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“Booming, now get in the car. This heat is insufferable,” Elliott instructed and threw my bag into the small boot of his two-seater car. Slamming the boot lid, he circled the car and dropped into the driver’s seat. I had clipped in my seat belt, ready to go. We hadn’t left the car park before I was asleep.
Callum
I woke with a start when Elliott turned the engine off. Stretching as much as I could in his tiny car, I noticed I had developed a kink in my neck. Elliott had parked in the garage of his home, which would be my temporary home until I could find a flat to rent. I did not know what I would do next. Spending a year in Kenya was rewarding and heartbreaking at the same time. To see such poverty and to help make the children’s lives easier at the school, I worked at making it worthwhile.
The charity my mum founded a decade ago had started small. She met a teacher in Nairobi who wanted to educate the children in his village. She listened to his story and vowed to help. As soon as my mum arrived back in Brighton, she set to work, starting a charity that would sponsor the children through their education. Over the years, the charitable donations have bought land and space to build classrooms. I was in Nairobi for the past year to build as much as I could. Classrooms, a cook house, a well, and an outbuilding that could accommodate children that didn’t have a home but were bright enough to learn. I had spent near enough five years abroad in various places. It felt right to come home for good.
“Are you staying in the car daydreaming or getting out?” Elliott had poked his head back in the driver’s side.
I got out and stretched once more. Crumpling my six-foot frame into his car wasn’t my best idea, but at least the drive from the airport was only forty minutes. Not that I saw much of it. Raking my fingers through my hair, I looked around the garage. Everything was neat. The bike rack in the corner had three bikes, one of which was mine. All my other belongings, which weren’t much, were in boxes in the spare room at the top of the house. Elliott and Steph owned a four storey Victorian house in Brighton. The building was in a crescent of terraced mansions in the heart of Brighton. A few hundred yards away, the grass lawns made way to the beach.
“My stomach is rumbling. Feed me, Elliott,” I said.
Following Elliott into the house, I hoped he didn’t drop my bag, as there was an expensive bottle of whisky for us to sample later on. For Steph, I’d brought back her favourite perfume. Their home was familiar and welcoming. High decorated ceilings with old-fashioned coving. High skirting boards and original fireplaces.
I got the plates out of the cupboard while Elliott removed the lasagne from the oven. Their house was my second home. I had spent a lot of time in Elliott and Steph’s house in between jobs overseas. I went from living at home to living at school as a boarder and then back with my mother to living abroad. There was little point in buying a house and then leaving it empty. Since my university days, I moved around the country first, doing carpentry jobs to gain the experience I needed to go abroad. I either lived in a hotel for a short time while I helped build the structure I volunteered to make, or I rented a temporary apartment. Kenya wasn’t my first overseas project, but it would be my last. I yearned for stability, a place to call my own. In Nairobi, I rented an apartment overlooking the park in the centre of the city. The same concrete structure you’d find in any city in the 1960s. I didn’t date or go to parties while I was out there, just worked my arse off for the school and finished the project ahead of time.
I hated crowds, I hated talking to people. Elliott called me reclusive, I don’t agree. But, I’m not far from that description. It goes back to my school days where I was the fat kid. Shunned by everyone, mocked and bullied. The girls laughed and pointed. The guys didn’t want me around and ruin their chances for getting the hot girls. I was overweight. I couldn’t play any sport, so I spent my days in the library. At university, hidden away in the back corner, Steph would keep me company while Elliott planned how he would run my father’s business until I was ready to take over. I would never be ready, if I had my way. The three of us went everywhere together, me as the third wheel, not that they made me feel anything other than welcome. I never learned how to socialise or make small talk. When I got to university, I ate healthy food. My father died of a heart attack in his seventies. I would not follow in his footsteps. It scared the shit out of me, and overnight I stopped eating crappy food and hit the gym. It took the whole of my time at university to burn away all the fat and become healthy and active, I had no intention of dying of a heart attack. Now the girls noticed when I walked into a room. They wanted to give me their numbers and to go out on dates. I had the image they wanted, but in my head, I still felt like the fat boy. Either that or I never met a woman who interested me enough to shake off my old mental image.
Elliott cleared our lunch dishes while I settled on the sofa. Resting my head against the plump pillow, I drifted off to sleep again. The warm hands stroking my stubbled cheek brought me around from the stark dreams I was having about the small village in Nairobi.
“Wake up handsome, I’ve found you a place to live,” Steph whispered as she carried on stroking my face.
I had grinned before I opened my eyes. I loved the way she called me handsome, she called me that back before I lost the excess weight.
“Can’t I live here?” I asked.
“You can stay here as long as you want. I thought you wanted me to find you somewhere to live. You told me in the video call last week it was my sole task to find somewhere.”
“I did and thanks,” I said and sat up, pecking her cheek with a kiss. She was full of excitement. I knew there was more to this potential home than signing a letting agent’s contract.
“Well, there is a slight catch, you need to meet the landlady and ask her if you can have the flat.”
Steph bit her lip and grimaced at the same time. Her pale blue eyes were bright and full of mischievousness.
“So, you haven’t found me somewhere to live.”
Peering closer to her face and tilted my head in question, enjoying her discomfort, if only for a moment.
“I have, she’s choosy about who she wants to rent the flat to. She says she wants no more handsome men moving into the flat. I think she’s full of crap, but we’ll see.”
Steph got up from her seat and took refuge in Elliott’s arms across the other side of the living room. In the summer months, the fireplace housed flowers, filling the room with a perfume of orange blossoms.
“Who do I need to see?” I asked, trying to hide the sigh in my voice.
“She’s my best friend, her name is Adaline, so be nice,” Steph said and wrapped her arms around Elliott’s waist to cuddle him. He kissed the top of her head and winked at me. Bastard, they were both in on it.
“The same Adaline that swears more than me and doesn’t like being called Adah?” I asked Elliott.
He nodded.
“If you’re trying to fix me up you need to understand that I will never find a relationship that will match yours, so why bother?”
“What? We’re talking about a flat, not marriage.” Steph tried her best innocent face and failed after a few seconds, burying her face in Elliott’s chest to muffle her giggles.
“Give me the address, and I’ll go check it out tomorrow, I need to get to bed and sleep for a day.”
Walking away from the happy, married couple, I trudged up three flights of stairs with my bag. Swinging the door open, a wall of boxes and a double bed greeted me. Dropping my bag in the corner, I fell face down on the double bed. The smell of fresh bedding enveloping my senses as I inhaled deeply. With my eyes tight shut, I pulled my clothing off and crawled under the duvet. I didn’t want to wake until tomorrow.
