Page 42 of Full Service

“How’s things with you up there?” I asked him, despite never having believed in any of it myself. It was much more comforting to imagine he was looking down on me. “I’ve fucked things up down here, I know that much. Met a nice…well, grumpy guy. Grumpy but good, y’know. Well. Of course you would. Fucked that up with him. Worry that I might be fucking this whole town up by trying to get out of it. But I have a plan…”

I explained to him – to the stone – what I was planning to do. The plan was a little bit insane, would leave me with very little to get on with. But I hoped that the village would give and help as it always had. Once I was done, I stared at the gravestone as if it might talk. Like he might say something.

“I think that sounds like a bloody fantastic idea,” said a voice from behind me. Uncle Prentis. I turned my head to the side and he joined me in a crouch at the graveside. “You sure you want to do it?” he asked.

“I’m sure.”

“You won’t be able to get back to London any time soon on that plan.”

“I know, Uncle Prentis. But I’ve been running for way too long now.” I smiled at him even as I tried to stop tears leaking from my eyes. I got to my feet and reached out a hand to pull him up.

“Why were you running?” Prentis asked. “We were so proud of you when you got such good grades to get into a good university, and then your big job in London, and then you hardly ever came back. I always wondered…if it was something we’d done wrong. Us two old queer men trying to raise a stroppy teenager together.”

“Too many old memories,” I admitted. “Mum died just as I was hitting high school, then not so long after I finished university and got that job Uncle Llywelyn went too. I couldn’t face this old place anymore.”

“Now?” Uncle Prentis asked.

I just smiled. I had been to hell and back, and was about to put myself through hell again. I could do anything.

Chapter Twelve

Macsen

December 21st

I was not thinking of Hywel as I carefully restored his car to mint condition, replacing doors and wheels and everything else I’d done in a drunken rage. I was not thinking of Hywel as I gave the car a full service in the garage, making it run better than it would have been even before he crashed it. I was entirely not thinking of…

So I was thinking about Hywel. A lot. And had for the six days of stir crazy isolation that the snow had imposed on me. Even now, with the roads mostly safe to drive, I was hiding out here like fucking coward. Partially because I hadn’t taken that time to fix his car, it had sat so embarrassingly as a reminder of my behaviour in the corner of the garage. So that was my first job, my apology to Hywel for what I’d done. To return this car to him in better condition than it had ever been.

I didn’t know why I was apologising, really. I’d done much worse in my time. And I couldn’t even disagree with my own drunken disgrace. I didn’t like him keeping secrets, and I didn’t like him holding such power over me. But that was my problem to deal with. It wasn’t my job to go and fuck up a slowly developing…something by getting so angry.

And I’d had a week to sit on that anger, to refine it at first, to decide exactly what I would say to Hywel when I saw him next.And what had started off as a three-day long rant had ended in my mind as a simple ‘sorry’.

I turned the key and the enginepurredinto life. I loved my bouncy little car, but this was like the difference between playing with a kitten and a tiger. My car was energetic, ready to play and take whatever life threw at it. The Aston was more refined, like it was gracing me with its presence the other way round. The engine turned over quietly, ready to pounce on its prey the second I pulled my foot upward on the clutch. God, I fuckinglovedmy job.

I rolled the car oh so gently out into the yard outside and parked it up next to my baby. There was still a thin and patchy layer of snow and ice on the ground and I wanted to check the country lanes had all been gritted and cleared before I dared to take the car down the lanes.

They’d been relatively clear for two days now though, and I worried at why Hywel hadn’t been back, if even to pick up his clothes, still in the suitcase next to the sofa. I’d even bloody washed and folded them for him, waiting for his return. And maybe hoovered, polished and dusted every part of the flat and garage as if to try and impress him.

I didn’t even know what I was expecting from my apology. Hywel was off to London soon. Was I just hoping he’d give it all up and move in with a country mechanic with way too many tattoos and a serious chip on his shoulder? Or hoping he’d beg me to go to London with him, live in the same shitty bedsit together?

I was snapped from my crabby mood by the sight of two further beautiful cars pulling into the yard. I definitely didn’t have any high-end clients planned between now and New Year, so I was shocked to see them. One was a glossy silver Porsche 911 and the other an Aston Martin Vanquish in a deep caramelbrown. I resisted the urge to wolf-whistle as I turned off the engine and stepped out of the car to meet them.

An older lady with a whiff of glamour that I kind of recognised got out of the Porsche and an elderly gentleman in a velvet suit and cravat got out of the Aston. She looked like she had dirt under her nose as she looked at me, but he had kind eyes — though they slid away from me and lit up as soon as he saw the DB5.

“Can I help you?” I asked as politely as possible.

“I rather think you can,” said the older lady. “You see, my Porsche seems to have developed a fault.”

“What kind of fault?” I asked, immediately stepping forward to see if there were any issues on the outside, but aside from obvious clumsy scrapes on the back wheels there was nothing to me that might indicate an issue caused from the outside.

“You’re the mechanic, you fucking tell me,” the woman said flippantly. I felt my hackles rise but I was used to condescending talk from my more elite customers.

“Marjorie, give the man your keys and sit in the car,” the elderly gentleman said with much the same tone as she’d spoken to me. She huffed, threw the keys in my direction and flounced off toward the Aston.

“Sorry, she’s always been a diva in public. Deliberately, for her image. But she doesn’t seem to know when to let go.” The man gave me a wide smile as I turned to look at him. “Calvin Taylor, Mark’s long suffering husband.”

“Oh, she’s the one! From that show!” I said before I could stop myself. Tudor had told me all about her and her…unfortunate demands and fetishes up at the hotel.

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