There was a persistent and impatient rap at the door. I had just stepped out of the shower. Dressed in a slack cerise dressing gown and Mickey Mouse slippers, I shuffled down the hallway, praying that Liam had mislaid his keys again.
"Oh. Colin. What's up?"
"You didn't tell me you were selling your house."
"Didn't I?"
"No."
"Is there a problem?"
"You are then?"
"Yes."
Colin twitched and looked me up and down.
"Am I interrupting something, Jack?"
"No. Why?"
"You're wet."
"That's generally what happens when you take a shower."
He gawked at my slippers.
"You like?" I said. "Look, would you like to come in?"
Colin was an easy neighbour but had perfected the art of calling at the most inconvenient times. As usual he was neatly dressed in Marks and Sparks knitwear, brown corduroy trousers and tan Hush Puppies. Horn-rimmed spectacles perched precariously on the end of a lumpy nose, and he was clutching a bulging continental purse. I was fluffy-robed, knicker-less and vulnerable.
"I'll just make myself decent."
"No need, I'll be quick." Colin swept into the dining room, sat cross-legged at the table and adjusted his hearing-aid.
"Look, Jack, I'll come straight to the point. How much do you want for the house?"
"You want to buy my house?"
"Yes. In cash."
"In cash? You want to buy my house in cash? I'll make some tea."
I beat a retreat to the kitchen. I needed thinking time. Had this upstanding, tee-total, retired accountant finally lost his immaculately arranged marbles and hit the sauce? Why did he want this house so badly? I re-tied the sash around my robe; this was no time for a Basic Instinct moment. This was time for a big bucks moment. Be calm, Jack. Be civilised. Be mercenary.
"Sugar, Colin?"
"Just milk."
"How's work?"
"Fine. Look Jack, let's get this sorted."
Then it happened, the first phase of an unstoppable chain reaction. Following a ridiculously brief, matter of fact but amicable negotiation, we agreed a price for the house. Colin didn't want a survey and wasn't prepared to waste money on a solicitor either. He was a loony buyer and I really didn't care why. He unzipped his purse and retrieved a monogrammed cheque book holder and inset fountain pen.
"I'll give you a deposit now."
"It's fine, Colin, I trust you. We're agreed. The house is yours."
Colin returned his neatly pressed cheque book to its place of safety and we shook hands to seal the contract.
"Done," he said.
"Done," I said. It didn't feel legally binding in Disney slippers but a deal was a deal.
"So where are you off to?" asked Colin.
"Bodrum."
"Good God, Jack, Turkey? You're a homosexual. There aren't any homosexuals in Turkey."
"My dear Colin, there are homosexuals everywhere. We're like the Irish."
Colin sipped his tea for inspiration. "You do know that Turkey's a Muslim country?"
"No shit?"
His brain clanked and whirred like a Babbage prototype, spitting out a chain of increasingly infuriating questions, each designed to challenge our toxic choice of destination.
"What's wrong with Spain?" he said.
"What's wrong with Turkey?" I said.
Colin was unyielding. I tried my well-rehearsed I love Turkey because homily. He listened impassively. It was a lost cause.
"You know what, Jack?"
"What?"
"It's your funeral."
"Well thanks for the vote of confidence."
He smiled. "You can rent the house until you leave."
There we had it. Mad Colin was definitely on something. Someone had popped a pill in his Lapsang Souchong.
"Say that again, Colin."
"And I'm the one with the hearing aid."
"I could kiss you."
"Please don't. I vote Conservative."
We sipped our tea and sat in uneasy silence. Colin's eyes darted about to survey his new kingdom. He was off with the covetous fairies, muttering incoherently like a novice Buddhist at an inaugural Puja. Christ, the old boy was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. I could have my throat garrotted at any moment.
He broke the peace. "I like your furniture."
"It likes you, too."
"I'll buy it."
"Done."
With that, my very own fairy godfather made his excuses and scampered off into the cold East End air. Business was concluded. House and contents sold. I poured a stiff gin and tonic, floated in to the lounge, collapsed onto the sofa and fiddled with my mobile phone. I should ring Liam. "Hello, hub. I've just sold the house to our psychotic neighbour. No, it's fine, he paid in cash. Contract? Don't be silly. Yes, you're right; our world has just changed on the turn of an indecently short conversation with a lunatic."
I decided against the call.
The house was perfectly still apart from the persistent clicking of a carriage clock on the mantelpiece. I looked around the room and said my goodbyes to the sofa and the sideboard, bequeathing them to Colin in my head. I guessed he wouldn't want the signed picture of Tammy Wynette. I willed Liam home and befriended the Bombay Sapphire while I waited. Four glasses of mother's ruin later, I snapped out of my trance and rushed to the phone to ring the estate agent. "Hi. It's Jack Scott. I've decided not to sell. Sorry."
Liam shimmied into the lounge.
"Guess what?"
"You've had the chop and changed your name to Bunty."
"Robbie's agreed a deal on the house."
Liam threw off his jacket and sat down beside me. "Who needs the UN, eh? Eighteen months of arguments and recriminations, all settled with a quick phone call. He just caved in. Karma's on our side, husband. Get your glad-drags on, we're celebrating."
A drop of gin dribbled down my chin and gave the game away.
"Oh my God, you're shit-faced."
"Shut up, Liam. I've got something important to tell you."
"Don't tell me, you're pregnant."
Colin's moment of madness changed everything. We were moving to Turkey. Our astonishing run of good luck convinced us that someone was looking kindly down upon us. I sensed it was John, my very own guardian angel. Lapsed Catholic Liam attributed it to the Virgin Mary. "She always comes good in the end. We're that close."
Weeks passed by with terrifying haste. Liam took up position as unpaid planning guru, devouring every relocation book on the market and organising our journey into the Byzantine world of Turkish red tape. He concocted a bells-and-whistles financial model and called it Bill. On the day he was born, Bill forecast a life of unfettered luxury and we toasted to our future with gay abandon. A week later, Bill convinced Liam that we were heading for certain penury. Bill, it seemed, was a fickle queen. Eventually, Liam and Bill came to grips with the vagaries of investments and currency exchange, and things started to look up. Turkish interest rates had soared to twenty per cent, providing an effortless, ready-made income.
"We can definitely manage," said Liam confidently, "and your redundancy payment makes all the difference to Bill's bottom line."
"I don't trust Bill's bottom."
"He doesn't like the look of yours much, either."
"So we'll be okay?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure this time?"
"No."
My financial guru closed his laptop and squeezed my hand. "You okay with this Jack? You're a big cheese. You'll miss the kudos."
"Mild middling cheddar, and I won't. Can't believe they paid me off though."
"They couldn't wait to get rid of you. You've been a liability for years."
In truth, the speed at which everything happened did throw me off balance. I had worked since the age of eighteen, dodging further education by careering into my first full-time job as a shop boy on Chelsea's trendy King's Road. It was an easy way to earn an honest crust and pick up tricks on the side. Days on the tills and nights on the tiles were the best probation for a young gay man about town. After two carefree years, I swapped sales for security and got a proper job in local government with a pension attached. There was the rub: I was used to the filthy lucre. Jumping from cosy financial certainty to a life based on long term unemployment scared me half to death.
I wasn't the only one with doubts. Our plan attracted its fair share of dissenters, not least because of the Islamic angle. Most Muslim countries didn't exactly have a commendable history of tolerance, and since I dropped out of the womb waving my jazz hands and screaming I Am What I Am, I could well be asking for trouble.
"Well, I have no intention of stepping back into the closet," I protested to the great, the good and the idle at my leaving do. They had gathered in a pretentious little Kensington wine bar to wave me off. The venue was the very latest place to see and be seen with hard perspex chairs, fake Rothko oils and stratospheric drink prices.
"God knows why two openly gay men would want to live in a Muslim country," I announced, "Particularly one with an unenviable reputation for military coups. There's nothing for it. I shall insist that Liam wear a head scarf and walk three paces behind me at all times."
Enjoying the giggles from the attentive assembly, I launched into a self-indulgent, innuendo-laden, gay-man-abroad patter, concluding with "the Queen wears a head scarf and she's not Muslim."
Later, as the crowd began to thin, I found a machine-aged brown Chesterfield sofa tucked away near the coat check and rang Liam. My swansong was done, my farewells said, and a thirty year career was over in an instant. As I waited for Liam, the slippery nipples hit their mark and I began to lose it. You total tosser, Jack. Jettisoned the job? Genius. Now what? The archetypal male mid-life crisis? A stunning bestseller? How to end up in the gutter in three short months, by Jack the fucking pratt?
Sozzled stragglers stumbled over for final goodbyes.
"We'll keep in touch," they lied. "That was some speech; we'll miss you, Jack; good luck with the Arabs; lucky bastard; think of us back at the coal face." Yeah, right. Alcohol and anxiety made uncomfortable bedfellows, and I was desperate for Liam to rescue me from the doldrums.
Right on cue, the indomitable optimist strolled into the bar, pecked me on the cheek and picked up my bags. "You'd better sober up quickly, Jack. We're booked on a morning flight to Bodrum."
Coming Next Chapter 3 - Back to the Future
Perking the Pansies, Jack Scott's award winning, best selling debut book is available in paperback and as an ebook from all usual retailers.
Out now: The sequel - Turkey Street, Jack and Liam move to Bodrum. Also available in print and digital editions.
For more information check out http://www.jackscott.info