Junk (35 page)

He also needed to draft in a willing helper or two.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The text came while Lewis and Carroll were both at the Lehrmans’ house. They’d finally cleared the kitchen and were working on the hallway when their phones both buzzed. Well, Lewis’s buzzed. Carroll’s screeched like an enraged chimp.

“Whoa! Coincidence or what,” Carroll said, whipping her phone out of her pocket. “Mine’s from Cassie. Who’s yours from?”

Lewis fumbled with his touch screen. “Cassie,” he said, and a heavy weight settled in his stomach as he read the first few words of the message in the menu screen.

Pls come to the hospital straight away…

“Oh, crap.” He tapped on the message and read the rest. “Dad’s had a heart attack. Oh, shit.”

“Bloody, buggering fucknuts. This has got to be some kind of sick joke, right?” Carroll glared at her phone, her expression furious. “Hasn’t it?”

“Carroll, it’s not a joke. We need to go. Right now.”

She nodded, biting her lip. “I don’t wanna lose him, Lewis.”

“Neither do I. Come on. We need to get there.”

Carroll was shaking now, so he threw an arm round her and led her to the front door, calling out some kind of excuse to the Lehrmans. Something about an emergency, but his mind was somewhere else. His mind was hovering over a hospital bed, watching machines beeping and then flat lining. “Oh, Dad.”

When Carroll went to the driver’s side door, Lewis pulled her back. She was still shaking. “I’ll drive us.”

“You what? I can fucking well drive, thank you very much. I’m not some helpless woman.”

“I know you can, but I want us to get there in one piece. You’re too angry to handle Bristol traffic right now. It’s not going to do anyone any good if we end up being admitted to intensive care ourselves.”

Carroll scowled at him, but she thrust the keys in his direction. “Fine. You drive. See if I care.” But even as she finished the sentence, she began to sniffle.

Lewis folded her into a hug. “I’m not ready to lose him,” she choked out.

“Me either,” Lewis said. “I doubt anyone ever is.” His thoughts strayed to Jasper, as they so often did. Jasper hadn’t been ready to let go of his mother, even after all those years of illness to prepare him. And their dad was so full of life. Surely death couldn’t take someone that vibrant? It wasn’t fair.

But he concentrated on rocking Carroll until her sobs subsided, then helped her into the passenger seat. His own feelings could wait. People needed him to be strong for them.

As predicted, the traffic was a nightmare, but eventually they pulled up outside the hospital, and Lewis let Carroll leap out of the van. “I’m going to find somewhere to park. You go find Mum,” he said, leaning out the window. “Tell her I’ll be right there, okay?”

“Okay.” Carroll pulled a wobbly smile. “Thanks, bro. For driving. You’re right. I couldn’t have.”

“Just go find her and give her a huge hug from me. And Dad, too.”

Her lower lip trembled, but before any more tears could fall, Carroll had turned around and was stomping towards the entrance.

Finding a space wide enough for the van in the hospital’s multistorey car park took longer than Lewis really had patience for. Whoever designed the car park had obviously been keen to cram as many spaces in as physically possible. A dumb strategy when you considered how stressed most people parking there were already bound to be. He had to go all the way up to the top level before he found two empty spaces side by side. By the time he’d found his way back down to Accident and Emergency, Lewis was about ready to punch someone himself. He marched up to the main desk, demanding to see his father, but the woman there remained calm and unruffled. “Oh yes, cubicle eight. Just round the corner. Your family are already there.”

Humbled by her gracious manners, Lewis mumbled his thanks and took the direction she indicated. There were two rows of curtained cubicles, and he strode down the central aisle, looking from side to side into the open ones.

There. There was Alan Miller in a hospital gown, sitting up in bed and laughing with the nurse, damn him.

“Dad!” Lewis dashed to his bedside. “You total bastard. I thought you’d had a heart attack.”

“He did,” his mum said from behind him. He turned to see her and Carroll standing there, both holding vending machine cups of coffee. “But it was only a small one. They just want to keep him in for observation this afternoon, and there’ll be medication to take. And a new diet for you,” she added, glaring in her husband’s direction.

“Oh, come on, Cass. I want a second opinion on that. Chilli’s meant to be good for the heart. It’s not like they’re dropping like flies from coronaries over in Mexico all the time now, is it?”

“It wasn’t the chilli she banned. It was the fat. You can still have lean meat and all the kidney beans your heart desires.”

“But it’s not going to taste as good without the fat. Remember that time we went to Cancun? The food was incredible, the people were happy, and the tequila?” Alan kissed and flicked his fingertips in the manner of an Italian chef, wincing as the gesture nearly pulled the cannula out the back of his hand. “The tequila was to die for.”

“Pretty tasteless joke, under the circumstances,” Lewis said. But he couldn’t help smiling as he stepped forward to take his father’s hand. “Don’t you dare do that again, okay? You’re not allowed to go anywhere until you’ve taught me your recipe for enchiladas.”

“Well, with the way you managed the last time I tried, I’ll be sticking around till I’m at least a hundred.”

“Oi, they weren’t that bad,” Lewis protested, before Alan pulled him down into a hug.

“Love you, son.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

The sound of the machine beeping in time to his dad’s every heartbeat was the best music in the world right then.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“No fucking way!” Mas exclaimed, spinning on his heel in the middle of the warehouse. “You seriously telling me you had all this crap in your house?”

“It’s not crap. It’s books.”

“And broken bits of furniture. And old papers. And, oh-my-fucking-God, is that a genuine 50s hood dryer you’ve got there?” He skipped over to the old bit of machinery and began cooing over it. It was one of those plastic-helmet-on-a-stand things women sat under in hairdressers for reasons Jasper had never quite grasped. He’d also never understood why his mother had dragged the no-doubt broken bit of equipment home, but if Mas could see the attraction too, then it just went to show that there was no such thing as worthless junk. Even old, mouldy food had its uses, as compost ingredients, biogas source material, and… Well, two uses were probably enough.

Jasper scanned across the bays of assorted objects ready to find their new homes. He’d thought it all looked more acceptable in the warehouse setting, what with the way the scale of the industrial space dwarfed the piles. Clearly Mas had much better spatial awareness than Jasper did.

“Anything you see there that you want, you can take it,” he offered.

“You’re selling it?”

“I’m giving it away.”

“Are you serious? Wow, yeah, okay. This is like the ultimate eBay, you know? Where you actually get to touch and examine the stuff properly before you buy it. Except you don’t even want any money for it, and I’m not going to be outbid at the last fucking second by some arsehole with nothing better to do than to sit at their sodding computer all day.” Mas scowled, but seconds later the expression was swept away by a delighted smile as he spotted something else worth having.

“You don’t have to buy second-hand stuff online, you know. There’re charity shops, car boot sales and flea markets.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But seeing as how I’m working most days while the charity shops are open, and I’m too fucking knackered to get up in time for the car boots and markets, I have to take what I can get. Anyway, it’s much easier to find obscure stuff if you can type in a search. Bet you can’t do that in your charity shops yet, can you?”

“Nooo, not yet. But when you get to know them, sometimes they hold back things they think you’ll be interested in.”

“Cool. Well, maybe I’ll see if I can get out to some on my lunch hour.” Mas tilted his head forwards until he was looking over at Jasper through his artfully mussed-up fringe. “Unless you want to pick me up one weekend and we’ll go to a car boot. Or stay over first or something? That’d be best. I’m kinda grumpy in the mornings unless I wake up with a blowjob. Giving or receiving, I’m not fussy.”

Oh buggeration. “Mas… I’m not… Listen, when I asked for help with this, I didn’t mean I wanted anything else from you.”

Mas pouted. “You mean you’re not going to pay me in kind?”

Double buggeration with cream on top. “Erm, I’m really sorry. I obviously wasn’t clear enough about what I meant. Mas… You’re a really nice bloke, and I know we’ve had fun in the past, but I really don’t think we should do anything else. I mean, I’m still in love with—”

“Okay, okay! I don’t need to hear about this Lewis fella again, believe me. It’s not good for the ego, you know?”

Jasper stared, stricken. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean… I mean, I knew you used to feel something, but I thought by now you’d have… I don’t know…moved on?”

“Chill, mate. I’m happy for you, really. And anyway, I’m like totally ‘over’ you now.” Mas said the last in a parody of an American teenage girl, all air quotes and tossing hair. Jasper couldn’t help snorting. “That’s better. You really need to lighten up, you know? Most of what I waffle on about is utter crap anyway. Sometimes I don’t believe the stuff that’s coming out of my mouth. Told this bloke I’d pulled last week that I was a fucking ice-skater like that Johnny Weir fella. Turns out he used to skate and now he wants to take me to the rink down in Swindon. I’m going to make such a tit of myself if I get on the ice. Think I’m going to tell him I have my period.”

“You didn’t convince him you were a woman, did you?” Mas was cute but not that pretty.

“As if! You see what I mean, though? Utter rubbish. You should ignore most of it and laugh at the rest. That’s what my other friends do.”

“So… We’re friends?”

“Well, duh! Isn’t that why I’m here, helping you fill your house back up with books so you can impress this Lewis you’ve got a monster crush on?”

“We’re not going to fill it. I’ve got shelves now. It’s going to look good.” Jasper turned back to the pile of waiting boxes, all packed and ready to transport. Two carloads, and then they’d return with the empty boxes to pack up the rest. He estimated eight carfuls still remained, so the two of them should be able to tackle it in a day. “Come on. The stuff that’s going back is over here.” He led the way, hearing Mas’s footsteps behind him. “You can take anything you want from that lot when we’ve finished. After you’ve helped me with the lights, that is.” And those were his real reasons for needing help. The carloads he could have handled himself, albeit in double the time, but the finishing touches to his freshly restocked home required two pairs of hands.

Jasper picked up a box and turned to find Mas standing, hand on hip, looking him up and down like he was an exhibit to be studied.

“Can’t believe you were one of them hoarders. No, wait, what am I saying? Of course I can. The amount of stuff you carry around in that bag of yours. Anyone would think you were preparing for the end of the world. First time you turned up with it, I was fucking terrified it was full of gags and handcuffs and big knives. Or maybe just a few rolls of cling film like that Dexter bloke on the telly. You seen that? Fucking awesome series. He’s hot in a geeky kinda way, just like you. ’Specially in those new specs. You’ve got that possible-serial-killer vibe, you know? Right up till you open your mouth, anyway. Then anyone can see you’re just a big teddy bear in disguise.”

Jasper opened and closed his mouth a few times, searching for an appropriate response. As ever, he felt blindsided around Mas’s mile-a-minute commentary. “Umm, thanks. I think.” He shook his head, trying to clear it of the excess words blocking his thought processes. “Do you want to load your car and I’ll load mine?”

“You’re the man with the plan.” Eventually, Mas hefted a box, and despite his carefully cultivated air of waifish dissolution, he seemed to pick it up with ease. Well, Jasper had known he was stronger than he looked, or he’d never have asked.

“So,” Mas continued as they trudged over to where the two cars waited, hatchback doors in the air. “You going to be inviting this mysterious Lewis over later?”

“Reckon so.” It would be the first time he’d called Lewis since their separation and the very idea of pressing Dial terrified him. But not as much as another day without him. They’d stuck it for four months, after all. Lewis wouldn’t be enough of a stickler to insist on another two, would he?

“Ooh, does this mean I’m going to meet him? Or will I be bundled out before he gets there, like a shameful one-night stand?”

“Erm, well, it might be best if you’re not there. I’m probably going to want to say hello in private.”

“Oh, I get it.” Mas thumped his box down in the back of his car and got in on hands and knees to push it forwards. Why he hadn’t just opened the side doors, Jasper couldn’t imagine. The rest of his sentence was muffled by the car. “You’re going to be all over each other and I’d end up feeling like the fairy godmother of all gooseberries.”