothing prepares him for this.
‘Make yourselves at home,’ Mick Lafferty says, squeezing his sizeable girth into the entrance of a downstairs room so Scott, Heather, Brianna and Georgia can fit into the hallway and close the front door behind them.
‘Let’s show them the bedrooms,’ Brianna says, excitement lightening her tone.
‘Yes!’ Georgia grins.
The two girls thunder up the stairs. Heather raises an eyebrow in Scott’s direction and follows the girls.
Scott tries to keep his mind on the matter in hand, that their girls have committed to rent a flea-ridden dump, but somehow his sense of perspective is skewed by the way he awoke this morning.
He watches Heather climb the stairs. He knows now what those glutes can do, the way they can grip him just so, and he can’t help it, he allows his hands to skim her buttocks.
She comes to a stop on the landing, where the stairs do a half-turn and they’re still hidden from view, and turns to him.
His hands, now on her hips, pull her body towards him, and his lips sink onto hers. My God, the woman tastes divine.
‘Dad, what do you think?’ shouts Brianna from one of the upstairs rooms. ‘I’m not sure there should be a pool of water here.’
He prises himself away.
The bathroom suite is a circa 1973, plastic avocado with squat taps and a plastic shower attachment suctioned over the taps. A dark green stain from the overflow valve runs down the back of the bath and around the plug hole.
‘So, the bathroom feels a little dated,’ he hears Heather say. He stifles a laugh. Talk about understated.
‘It’ll clean up, though. Right?’ Georgia replies.
Scott turns to find all four of them squeezed into the small space. He tries to navigate as far as possible away from the plastic shower curtain, which stinks like a badger’s corpse.
‘Hmm.’ Heather’s lack of committal is clear, and Scott glances at the girls to see if they’ve picked up on it.
‘What about that water down there, Dad?’
Brianna is furthest from the bathroom interior, squashed against the architrave. She points to an ominous puddle around the sink pedestal.
Scott grudgingly lowers himself to his knees, which positions his face directly in line with Heather’s crotch.
He looks up to notice her looking down, smiling cheekily at him.
The girls, oblivious, wait patiently for his expert appraisal.
He turns away reluctantly, and twists his neck to inspect the waste connection, which clearly perished months ago.
‘I think there’s a slight issue here, girls,’ he says diplomatically. ‘It looks like it needs something more involved than a simple clean up.’
Brianna’s face falls, and a brief stab of guilt slices through him.
She’d asked his opinion based on the photographs two months ago when he’d been on a long-distance trek.
He’d replied with: “I trust you to make the call, love”.
She’d clearly needed more guidance. Whilst Scott’s happy for Brianna to make mistakes and learn from the consequences, he’s not about to part with significant chunks of cash to Mick Lafferty, who he now knows is a charlatan.
‘Shall we look at the bedrooms?’ he says.
‘They’re fully furnished,’ Georgia tells him as he squashes past Brianna and into the first room on the left.
The moment he enters, it’s clear why the rendering is falling from the exterior.
A patch of grey mould flows from below the windowsill and down, behind the rusty radiator.
Heather follows him into the room. Her gasp of despair is audible.
‘The bed looks sturdy,’ says Georgia as she propels herself onto the mattress.
‘Honey. Get off that.’ Heather’s hand slaps onto her mouth as though she’s trying to shove the words back. Georgia, chastised, slides herself slowly off the mattress.
‘Why?’ she says, quietly.
‘I … I …’
‘I think your mum might be worrying about the possibility of bedbugs,’ he says to help her out.
‘Oh man.’ Georgia twists at the waist and begins swiping ferociously at her rear in a manner that would be funny if they were in a sit com, but given they’re talking about their daughters' future welfare, it’s no laughing matter.
‘Girls. I … I … I think, maybe …’
The girls are staring at Heather, crestfallen looks in their eyes.
‘You hate it. Don’t you?’ Brianna says.
‘Well. Not hate, exactly,’ Heather replies.
‘More concerned,’ he interjects.
‘Yes. Concerned,’ Heather continues, ‘concerned that you’re potentially paying through the nose for a place that isn’t fit for a dog.’
‘Mum!’ Georgia’s eyes widen in horror.
Brianna turns to him.
‘Dad?’
‘Yep. Sorry, honey. I know I’m big on you making your own decisions, but on this point, I agree with Heather.’
Heather’s eyes flit to his. Bedroom eyes that tell him there’s somewhere else she’d much rather be, and even though they’re in the midst of a major problem in their daughters’ world, he can’t help it, his veins bulge with desire.
He looks away, certain his impure thoughts will be evident to the girls.
‘So, how are you all getting along up there?’ Mick Lafferty yells up the stairs.