Part Three - Discovery House - Day one of one
Three
Geoff Pembrooke, Mr. fix-it, the do-it-yourself man, the guy with loose screws but nuts with attitude, or in the words of his wife, ‘the useless bastard who has as much talent for DIY as pensioners have at Black Ops 2 on the x-box’, was on his way home from work. Jean Pembrooke stood at their front door talking to Dawn the door to door cosmetic seller. The discussion had started on the new range of colours for the summer collection of lipsticks. Green was nice but yellow was sharper than sucking on lemons was the general gist, but the conversation had quickly digressed into each other’s husbands, nothing too nasty just little shortcomings they each noticed with each of their men.
“And when he comes in of a night” said Dawn with a broad northern accent, “expects his dinner on the table he does, I mean, what year is this? Friggin nora Jean, I love ‘im an all but he can’t ‘ave everyfin.”
Jean Pembrooke didn’t have much of an accent at all. She’d been brought up in the money part of Alderly Edge. Her family were not rich, far from it, but they certainly didn’t struggle. Born in Tewksbury, she had moved to Alderly Edge because of her father’s job and now here she was almost forty years later, married to a chump of whom she loved dearly, living in a quaint small northern town and exchanging pleasantries with a woman who if she entered the most backward accent competition she would have been disqualified for suspicions of ‘putting it on’ or even drug taking to create such a diabolical effect. But she stood propping up her front door in the middle of a housing estate in, Lancashire, was it Lancashire? She had never bothered to find out where they actually lived. When asked she had always said ‘near Leigh’ but she couldn’t find it on a map.
“What really gets my goat,” Jean replied, “is the way he thinks he can do little odd jobs around the house”
“Oh, I know what you mean Jean,” said Dawn pursing her lips.
“He’s rubbish, He is the only man I know who can fix a torch so well you now have to plug it into the mains to switch it on.”
“My Tommy fitted new handles to our kitchen cupboards, you can’t open any but they all have new names stuck on them.”
“My Geoff decided to decorate Jamie’s room, he was doing a good job until he ran out of wall paper,”
“Oh, I know what you mean, Jean.”
“There was only a little area to do but Geoff refuses to buy a 22 yard roll to cover a space no bigger than one meter square.”
“Oh, I know what you mean Jean. Jean, I do know what you mean.”
“In all of his wisdom, and you have to give him credit for his improvisation, he decides to fill the gap up using those sample pieces you tear off the test roll in the shop. Not of the same roll, oh no, but a selection of rolls because he wouldn’t take big enough piece. It’s a mess, Dawn.”
“Jean? You know? I know what you mean. Jean I know what you mean.”
Geoff, dressed in his collar and tie, pulled up in his car, steps out of his vehicle and walks up to the front gate.
“Hi Darling, Hi Mrs. Hiccup, have you tried the newly fixed hinges?”
“Dawn vaulted the fence at the side, so to answer your question, no we haven’t,” said Jean.
“Watch this.” Geoff leaned over to unlatch the front gate. Finding it stuck to the gatepost he proceeded to tumble over it. The wooden frame was too weak to hold his weight and so collapsed and splintered as Geoff’s body obeyed gravity and looked for the fastest way to reach to reach the ground regardless of what was in the way.
Part three of 'Discovery House' continues here
"I love thrillers with a twist, so if you do this is definitely for you.”
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