by Gil Brailey
FOREVER GUY
By G. Brailey
Copyright G. Brailey All rights reserved
Formatted by eBooksMade4You
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CHAPTER 1
Faith Harris was running late. She had organized a short working day to go house hunting, but her first appointment was in ten minutes and she still hadn’t managed to leave the building. As she was tearing down the escalator to the ground floor, she saw her boss, Phil Jackson, gliding up past her to the floor above.
“Phil!” She yelled. “Phil!” And this time he heard. “See you Monday!”
His frown told her that he had forgotten all about her planned absence and that he was rather put out to see his PA, The Oracle, as he frequently called her, sailing past him down to reception, on her way outside.
“Why?” he managed to bleat back, as their distance increased. “House hunting, I told you!” she called after him, decision made not to say anything else as she was almost on the ground floor now and it would have meant screaming back to him at the top of her voice – not quite the thing to do in this temple of commerce. She looked up to see him gazing forlornly after her, then, as though to give her his rather reluctant blessing, he shrugged.
Faith’s husband Dan was not keen on the move Faith was planning. He didn’t want to leave their rented flat in Palmers Green, as dingy as it was, or to take their first cautious step onto the celebrated property ladder. Why get tied down with a mortgage, he had often said; added to which in the rental sector, if something leaked or fell off or broke into a thousand pieces, it was the landlord’s obligation to put it right, not theirs. But Faith was adamant. She wanted something more permanent, she said, somewhere they could call their own.
Outside on Upper Street, Faith hailed a taxi and leapt inside. It wouldn’t take long providing traffic wasn’t heavy at Highbury. Luckily it wasn’t and they were bowling along The Balls Pond Road a few moments later.
“How far down, love?” asked the taxi driver as they turned into Renfield Road.
“Not sure, number 77, that’s all I know, I’m afraid.”
Number 77 was something of a landmark here in the middle of this smart Victorian terrace. All the other houses clustered round it had been gentrified over the years, but not this one, this one stood, gloomy and forbidding, amongst shiny red bricked gems lining up on either side. Faith sagged when she saw it. The agent had told her it needed a little updating, but the reality was that the house looked as though it needed to be rebuilt.
Faith paid the cabbie and tentatively climbed the uneven steps to the front door. She glanced at her phone but for some reason it had suddenly died on her. She shook it, took the battery out, blew at it, put it back in, but still nothing. It was then she realised the front door was standing ajar. Gingerly, she pushed it open and stepped inside.
“Hello?” she called out. ”I’m here! Sorry I’m late!” Her voice drifted up the huge staircase and faded away. Silence again.
Faith continued along the hall and entered a back room, frosted with dust and cobwebs housing a huge selection of jumbled pieces of old furniture, plus, centre stage, a roll top bath. Most of the windows were broken and a dead pigeon lay on the floor, on the walls, distressed figures in dreary religious pictures followed Faith right round the room.
Glancing out into the garden she saw him and at exactly the same time, he saw her, then, for no reason she could think of, Faith let out an involuntary yell. For a moment, an impasse, then he dropped his fag end and climbing the rickety staircase back into the kitchen, made his way into the living room to find her.
“Did I give you a shock?”
“Yes you did, sorry to yell like that, it was stupid of me.”
“I’m Nick.”
“Hi Nick, I’m Faith.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know.”
Faith laughed, finding herself a little mesmerised by this handsome young man with electric green eyes and an uncertain smile.
“Well you weren’t kidding were you when you said it needed work; it’s a shell.”
“It’s a mess, I know. Shall I show you around?”
“Good idea.”
“But first, security… squatters we can do without.”
She watched him stroll to the front door and lock it with a huge set of keys, then he turned back towards her along the hall.
“You seeing many other houses?” he said, bounding up the stairs, Faith hurrying to keep up.
“Six, but they’re all with other agents,” she said, now beginning to wish they weren’t.
“That’s a shame,” he said, up on the landing now, and crossing to a back room.
“How long has it been like this?”
“Years and years, a long story. This room looks out to the garden as you can see, nice view, and you’re not overlooked, those trees shield the prying eyes from the terrace behind.” Then he turned to her with a blinding smile, saying: “You can’t beat a secluded garden now, can you?”
An old photograph album lay discarded on the floor, picking it up Faith said: “This looks interesting.”
Nick threw the album a cursory glance, standing so close to her she could feel his breath on her neck.
“Other lives lived, but dead now, all these people, moved on.” Then taking it from her, he placed it carefully on a little chest of drawers.
“This would be the master bedroom I imagine, by the size of it.”
“If you like, three more if you want to take a look.”
They were interrupted by knocking, then a silence, then the distant rattling of keys.
“Someone’s at the door.”
“No, I don’t think so,” he said, with such confidence, Faith didn’t question him, but clearly there was someone at the door, and clearly they couldn’t get in, because after a few more unsuccessful turns of a key there was silence again. Faith made no more mention of the mystery visitor as she followed Nick along the landing in and out of other rooms all of which looked pretty much the same: old swirly carpets, rank and smelly, peeling wallpaper, disclosing older period detail at the pull of every layer, broken dirty windows, torn curtains and rotting furniture. A sadness compounded by age and death maybe.
“Come up to the attic,” he said.
They climbed a narrow turning staircase and poked their heads out into a small attic room, a child’s bed still made up in the corner.
“I like it up here,” said Nick.
“What a funny little place. And look, there’s a rocking horse, I’ve always loved them. Wi
ll it hold me, d’you think?”
“Of course it will, a slip of a girl, like you.”
“A slip of a girl? Ha! Not anymore, a few years ago, maybe.”
“Tsk,” he said, waving his hand as though he didn’t believe it. “But look at this,” he said, his eyes dancing, dragging a box across the floor.
“A train set that’s seen better days by the looks of it.”
Nick started setting out the track, swiftly, barely looking at what he was doing, as though he had done this a million times before.
“Takes you back, does it?”
“Yes it does,” said Nick, quietly, “it really does.”
While Nick amused himself with the trains, pushing them round, Faith was able to study him, unnoticed. She guessed he was late twenties, with a rangy look about him, dark tousled hair, a prominent nose, almost Gallic, and those massive green eyes that alternately twinkled with mischief, or glared out from under his uneven fringe, wary and insecure. He was a striking young man for sure, but there was something else about him, something she couldn’t quite define.
“What d’you think?”
“Not into train sets much, Nick. I couldn’t borrow your phone could I? Mine seems to have died on me, for some reason.”
“Sorry, I don’t know where it is,” he said, “I hate the bloody things, don’t you?”
An estate agent, not married to their mobile? But Faith didn’t pursue it, saying instead: “You don’t seem the type somehow – to be an estate agent.”
“No? What type am I then?”
“Well, I’m guessing now, but an academic I’d say – a man of letters maybe – heck, I don’t know, but not an estate agent.”
“A man of letters eh? I rather like that. I did write a letter once, an important one too,” he said quietly, “but it’s tough out there, you know, we have to do what we have to do. And the house – what d’you think?”
“I’m not sure... I mean, all this work… I don’t think we’d know where to start.”
“You’re married?”
“Yes, unfortunately I am,” she said, making him smile. “And you?”
“No,” he said, although there was a hesitation, “no, I’m not.”
“Girlfriends?”
“Not for very long, I’m a loner and I can be pretty difficult when I get into my stride.”
Yes, I can believe that, thought Faith. She knew that by now she should be setting off for her next appointment, as she couldn’t cancel, but she didn’t want to; she wanted to stay here with this fascinating man and watch him push some stupid toy train round a track. He was good looking this Nick character and rather wild and she sensed a little secretive, although there was a sadness about him too that suggested hard times. He crossed over to the bed, perched on it and leant back.
“So tell me about you, Mrs Faith Harris, what rocks your boat?”
“And you think I’ve got a boat to rock, do you?”
“Oh I’d say so, most people have. Sit here beside me and tell all.”
Faith did exactly as requested, all the time wondering what on earth she was doing in a dusty old attic with a roguish estate agent, who was probably only interested in her anyway because he had a house to sell.
“I work in finance, I’m a PA although with a degree in Business Studies, but like you we take what we can get these days. Am I content? Not really, but I’m hoping to break out of the PA shackles at some point soon and get promotion; at least that’s the goal.”
“You hate it there then,” he said, dismissively.
The question threw her, and for a moment she didn’t come back. “Well no, I don’t hate it, it doesn’t turn me on if that’s what you mean; it pays well, it’s not too taxing and my boss is dead sweet.”
Nick shrugged, as though her justification hadn’t cut it with him for one minute. “You’re worth better than that. And your old man? I bet you’re worth better than him, too?”
“You know that as well, do you? Gosh, how clever you are.”
“I know everything, didn’t I tell you?”
“No, you missed that bit when you introduced yourself – funny that.”
“I asked you a question.”
“We’ve been together a long time if you must know.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Seven years, actually, although only married for two.”
“You know what they say about seven years?”
“Yes, I do, so I’d rather not hear it from you.”
“Delusional as well, eh?”
The audacity of this guy, the arrogance, but one look at him, wary now, expecting to get it in the neck, was enough to make Faith lose steam.
“We’re okay, thanks all the same, but I appreciate your concern.”
He smiled at her again, and she knew he didn’t believe this and at that moment she wondered if she believed it too.
“So what do you do when you’re not being an estate agent?”
“I read a lot, I don’t have a telly so more time on my hands I suppose.”
“And?”
“I walk, I like to walk. I know the streets of East London very well. An old stamping ground of mine. And round here, and Stoke Newington, all over really, the countryside sometimes, Sussex, Essex, even Hertfordshire,” he said with a grin, “I’m a very forgiving kind of person you see, so yes, even Hertfordshire.”
This time when Nick smiled at her, Faith felt herself melt. Yes, she’d been interested in this guy from the moment she’d set eyes on him, but she hadn’t bargained on this overwhelming curiosity, this overwhelming fascination. She acknowledged the fact that had he asked her to come away with him right at that moment she would have gone, gladly, without a second thought.
“I should be elsewhere,” she said, not budging an inch, “on another appointment in another house, with another agent, and here I am with you, going nowhere.”
“That’s life as they say.”
“So where’s home?”
“Here and there,” he countered, looking a little irritated by the question. Eventually he said, “I sleep on people’s floors mainly.”
“But I thought you said you were a loner?”
“I am, but I’m a popular loner, a loner other people seem to want to know. There’s nothing like exclusivity to increase demand, you know. These designer people do it all the time. Want to build a market for your over-priced junk? Easy – increase the price, then the whole damn world will want a piece of it.”
“Well you do have quite a presence. I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you that.”
“No, you’re not. Women especially seem to pick up on it.”
Faith bristled. She didn’t want to hear about other women; when it came to this Nick character, Faith wanted exclusive rights. “That sounds rather arrogant, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“No, I don’t mind you saying, you must say what you want and to hell with the consequences.” This time a darkness seemed to settle over him, a strange foreboding that made her shiver.
“And is that how you live your life?”
“I suppose I do, yes, that’s me in a nutshell.”
“Where did you go to school?” asked Faith, still captivated, still not even remotely interested in calling this conversation to its conclusion.
“Eton, then Cambridge, the usual path of the privileged and the unwanted.”
“Sorry?”
“The ruling classes hate their children, didn’t you know? They breed because there is an obligation to procreate, but their heart is very much not in it. And remember it’s the ruling classes that have their fingers on the buttons, nuclear and otherwise, they’re the ones that tell the country what to do when they can’t even dredge up the energy to look after their own. They’re the cuckoos of the human race, dropping their eggs into stranger’s nests, because they can’t be fagged to brood themselves, and because quite simply, my dear, they don’t give a damn.”
“I’m sorry,” said Faith after a brief silence.
“What for?”
“Your childhood of course, it sounds awful.”
“It’s not your fault, love.”
She glanced at him, then when they caught each other’s eye they both burst out laughing.
“Oh woe is me, poor little Lord Fauntleroy.” Nick made a big thing of pretending to dry his eyes, then shrieked with laughter, sending himself up, or so it seemed. “And here we are, young Faith, and not a dry eye in the house.”3w2
There was a hiatus while they regrouped. Faith noticed that his shirt had pulled out from his trousers, a flash of flesh visible as he stretched back. His skin was tanned, and his physique was good, but as he sprawled, she noticed odd socks, and buttons missing just about everywhere.
“What about holidays?” she found herself asking, rather absurdly.
“Oh God, you sound like a hairdresser! Going anywhere nice, this year are we?”
“That was pathetic, wasn’t it? Forget I said that, please.”
“Do I make you nervous?”
“Yes, you do a bit.”
“I make everyone nervous.”
“Not a wonderful trait for a salesman.”
“No,” he said, grinning, “not at all.”
“So what happened when you were young? What was so terrible about it?”
He shrugged, and for a moment she thought he would dismiss the question, in that way he had, as though the whole thing was inconsequential, but he didn’t. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then getting up, he crossed the room back to the train set, squatted down beside it and started pushing the train round again before he spoke.
“My father was in the diplomatic service so he and my mother roamed the world. I was sent to boarding school from a very young age and I mean very young, and in the holidays I stayed with an aunt and her husband, who had money at first then they lost it, so things were grim. I saw my parents now and again, but not enough to count. I was just adrift. I had no one to copy you see, no one I could tag or ape. They say only children turn into only people and I think that’s true. It’s always you up against it, and the rejection I felt compounded that. I never recovered.” Then, with a twinkle in his eye he said, “Tis why you see this damaged creature prostrate before you, tis why I am who I am.”
Faith wanted to scoop him up in her arms and take him home. Of course she couldn’t, that would have been very weird indeed, but she wanted to. She wanted to stick plasters all over him, to heal this damaged creature that had fluttered in beside her like a bird whose wings were flapping uselessly.
“I’m sorry it was so dreadful.”
“Are you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Why should you care?”
“I don’t know why really, but I do care,” she said quietly, “I care quite a lot.”
There were no smiles shared between them now, just a strange connection that held them there, like slices of meat set in aspic.
“You’ve got places to go haven’t you?” he said, out of the blue, as though the thought had just occurred to him.
“No, I’ve got nowhere to go, I’m happy here.”
This made Nick smile. “So you’ll buy it, will you? The house.”
“Oh I see, this was a ruse was it, this sob story? An elaborate way of making a sale.”
“I wish it was.”
Faith stood up and crossed the room. Stooping down beside him, she took his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. Neither closed their eyes because neither wanted to miss anything. He tasted strange, Faith decided, salty, dry, and his skin was unusually clammy.
“That was incredibly nice,” he said, “let’s do that again.”
They kissed once more and this time the tenderness was swamped with passion, a blinding passion that punched everything else right out of the ring. Faith was in the grip of it and she decided at that moment that nothing else mattered, only this. Nothing else mattered at all.
“This is not good,” she said, “just the most awful thing.”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” he said, running heavy, hesitant fingers through her hair.
“Yes, but you’re not married, are you?”
“I was once.”
“Ah, it’s all coming out now.”
“We were very young,” he said, quietly, after a brief silence, “and she provided me with all the care and love that I’d never had. Kirsten her name was, her parents were Swedish, a popular name there by all accounts. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she was very pretty, and young and flighty and she adored me, so hell, what did I have to lose?”
“How long were you together?”
“Seven years, funnily enough.”
“And then it ended.”
“And how,” there was a moment when he thought about this, “actually, she died.”
“Oh God, Nick… how awful.”
“A car crash – one minute she was there, planning dinner, talking of buying a clematis from the garden centre and the next minute – not. A void enveloped me and still remains, a void which became impossible to fill. There was an irony too, of course. The only person to give me the time of day whisked off to eternity, leaving me alone once more.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“My parents couldn’t even be bothered turning up for the funeral, can you believe that? They sent a paltry bunch of flowers I threw in the bin and a card. I wanted to ram it down their bloody throats, only of course, I couldn’t, because there was a distance between us… there always was a distance between us.”
Faith was silenced by what he had said. She could have churned out a platitude, but she refrained because it seemed insulting even to consider it.
“And since then?”
“In the way of women, d’you mean?”
“Well, yes.”
“Nothing to write home about, no.”
There was something incredibly lonely in that last statement, Faith decided, and frightened of opening up more old wounds, decided to change gear.
“How long have we been here, you and me?”
“I don’t know, I don’t care, I rather like it,” he said, grinning again, looking like a little boy.
“Yes,” said Faith, “and so do I.”
“It’s like we’re on a desert island and the only way someone will find us is if we are spotted by a light aircraft circling overhead.”
Faith was intensely aware now of this man, and of everything else too, as though he had heightened her perception of the world just by being in the same room. The whole thing was very strange.
“What about work?”
“What about it?”
“Don’t you have to be back?”
“No, when it’s your company, you can do what you like.”
“Ah,” said Faith, her original idea confirmed, “I guessed as much.”
“What? What did you guess?”
“I thought so, that’s all.”
“Do you want to know why it is that the boss did this particular viewing and not one of the minions?”
“Tell me.”
“I used to live here when I was a kid.”
Faith stared, saying: “Really, is that true?”
“Absolutely true, this was my grandparent’s house, well it still is, and this was my room.”
“And that was your train set?”
“Indeed.”
“And your grandparents?”
“Only one survives, my grandfather. He’s in a home, that big place on the main road, ghastly dump, smells of old socks and cabbage and festering wounds. Ninety five years old, and still breathing.”
“So why leave h
im there?”
“Nothing to do with me. I’m the black sheep of the family, anyway, so why would I be consulted?”
“And yet they instructed you?”
For a moment Nick looked confused. “Instructed me? To do what?”
“To sell the house, of course.”
“Ah, well, yes…” he said, looking a little flustered. “That’s because they didn’t know. We haven’t spoken for years, d’you see, that’s just how it is, a very weird coincidence, that’s all.”
“And your parents?”
“My father’s still alive, somewhere, stumbling around yelling at people, touching up the nurses that tend to him. But my mother’s gone, and good riddance to the old bat, that’s what I say.”
It would only be later that Faith would think about the language Nick used, an unpredictable combination of modern expressions and rather archaic colloquialisms, but here and now she just put it down to his eccentric ways. She wasn’t really surprised by what he had told her. She had suspected something like this from the moment she’d first seen him. There was just something so haunted about him, so childlike, as though he was still struggling to make sense of the world.
“No one knows we’re here, do they?” she said, surprising herself at voicing this.
“No they don’t, but tell me about you, why you’re here on your own to view this house and not with your husband.” Faith glanced away, hesitated briefly, but it was enough. “He doesn’t want to move, is that it?”
“No, he wants us to stay living like students all our lives.”
“A bone of contention, I can tell.”
“It’s stupid at our age, we’re pushing thirty, and we can both afford it, so why not. My great aunt died last year and left me a fair amount of dosh, so I suggested we use it as a deposit.” Faith could have said more, but she didn’t; she just shrugged.
“Want to know what I think?”
“It won’t stop you telling me one way or the other, I imagine, but yes, I do want to know what you think.”
“In fact, let’s turn this round, you tell me what I think.”
Faith looked at him, at those quizzical eyes eliciting a response, and for a moment she wanted to thump him.
“He doesn’t consider our relationship to be permanent, is that what you want me to say?”
“Got it in one, Mrs Harris. Got it in one.”
“But we’re still very involved, we still love each other,” aware as she said it that she sounded like she was trying to convince him.
“That’s as maybe, but suddenly one day someone wakes up and they see a future stretching out in front of them, and that future for whatever reason seems less desirable, it’s not what they want anymore.”
“So what do I do?”
“A couple of options, as I see it, either you agree to remain in rented accommodation or you buy this place on your own.”
Faith roared. “You really are something else. Do you know how many houses there are for sale in the Greater London area, and you’re advising me to buy the first one I’ve seen.”
Nick looked hurt, and there was a moment when Faith thought he might just burst into tears.
“But this house has got real history, an atmosphere, this house will be like a friend to you. It will comfort you when you’re feeling out of sorts, provide protection from the weather when it becomes inclement, and it will be a fortress too, with a metaphorical drawbridge, keeping people out who want to do you harm. Believe me, Mrs Harris, you won’t find a better house than this.”
Faith gazed across at this curious, earnest young man and found herself completely won over. For some bizarre reason, had a lawyer been standing in the corner of the room with a contract in his hand, she would have signed it then and there, so persuaded was she by Nick’s heartfelt argument. A moment later, however, she found herself getting angry.
“I think we should stop this now.”
“Stop what?”
“This ridiculous façade…”
“Façades have something behind them…”
“Exactly.”
“Don’t know what you mean, Mrs Harris.”
“And stop calling me Mrs Harris for goodness sake, we just shared a kiss didn’t we? In fact two.”
“Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft took it a little further if I remember rightly, but it didn’t stop him calling her Mrs Robinson, did it?”
“Ha, ha.”
Neither spoke after that for what seemed a very long time, Faith breaking the silence, finally, saying: “But you really believe that, about Dan, don’t you?”
“Most of all I think you believe it, you just needed me to voice it, that’s all, and now it’s out there, this sentiment, in the parlour rooms and the forums, everywhere people gather, the cat is very much out of the bag.”
“Why do you talk like that?”
“Like what?”
“It’s such a mixture of things.”
“Oh yes?” he asked, looking vaguely interested in the observation. “What things exactly?”
“It’s old fashioned somehow, modern too in flashes, but you have a very strange turn of phrase, Mr…?”
“You want me to provide my second name, is that it? Fishing, are we?”
“You know mine, so it’s only fair.”
“I keep that quiet.”
“Why?”
“I just do, I don’t like people to know.”
“But that’s absurd, you run a business, everyone must know.”
“They know me by a nom de plume, that’s all.”
“You’re not a ghost writer, you’re the boss of an estate agents, so don’t be silly,” said Faith, sounding more like a headmistress than she would have liked.
Nick sighed. Faith decided it was probably the most heartfelt sigh she had ever heard.
“You’re very attractive, Mrs Harris, especially when you become agitated, although I suspect you are blissfully unaware of the fact which by default makes you even more desirable – certainly in my eyes.”
Faith couldn’t help but smile at this.
“Now what?”
“And there was me thinking you were atypical but not a bit of it; you’re a salesman through and through, Nick whatever your name is.”
“So nice of you to say so.”
“There’s someone else at the door again, can you hear?”
“They’ll go away, they always do. No one likes coming here really. The girls in the office are scared of the place, and the men complain that spiders drop down the necks of their shirts. Pansies, all of them.”
“Pansies? Strange word.”
“Is it, what’s strange about it?”
“In this day and age colloquial references to sexuality are generally frowned upon.”
“My God, is that so? And they say that brainwashing is dead.”
“I’m just saying…”
“I know what you’re saying. I do my own thing, and say what I want to say. If people don’t like it, then tough. Everyone’s so scared these days. Speak up and be counted, that’s my motto.”
When a silence fell this time it lingered, spreading out between them like a fog. Faith could not understand what was going on, this absurd attraction to a complete stranger, a weird stranger at that. She was stunned by her determination to have this man, to own him, to belong in his world, to be with him for eternity no matter how much trouble it might cause. Then, suddenly, Faith found herself on the brink of tears, for no reason she could think of. Was it because she felt that no one would ever own this free spirit, and no one ever had, or did it signify something else?
“What are we going to do about this, Nick?”
“That rather depends, doesn’t it?” he said, sounding distant, and a little weary now.
“On what?”
“On what you want to do about it, of course.”
Light was fading. Faith could barely see him despite the fact he was no distance from her. Perhaps she should just leave, perha
ps this magic would disappear when she left this house. But the thought depressed her. The truth was she didn’t want to leave this house or leave him; she could have stayed here forever, just a few feet away, gazing in disbelief at his beautiful face that she sensed would always remain this beautiful, exempt somehow from time’s clutches.
“You should go home, I think that’s probably best all round.”
“Do you want me to go home?”
He didn’t answer her immediately. For what seemed a long time he considered the question.
“What I want doesn’t come into it, it’s what you want. I believe you hold the trump card.”
They left the attic and continued downstairs in silence, Faith hanging back, wanting to delay her departure, but unable to think up quite how to do it; but at the front door she managed to come up with something. “They say you should always view properties more than once, don’t they? Such an important decision as this, based on a cursory glance around the place for a few minutes.”
Nick looked relieved, then he said: “Tell me when’s good for you.”
He didn’t ask her if she wanted a lift, he just crossed the road rather swiftly and when she looked back he’d gone.
* * *
CHAPTER 2
