For the second day in a row I was awoken by the sound of somebody knocking on the front door. It wasn’t Jessie this time because she was still sound asleep next to me. We were both in the same clothes we had been wearing the day before and we’d barely moved in the night. Tuesday’s adventures had worn us out properly.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I sat up and tried to get out of the bed without waking her. Whoever was knocking had better have a good reason for it. I peered through the peephole and saw Costas, the short, grey haired Greek corner shop owner about to let rip with another round of knuckles against the wood.
“Hey Costas.” I croaked as I opened the door. “What’s up?”
He had a smile the size of the Nile river on his face.
“Danny, you win the jackpot at the casino. Why you never say something to me?” He was holding up the evening paper from yesterday. On the front page there was a photo of Jessie and I sitting on the park bench with a bold story line below it that read:
LOCAL YOUNG COUPLE WIN MILLIONS AT CASINO
“Oh… goodness me.” I said, taking the paper from his hands. I speed read the story. Eleanor had written about how we’d gone down to the casino on a whim, won big and now everybody in the city would know exactly how much we had won and also where we were living. Not a good thing, but hopefully not an impossible thing to deal with.
“You can keep the paper, Danny. But one day you can make me a loan, hey? I want to open another shop, north side. You can be silent partner.”
“Thanks for the paper, Costas. I don’t know about loaning money just yet, but we can talk about that sometime in the future, okay?”
“Okay Danny, you don’t run away now hey, I will find you!” he laughed. “Have a good day. Where is Jessie? She here now with you?”
“Yes, you woke me up, but she’s still sleeping.”
“Oh, sorry. It’s 8am already. I thought you would be up.”
“No problem, Costas. Can I pay you for the paper?”
“No, it’s ok. Present from Costas. I see you soon.”
He said goodbye one final time and I closed the door behind him.
Jessie stirred on the bed, rolling over onto her back and stretching her arms above her head.
“Morning, my love.” she said.
“Back at you, schweetheart. Guess what? We made front page news.”
“No ways! Front page?”
“Yep. check it out.” I handed her the paper. She sat up and took it from me.
“Wowza. We look good in that photo!” she said.
“I know, but I think we need a bath – we slept in the same clothes we were in yesterday.”
“Ew. You can run the water, I’ll make the coffee.” I bent down and kissed her on top of her head.
“You still smell amazing, regardless.” I said, waiting for the dimples to appear. There they were.
The large old bath tub took forever to fill up but we both sank into it sighing as we did, our coffee cups perched on the side of the wall. Being from a bygone era the bath was wide enough for us to easily fit together on the same side. We lay there for ages, bathing one another, drinking our coffee and planning our next day as financially free people.
Jessie looked at me and I could tell that there was something going on behind her beautiful eyes. She had a look on her face that was quizzical but tentative at the same time.
“What’s up with that look on your face?” I asked.
“What look?”
“You look like you want to ask me something but maybe unsure of how I’ll react.”
“Geez, you are perceptive. But I don’t know if I want to open that door. Yet.” she said, looking up at the ceiling.
“You can ask me anything, I have nothing to hide.”
She turned her face back to mine, the look shifting towards tenderness.
“You never talk about your family, Danny. Why is that?”
I wasn’t expecting the question and I really didn’t know how to answer it. She traced a finger across my profile, from forehead to chin, as I thought about what to say.
“There’s not really a lot to say about them.” I eventually said. “Both my parents were only children, as you know, so I don’t have any cousins, aunts or uncles either. It’s just me and them. I love my parents, but they can also be a bit over-protective, you know, so I try not to let them in on a lot of what I get up to. After that fight at Harlequins my Dad was ready to go down there and knock some heads together. He has a bit of a dark side to him. He used to be in a street gang back in the 50’s.”
Jessie pursed her lips together. “Thanks for sharing.” she said. “We’ll unravel this onion one layer at a time.” Then she kissed me tenderly again.
By the time we got out of the bath our fingers and feet were like wrinkled prunes.
“I literally have nothing clean to wear.” she said. “We need to go to my place so I can get more clothes.”
“You want to borrow a shirt?” I asked.
“What have you got that will fit me?”
“Um, I think I have some old tees and maybe a small vest you could try.”
I went over to my cupboard and lifted the stack of neatly folded tee shirts, looking for the ones I thought she might not drown in.
“You’re a bit of a neat freak, Danny.” she said as she came closer, seeing the inside of my cupboard for the first time. She was still naked and smelled like the soap we had just used. Her hair was damp from our splashing around in the bath, clumped together in places. I found a grey vest that I had last worn in high school, held it up and assessed the size of it against her outline.
“Neat freaks always win.” I said. “I think we can get you across to your place in this. I’ve got a button up you can wear over it, cowgirl style.”
She took the vest from me, placed it over her head and pulled it down over her body. It was long enough to cover her private bits with her breasts filling it up nicely on top. I stood back, checked her out and suddenly felt myself becoming aroused again. She looked so sexy, just standing there wearing only that grey vest.
“Oh dear God, I fear that you have awoken a beast within me.” I said, taking her by the hand and moving back towards the bed. We made love again.
“So, if we can ever get ourselves over to my place, I need to phone that Toyota guy and see if we can get the Cressida sorted out with a post dated cheque today. Then we need to sit down together and really think hard about that penthouse at The Sentinel, Danny. Do you want to go and see it again?”
I didn’t need much convincing on the penthouse. I knew it was lavish and probably way more than we should be spending, seeing as we were only 25 years old, but it was something that we could hold onto. My plan was to invest most of the money we’d won in property that could be rented out. Not big places, but small flats with low upkeep and good rental income. A friend of mine at the bank had told me that he was doing this and with the agency he had running his few properties, he just sat back and waited for the rent to come in every month. Which it did. His problem was that he had to service a mortgage on each unit he had purchased. Whatever rent I earned would be all profit.
“Yep, I am pretty amped about the penthouse, hey. I’d like to take my folks to go and have a look before making a final decision, but let’s put our heads together on how we are going to set it up between ourselves first. Are you thinking a 50:50 ownership deal?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m in, for sure.”
There was no food in my flat so we finally got dressed, Jessie totally rocking the vest and my old blue plaid shirt tied in a knot in front of her, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. I carried her tog bag for her. We walked over to her building and thankfully didn’t bump into anybody who knew us on the way. As we got inside the supervisor cracked open a little frosted window from her office that faced the foyer.
“Oh Jessie?” she said.
“Yes Mrs Immelmann, what is it?”
“I see you are in the papers with this handsome young man. Front page too! And you won so much money? Congratulations! What are you going to do with it?”
Jessie looked at me and rolled her eyes. Mrs Immelmann was a proper old time gossip. She ran the building and she knew everybody’s business, so if you told her anything you could be certain that by sunset the entire building would know about it too.
“Oh, we haven’t decided yet, but there’s a lot we want to do. Probably going to be taking a holiday very soon and we’ll make some decisions after that.” said Jessie, walking towards the lifts, pulling me along by the hand.
“Oh lovely!” said Mrs Immelmann. “Where will you go?”
“Probably Mauritius.”
Mrs Immelmann sighed in appreciation, holding one hand to her chest. “Oh, my Bernie took me there a very long time ago. I’m sure you will have a splendid time, dear. And is this the young man who has put that smile back on your face?”
“He definitely has! Thank you, Mrs Immelmann.” Jessie pressed the button at the lifts as Mrs Immelmann opened the office door, emerging to shake my hand.
“Pleased to meet you.” I said. “We have a lot to take care of today but thank you for the well wishes.”
“Lovely to make your acquaintance, young man.” she gleamed at me through pale blue eyes that had seen the hardships of war in her younger years, but were now reserved for watching the comings and goings of the residents of the building she supervised.
Inside Jessie’s flat we found things all neat and tidy. Tony had taken to doing some housework since I was last here. The dishes were washed and packed away, the ashtrays were clean and the beds were made.
“Aye-aye-aye.” said Jessie. “Go Daddy!”
She looked around the flat expecting to find beer bottles resting underneath chairs, but everything was lickety split clean. “Well, this has never happened before.” she said. “Usually smells like a pub in here, but now it smells like…”
“A hospital?” I suggested.
“Close. No, it smells good. I wonder what he did?”
“It’s a time for positive change, Jess. Maybe he’s got the spirit in him?”
“Hopefully not the whisky kind.” she replied, going down the passage to her room.
It was only the second time I had been in Jessie’s room and it seemed smaller this time. She opened her cupboard and then closed it quickly, spinning around to face me, biting her lip.
“You can’t see inside there! Go, go… sit in the lounge please.” she insisted, pushing me back out of the room.
“Why? Are you a slob?” I grinned at her.
“No, but I’m not like you, all military precision like. I mean, like who even folds their underpants?” she giggled as she continued to shove me out of the room.
“I wanna see the mess my girlfriend lives with!” I protested.
“No ways. Feck off outta here!”
I relented and went and took a seat in the lounge. “I’ll find out sooner or later.”
“Stay there!” she said, laughing and closing the bedroom door behind her.
She emerged a short while later wearing a beautiful blue dress and some flat white shoes.
“Well now, you look amazing.” I said.
“Aw, thank you sweet boy. But I definitely don’t want you looking in my cupboards.”
“How many skeletons are in there?”
“Mmmm…”
She sat down in the little wooden telephone desk near the front door and dialled the number of the Toyota dealership. Pretty soon she got put through to the guy who had taken her and Tony on the test drive. It was obvious that the dealership had seen the article in the paper by the way she was smiling and saying yes every few seconds.
She put down the phone.
“Well now, fame does have its advantages.” she said. “Daddy’s car is being delivered here in the next couple of hours. Apparently they have been phoning all morning trying to get hold of me.”
“Really? that’s awesome. And they’re delivering it today?”
“Yes, Vishen says that he will bring all the paperwork with him. I just have to sign some undertaking of indebtedness until the amount owing is settled in two weeks time.”
“That’s cool. So are we going to hang out here this morning?”
“Yep, if you don’t mind. Are you hungry? I’ve just realised I am starving. We didn’t eat supper last night.”
“I am!” I said. “What have you got?”
She looked at me with a coy smile. “You haven’t actually had my famous beans on toast yet, have you?” I laughed and said no. I guess I was finally going to find out what they were all about.
Jessie spun around and went into the kitchen. “I hope there’s some bread in here. And beans.” I heard doors being opened and a loud “A-ha!” as a can of baked beans hit the counter. “Now I just need an onion and some masala. We got bread.”
I walked into the kitchen and she was pulling out a saucepan and a bottle of oil.
“You’re actually going to cook the beans? Aren’t they already cooked?”
“They’re edible, but when I’m done with them they will be yummy.” she said as she fished out an onion with what looked like roots growing from one end of it. “You can slice and dice the onion, I’m too happy to be crying.”
“Sure thing, Babe.” I said as she handed me a paring knife and a chopping board. I began peeling the outer layer off and chopped off the protrusions before slicing it in half and then dicing it the way my Mom had taught me when I first told them I was moving out.
“You’re so precise with everything.” Jessie said as she watched me doing my thing with the onion.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any chewing gum, would you?” I asked.
“You can’t put chewing gum in the beans!”
“No silly, I want to avoid the tears from chopping the onion.”
“Huh?” she looked at me, her top lip pulling back in an Elvis snarl. I told her about how if you didn’t want to cry when chopping onions you chewed gum, or anything. But it was too late, I could feel my eyes beginning to water as this pungent onion emitted its special gas.
“It works.” I said. “Don’t ask me how, but it does. Good Lord, what kind of onion is this? Strewth!” It was particularly powerful and tears were streaming down my face. Jessie laughed and said that it had probably been there marinating in the cupboard for a few weeks. At least it wasn’t off.
She took the diced onion, added it to the saucepan along with 2 spoons of the masala and started stirring it in, letting it the onions caramelise. The kitchen was beginning to smell amazing. The beans were next to go in, along with a huge dollop of fruit chutney and some other spice that didn’t have a label on the bottle. I was beginning to believe that these beans were definitely going to be amazing.
“Let’s get some toast on the go. These won’t take too long until they’re ready.” she said.
“Here are the young millionaires feasting on baked beans!” I said as we took our plates to the lounge, eating off our laps since the Lombard’s didn’t have a dining table. “These are great, Jess! Who learned you how to make them?”
“You mean who taught me how to make them?” she replied.
“No, who learned you how to make them.” I insisted. She giggled and told me that it was Tony’s special cowboy chow recipe that he learned when in the scouts, many years ago.
Vishen rang the intercom shortly before midday and Jessie let him in.
“He’s here. I’m so nervous!” she said, bouncing around the room. “Where did he park it?”
We went to the balcony and saw the shiny new Toyota in one of the angled parking spaces right in front of the building. It looked so long from up there. Vishen knocked at the door and Jessie let him in. He was with another guy who introduced himself as George Smith, he was the dealer principal and had come along to congratulate us on the big win and personally ensure that the car got delivered in good order.
“Is your Dad not here?” George asked.
“No, he went to work, but he’ll be back around 5pm or so. He’s going to be so happy. He always wanted one of the big Toyotas.”
“Aw, that’s great.” said George. He looked around the flat, his eyes falling on the cigarette burns in the carpet and I saw a small grimace appear and leave his face just as quickly. Good times were coming to the Lombards but for now the remnants of a hard blue collar life were still very evident.
After signing all the documents Jessie had the guys from Toyota park the car in her Dad’s undercover spot in the building’s garage so that when he got home he would see it there, waiting for him. We went back up to the flat and Jessie flopped down on the couch. I could tell that she was close to tears.
“What’s wrong, Love?” I asked, sitting down next to her, my hand on her knee.
She burst into tears and threw her arms around my neck, sobbing heavily. I just held her until she had calmed down.
“I’m just so emotional right now, Dan. You don’t understand how hard it’s been for Daddy since Mom left and this is just a small thing that I hope is going to make him feel a little better every time he gets into it.” I could feel my own throat closing up as I held her close to me. This was a side of her that I hadn’t seen before and it made me feel good to know that she cared so deeply for her Dad, in spite of his flaws.
“Jess, you’re amazing. You are such an awesome person, seriously. I don’t think I have ever known anybody quite like you.” She smiled and without saying the words I saw her mouth saying thank you.
Our next objective for the day was to discuss the business of the penthouse at The Sentinel. First of all we had to put some numbers down on a sheet of paper and see what we had spent so far on the cars and then what we should spend on the property before we went and did something stupid like spending all our capital. Not that this was likely given the huge amount we had in our respective bank accounts.
“Do you have a calculator, pen and paper in the house, Jess?” I asked.
“I’m sure we do, somewhere. Actually, hang on, I have a box in my cupboard with a bunch of my old school books and stuff. Let me check – you stay here!” She definitely didn’t want me looking inside that cupboard of hers.
A few minutes later she came back with an old school exercise book, a Bic pen and a little Casio calculator.
“Okay,” I said, putting the items on the coffee table. I sat on the floor so that I could write in the book properly. “Let’s do some budgeting.”
I wrote up a list called purchases and another called balances. One for her money and one for mine. So far we had only bought the cars, Jessie now owned two of them (the Toyota was in her name, but she said that she would transfer it to Tony when the first year’s license was expired). I split the price of the penthouse in two and put those amounts in the purchases column of each of our rudimentary balance sheets. Then I worked out what capital we’d each have left. It was still an extraordinary number.
“So, if we were to receive 10% annual interest on that capital amount this is what each of our monthly incomes would be, just on interest. This is even after we’ve bought the penthouse.” I showed her the number on the calculator.
“Geez, that’s a lot!” she said. “And the rate is 10% now?”
“More or less. The rates are high because of the political situation. The government have to try and attract investment into the country so they are keeping interest rates high to do that. We’d probably get more income if we had a diversified portfolio managed by a team of pros, but… I have trust issues with those guys. If they fuck up with your money you’re the one who loses, not them.”
“I see.” She leaned back against the couch from her spot next to me on the floor. She was quiet for a while before she said, “Danny, this is quite a big step, buying a home together. Are you sure you’re up to this? You haven’t seen the bad side of me yet. What if we really start to get on each other’s nerves?”
“I’ve thought about it, Jess. I’d be lying if I said I was thinking with my head and not my heart, but…” I paused for effect. “…my heart seldom lies. I love you. I want to be with you because no other girl I have ever known makes me feel the way do. You’re worth risking it all for.”
She looked at me, her eyes shimmering with fresh tears.
“Nobody has ever said things to me the way you say them, Danny. I really hope that you’ll forgive me if I ever let you down. I don’t want to lose you. Ever.” She leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth, then she put her arms around me. We sat like that for what felt like ages.
“So it’s settled then, we’re moving in together, right?” I asked.
“You betcha, boyfriend.” she smiled back.
“And we’re going to be the King and Queen of the frontline in that freaking penthouse?”
“Let’s call Rhonda and set it up.” was all she said in reply.
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