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Chapter 2
Daniel handed over the keys to his truck and gave Tobias a weak smile. Tobias was a whizz mechanic, and over the last couple of years he’d gone into business converting all kinds of vehicles into mobile homes and camper vans. He was doing Daniel a favour by taking a look at his truck’s dodgy exhaust. He was doing him another favour by lending him a car for the duration, so at least Daniel had some wheels.
‘Please don’t tell me it’s going to cost a fortune,’ he begged.
‘I’ll do my best to keep the cost down,’ his friend promised, slipping the keys into his pocket and turning his attention back to the camper he was updating.
‘Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ At least Daniel didn’t need the truck urgently, because the end of autumn was the start of his quieter time. It was a pain, but people’s thoughts tended to shy away from gardens and gardening in the run-up to Christmas, which meant, as a freelance gardener, he had considerably less work. It would pick up again in the new year (he already had two jobs booked in for January) but between now and then it was usually a lean time for him. He had a few bits and pieces that would take him into mid-November, but things were already starting to slacken off.
‘I hope you don’t find anything else wrong with it,’ Daniel added, worriedly. He could barely afford to pay Tobias, even though he was only charging him mates rates.
Tobias sent him a sympathetic look. He knew all about Daniel’s struggle to stay afloat financially during the winter months. ‘Have you got any work lined up at all?’ he asked.
‘A bit. Not much. Although I have taken on some seasonal work this winter,’ he said, then added without thinking, ‘Nothing to do with gardens, though.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Santa Claus,’ Daniel muttered, wishing he hadn’t said anything. It was embarrassing enough doing the job, but now that Tobias knew about it, Daniel was going to get a right good ribbing.
True enough, Tobias chortled. ‘You? Santa Claus? This I’ve got to see. Can I sit on your knee? Am I on your naughty or nice list?’ He offered up a piece of insulation to the ceiling of the van he was currently working on and stared at it critically, a smirk playing about his mouth.
‘Bugger off,’ Daniel said mildly, wondering if he should offer to give Tobias a hand or whether he’d just be in the way. He loved working with his hands, but his tools of choice were spades and potting compost, not spanners and engine oil.
‘Seriously, Dan, you’ll be good at it. You get on well with kids.’ Realising what he’d said, Tobias pulled a face. ‘Sorry, mate. I wasn’t thinking.’
‘That’s all right. It’s not as though I’m Amelia’s real dad.’ Daniel didn’t want to rake up his failed relationship with Amelia’s mother again, so he was relieved when Tobias’s phone rang.
‘Hello, T&M Conversions,’ Tobias said, jamming the phone into the crook of his neck as he tried to hold the length of thermal insulation in place with one hand. ‘Hang on a sec, I’m putting you on speaker,’ he said to the person on the other end.
Daniel made a “T” sign with his hands and Tobias nodded.
He’d have a cuppa, then get off; Tobias was busy and he didn’t want to take up any more of his friend’s time, as he was already putting himself out to fix the truck. Tobias was a good mate, even if he was a bit of a player when it came to women. He always had a new one on his arm and Daniel envied him his ability to attract the opposite sex without any apparent effort. He wished he was more like Tobias with his easy-come, easy-go manner, but Daniel couldn’t help his own more serious attitude towards dating. He didn’t take it half as lightly as Tobias did. Yeah, and look where that had got him, he thought: Gina.
As Daniel walked across the garage to the kettle, he had half an ear on Tobias’s call and the other half on an Ed Sheeran song on the radio. It was about death and heaven, and was emotional enough to make him feel like crying.
‘Do you do van conversions?’ a man’s voice asked over the phone’s speakers, and Daniel glanced around in time to see Tobias let go of the insulation.
‘We do,’ Tobias said. ‘What were you thinking of?’
‘An ice cream van.’
‘Er, you want to convert something like a transit into an ice cream van? Or you have an ice cream van you want to update?’
‘I’m thinking of buying an ice cream van for my daughter. But not for ice cream.’
‘As a motor home?’ Tobias asked.
Daniel knew his friend had worked on stranger things, like a fire engine for instance. Any space in any vehicle could be transformed into campervan-style accommodation, as long as the client had the money. Tobias would supply the imagination and expertise to get it done – he was good like that.
‘Er, not exactly,’ the voice on the other end of the phone said.
‘Then what, if you don’t mind me asking?’ Tobias pointed at a packet of biscuits lying next to the kettle and raised his eyebrows and nodded.
‘As a gift shop,’ the caller said.
‘Right…’ Tobias shot Daniel a look which said he thought the guy was pulling his leg.
‘See, my daughter has an aunt – she’s my aunt as well – who lives in a care home, and she had an idea when she saw a mobile library.’
