Thank flaming God it is Friday. This week has been proper hardcore. I’ve had English homework and films to watch and history books to read and peace to increase and Sean Burton to bodyguard and my head is in a proper spin. I don’t know how I’m supposed to fit so much into one girl’s brain.
Wesley knows I am proper stressed so he said he’d take me down Romford for happy hour at Pizza Junction, that place where you sit in a booth that’s like a racing car and traffic lights flash on and off and horns honk at your table when your order is ready. It’s quite a laugh, even if all the noise and flashing does sometimes gives me a migraine.
Wesley and me shared a Sloppy Joe pizza and a hot chocolate fudge cake and Wesley was telling me ’bout this lad Wazzle on his plumbing NVQ who flooded this posh woman in Epping Forest’s bathroom and I was trying to tell Wesley about history where we’re learning about Renaissance architects and how they started building churches ginormously massive in the 14th century to make the people feel like they were properly in the presence of God, but Wesley didn’t really get what I was going on about so I sort of gave up.
On the way home Wesley said he had something to show me and I thought, “Oh here goes, it’ll be something in a store window.” But it wasn’t at all it was something much bigger than that.
We drove back to Thundersley Road on the route that goes past Bishop Fledding Industrial Estate where I once did some work experience in a Indian food factory. Round the back of the park there’s a building site with a big sign that says LUXURY HOMES AVAILABLE SOON.
So Wesley parks the car and puts on some hip-hop and I sat for a bit listening to the words to “Kill You When I’m Dead” by Mazzio and my mind started wandering to Meatman and the Year Tens.
“’Ere, Wesley, don’t you think this gangster rap stuff is sort of bad for, like, society?” I said. But Wesley just looks at me funny and says, “But we don’t live in America, Shiraz! It ain’t nothing like as bad as this in Essex.” So I shut up about that and asked what it was he wanted to show me then.
“Look at those condos they’re building, innit,” he said. “I think they’re proper nice.”
I looked at them and I said, “Well, yeah, they’re gonna be well good when they’re finished, why, what’s so special about them?”
And Wesley says, “Well, if you think about it, they’re exactly halfway between your mum’s and my mum’s houses, innit?”
So I says, “Yeah, I suppose.”
And Wesley says, “Well, the thing is, Shizza, y’know when my dad died he left me a little bit of money, innit? Just a little bit, mind. Well my nan put it in a bank account for me and she’s been adding to it here and there for about eighteen years with bingo wins and that and on my birthdays and… well the thing is, there’s a few grand now and I reckon if I get a job straight after my NVQ, I reckon I might have enough for a down payment on one of them condos, innit.”
I looked over at the building site which was full of cement mixers and rubble.
“You wanna live in one of them condos?” I said.
“Well, not just me,” he says, “Me and you, innit. You’d come and live with me too, wouldn’t you, and help me with the mortgage? In a few years, mind, when you finish all this school stuff and you get a job in Ilford?”
“I’d move in with you?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I want us to be together forever, innit.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never ever thought seriously of leaving Thundersley Road and if I have it wasn’t to move into a condo five minutes away.
Thing is, I’ve not really properly thought EVER about what I’m gonna do with my life. I only got as far as signing up for Sixth Form. I haven’t figured out any other stuff about the next seventy years!!!
“You want us to live together in a condo in Goodmayes? Forever?” I said.
“Well, not right now,” he said, “But someday soon. I love you, Shiraz.”
I looked at him for a bit and he got hold of my hand and held it tight.
“I love you too, Wesley.” I said, and I properly meant it.
But at the same time I sort of didn’t.