Still gazing up at the outside of the house Faith was about to walk away when she heard her phone jump into life. Several messages all rang out their arrival in her mail box, as though pleased to have made their presence felt after an unnecessary period of delay.
Travelling home, Faith, dazed somehow from her encounter, could think of nothing but her new appointment at the house next week. Already she was debating what to wear, and felt maybe a little shopping spree was called for. She felt no guilt somehow, and she couldn’t work out exactly why that was. Other men had approached her over the years but she had never once been tempted; she wasn’t that kind of girl, she used to say. Now, for some reason, she was very much that kind of girl and the knowledge of this sea change shocked her. This shock was compounded by her impatience with Dan once she had arrived back home.
“Where’ve you been? I’ve been phoning.”
“At the house, of course.”
“The house?” asked Dan, bewildered. “The house, I thought you were going to see a few.”
“Yes, well, some cancelled, some didn’t look too clever after all, so in the end it boiled down to one.”
“Any good?”
“Yes, I think we should buy it.”
“You’ve seen one house and you think we should buy it? Not that I know much about these things,” said Dan, with his usual vague pompousness, “but isn’t that a little rash?”
“It just seems right, that’s all.”
Once Dan had glanced at the estate agents brochure, he looked up at her, appalled. “You can’t be serious, it’s a wreck.”
“So? We can do it up.”
“And you know about all this, do you? Suddenly you’re an expert on property renovation.”
“That’s how you make money, didn’t you know?” she said airily. “I’d have thought you’d have been up on all that, what with your addiction to daytime TV.”
This was a cheap shot and Faith knew it. Dan liked the television on all day long whether they were watching it or not and she found it irksome and they argued about it constantly.
“What I do know about all this house renovation lark is that it is time consuming, and time is something we do not have, plus it costs pots of money, something else we do not have. Forget it, find something else.”
Faith took this rejection of 77 Renfield Road as a personal slight and she found herself uncharacteristically furious about it. “So you’re dismissing a property you haven’t even seen, is that it? How can you do that?”
“Very easily,” he said, banging a nasty looking burnt burger into a bun and starting to chomp. “In fact, very easily indeed.”
“Why are you so… blinkered about everything?”
“I am not blinkered.”
“Yes you are.”
“I am not blinkered at all.”
“Theatre is ruled out because according to you everyone who is even vaguely interested in the theatre is pretentious, concerts are ruled out because people who go to concerts are idiots, won’t do this, won’t do that. Broaden your horizons, for God’s sake.”
“Nothing wrong with my horizons, thank you. They don’t need broadening, not the last time I looked.”
They didn’t talk much after that. Faith sat in their bedroom thinking about Nick, and Dan, leaving the flat a little while later to make the short journey to the pub at the end of the street. This is it, Faith thought, this is our life, marooned in these seas of frustrations, needs not being met, compromises not being reached. What was this life she had? And why prop it up? Out of some creaking loyalty to a man she once liked many years ago? The whole thing was fast becoming intolerable.
Would she have felt this way if someone else had shown her round Renfield Road? Probably not, she conceded, probably she would have laughed off Dan’s pig headedness and in the end agreed with him. After all, what did either of them know about DIY; he was right really. Then she started asking herself why it was she wanted the house at all. Was it just because Nick wanted her to buy it? That was crazy – to embark upon a massive commitment like 77 Renfield Road because she fancied the estate agent. But was that actually all there was to it? No it wasn’t all there was to it, but she couldn’t work out what else it was. What else was urging her to buy that junkyard of a home and start living there.
The following morning, Saturday, Faith set off into town. She decided that none of her clothes were quite right for her liaison with Nick and so she would buy something else – (any excuse). She had a pretty clear cut idea of the kind of things she suited, none of which she guessed Nick would like. He wasn’t the kind of guy to get off on trouser suits and office garb, she suspected, he would like something altogether more lyrical, whimsical even. After trying on the umpteenth hippy type dress, colourful and gossamer thin, she plumped for one in the end, styled a little like a medieval gown, high-waisted, long sleeved, but with a plunging neckline. She had never bought anything more hideous in her life.
Then it was the lingerie department, and she had fun browsing for “sets”. Sets were only of interest to women in new relationships, Faith decided. After a while, men scarcely noticed if your top half was the same colour as your bottom half, their main focus of attention being centred on what was inside them. But she made her choice, banged everything on the credit card again and set off. In order to celebrate her new purchases, she dived into a coffee house where she drank a cappuccino and ate carrot cake and peeked at her new possessions in their bags. She was now the proud owner of matching silk undies and a maxi dress of dubious origin – China? Vietnam? Or some sweat shop in Brick Lane?