Junk (8 page)

Jasper took a quick swig from the bottle, imagining that was the warmth from Lewis’s lips he could still feel on the plastic. He handed it back.

“This wouldn’t be a good place to store books.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I can think of a few you might want to store out here. Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography, perhaps? Or maybe George W. Bush’s?”

“Not a fan of right-wing politicians?”

“How did you guess?” Lewis quirked a smile at him, then stepped to the edge of the veranda, where the steps led down into the jungle below. “This is an amazing garden. Seriously beautiful.”

“It’s overgrown,” Jasper said, giving the response he felt was expected of him when faced with the lawn that had turned into a meadow, and the rampant flowerbeds. “I should probably get a gardener in to come and clear it all.”

“Don’t you dare! It’s perfect the way it is.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course. It’s like Hodgson Burnett’s secret garden or something. You’d need to find a gardener like old Ben Weatherstaff to respect it. Or just leave it how it is.”

“Dad planted it for Mama. Growing up in Egypt, she’d always dreamed of an English rose garden.” Strange, how easy it was to talk about her with Lewis. “She loved it out here.”

“And so you’ve kept it clear of clutter. Unlike the front garden, I mean.”

“Yes. She never liked that one so much. Too dark, what with it facing north.” A memory of her sitting out on the veranda in the old steamer chair crept up on him. Where on earth had he buried that chair? It would be great to see it back where she’d used to sit. But a twinge of pain warned him off pursuing that thought any further. He turned from the empty veranda to where Lewis stood, now at the bottom of the steps. “I thought you’d be a fan of trendy modern gardens. All gravel and abstract sculptures.”

“Sounds like my folks’ place.” Lewis shook his head and pulled down a branch of rambling rose to sniff at the blooms. “Don’t let the day job fool you. I’m not a neat freak, really. Well, I am about my clothes, but not everything. I don’t find tidiness particularly desirable in others.” Lewis gave him a lingering look that burned onto Jasper’s skin like the late afternoon sun. Jasper took a step forward, down into the garden, so that the leaves of the grasses brushed against his bare ankles.

One more step, and he could be kissing Lewis. An idea as appealing as it was dangerous. What’s more, Lewis seemed to be inviting him, tilting his head back and staring with a sort of lazy flirtatiousness.

A dog barked in a nearby garden, startling them both.

“We should get back inside,” Lewis said, turning away and walking briskly up the steps. “There’s still the rest of the house to see. Do you mind if I take some photographs? It’s useful for clients to look back on at later stages in the process. Reminds them just how much progress they’ve made. Jasper?”

Jasper realised he’d been zoning out, standing there with his fingers resting on his lips. Lewis hadn’t been making eyes at him. He was a professional. He probably just couldn’t help sending out that kind of signal, being an open, friendly sort of person.

Thank God, Jasper hadn’t embarrassed himself by leaping in, lips first.

Chapter Seven

Showing the upstairs wasn’t as excruciatingly embarrassing as the downstairs had been, but that was only because Jasper now knew Lewis wouldn’t show any shock at the state of the house. Instead, Lewis stood in a shaft of sunshine slanting through the landing skylight, picking up books from the tops of stacks and asking Jasper if he’d read them or why he’d brought them home.

“That one?” Jasper eyed the lurid cover of a Mills & Boon bodice ripper. “It has a certain kitsch value, don’t you think? And there was something about the hero.” The hero in question was a blond hunk, but he could see the passing resemblance to Lewis. “He has your eyes.” Shocked at his own boldness, Jasper led the way to the bedroom. He shoved the door open and stood aside. “There isn’t room for two,” he mumbled as Lewis edged past him.

As he leaned back against the books and watched the light of Lewis’s camera flash reflected in the gloss paint of the open door, he wondered how he’d explain having blocked all the other rooms off up here. Mind you, Lewis hadn’t batted an eyelid at his inaccessible living and dining rooms. Jasper was no closer to coming up with a plausible reason when Lewis appeared at the doorway again.

“So, this wing of the house is out of bounds, I see.” Lewis gazed around the cramped landing as if trying to calculate where the doors were behind all the books.

“You can still get into the bathroom,” Jasper said, pointing the way.

Lewis reappeared after a few more camera flashes. “No books in there, I see. Plenty of other stuff, but no books.”

“Paper doesn’t like damp.”

“No.” Lewis stared at him for what felt like an eternity. “It’s interesting. The way you’ve categorised your hoard. You’re pretty organised, you know.”

Jasper shrugged it off. “I’m a librarian. It’s second nature.”

“Hmm. So how would you feel if I were to take one of these books from here… May I?” Jasper nodded, and Lewis picked up a book from the pile next to him. “And put it on top of one of the downstairs piles?”

Jasper took a deep breath. His palms sweated. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Oh God, this was going to sound ridiculous. “Because these are the ones I plan to read myself one day, and the ones downstairs aren’t.”

Lewis’s cheeks dimpled, even as his expression stayed mostly serious. “You’re keeping books you don’t intend to read?”

“It’s not so strange. I don’t plan to read every book at the library either.”

“No… But most people don’t give up substantial amounts of living space to something they don’t intend to ever make use of. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticising. I’m just trying to understand what your motivation is. What are you keeping all those books for, Jasper?”

Okay. This was the point where Lewis abandoned him as a hopeless crackpot. But he wasn’t going to lie. Not about this, anyway. “It’s insurance,” he muttered.

“Insurance against what?”

Jasper fingered the spines of the books, looking at them to avoid the intensity in Lewis’s eyes. “Insurance against the collapse of Western civilisation. Someone needs to archive all our information, our culture. There’s knowledge there that could be lost forever if I don’t save it. Knowledge that could be useful to people. Help them rebuild society, you know?”

“But there’s the Internet and proper libraries out there for all of that. Why do you need to archive things in your own home?”

“Libraries can burn! They’re targets for rioters. The Internet, that’s only good as long as we have functioning servers and electricity to run our PCs. It’s not a stable form of data storage. Not really. Hard copies are safer. That’s what I’m doing. I’m saving the hard copies. For the future.” There. He’d said it, and now Lewis really would think he was nuts. He’d probably call the men in white coats to take him away.

“Why not keep them in a rented storage unit, though? Why here, in your home?”

“I need to look after them. I’m their…custodian.” That was much better than admitting they were his only real friends, wasn’t it?

“I see.”

Jasper almost didn’t look up, afraid of what he’d see on Lewis’s face. But when he stacked up his courage and did so, Lewis’s smile surprised him. “You are definitely the most organised hoarder I’ve ever encountered. I love that you have a plan.”

“You don’t think I’m mad?”

“Mad? Who’s to say what’s mad? You could have a point. There are plenty of theorists warning us about the collapse of Western civilisation.”

“So…all this…” Jasper gestured around himself. “All this is okay?”

“The answer to that doesn’t lie in whether or not the reasoning behind hanging on to all these books is valid. Only you can answer whether or not it’s okay. Are you happy with living in a house that’s been taken over by books you’re never going to read? That’s the question.”

“Happy?” Had anyone ever really asked him whether or not he was happy? Jasper laid a hand on the nearest stack of books. These books had made him happy, once, when he brought them home with him, but now they were in the way, forcing him now to turn sideways in order to get to his bathroom. Irritation surged down his arm, and he shoved them hard. There was nowhere for them to go, though, wedged in as they were by so many other books. “No. I’m not happy. I can’t get into my living room anymore, and I can’t find anything I want. I’m too embarrassed to invite anyone around here because they’ll see how hopeless and weak-willed I am. Did you know, you’re the first person other than me to set foot in this place for more than six years? I’m not happy. I’m lonely. That’s what I am. I’m really fucking lonely.” The expletive shocked him. He never swore. Mama had washed his mouth out with soap and water the one time he’d unwittingly cursed in front of her.

But Lewis didn’t look shocked. He seemed to be taking it all with the same maddening calm. “Good,” he said.

“Good? I just tell you I’m lonely, and all you have to say is good?”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s good that you’re strongly motivated to change. You can work with that. Get this hoarding beat. And I’m going to help you through it, I promise.”

“Are you going to stop me feeling lonely too?”

Some indecipherable emotion flickered across Lewis’s face, and he turned away, starting gingerly down the stairs. “I’m always there for you, at the other end of the phone. How about I book you in for a session early next week? I can do Monday mornings at nine. And we could stick with this Friday session too, if you like.”

“Mondays are good. I’m on the late shift then, so I don’t go in till twelve.”

“That’s sorted, then. Two hours on a Monday morning, and two on a Friday afternoon. We charge twenty pounds an hour for one of us, and thirty for the two of us when we get into major clear-out mode. You think you can afford that?”

Jasper mentally calculated based on their hourly rate. “Yes, that’s fine. I was expecting it to be more, actually.” In truth, he had enough savings to pay for Lewis to be round all day every day for the next year, but the man probably had other clients depending on him too. Besides, asking for that would look kind of weird and needy.

“Brilliant. I’ll make sure I get that down in the diary. To keep you going till then, though, I’m setting you some homework.”

“Homework? I did your worksheets already.” He’d completed the main questionnaire during his lunch break. “They’re in my bag. See? Amazingly enough, I actually know where they are.”

“Excellent. But this is an extra assignment. I want you to select a book you’re ready to let go of.”

“I already tried that.”

“Oh yes? When?”

“This morning. And I couldn’t do it.” Panic clenched Jasper’s stomach hard. “I’m not ready.”

“Okay. You weren’t ready this morning, but you’ve got the whole weekend ahead of you. I want you to find something in this house that you’re ready to get rid of.”

“What, throw it away? I don’t think I could do that.”

“No, not send it to landfill. Just to release into my safekeeping, and let me decide what to do with it.”

“Will you send it to landfill?”

Lewis just smiled. “That depends on whether it still has any use for anyone else. Not if I can help it, no. I don’t like senseless waste any more than you do.”

Oh.

“Will you do it?” Lewis asked, moving closer and giving Jasper a smile that made him want to promise Lewis anything he wanted, just so long as he kept looking at Jasper in that way. “Just find one thing you can hand over to me next week?”

“I’ll do it,” Jasper promised.

It was only once the front door had clicked shut behind Lewis that Jasper realised the enormity of what he’d promised. Somewhere, in this house full of paper, he had to find something he was willing to let go of. But with so many potential options, how could he ever possibly decide?

Chapter Eight

They’d almost kissed, Lewis was sure of it. As he sat on the bus on the way back home, he played the scene over and over in his head. He’d been standing there in the garden. Jasper moving closer, a question in his eyes. There was no doubt in Lewis’s mind at that moment, spellbound by the sun-drenched, fragrant garden buzzing with insects, he’d have welcomed that kiss.

It would have been intensely stupid, and precisely the kind of thing he had to avoid. That was how all his failed relationships had started: with Lewis unintentionally flirting, capturing the attention of someone he didn’t yet know well enough. And then he’d sleep with them, and if they worked well in bed together, then he’d move in a few days later just to get out of his parents’ unofficial nudist camp. And before he knew it, he was embroiled in a “serious” relationship with a bloke he didn’t necessarily have anything in common with. Oh, sure, the sex was always good, but you couldn’t build domestic harmony on the sole basis of compatibility between the sheets. Compatibility in the rest of the house was every bit as important.

And Lewis most definitely wasn’t compatible with Jasper’s house. The place was a nightmare. He flicked through the photographs on his phone. You couldn’t even tell it was a house. Each picture just looked like a wall of books or stacked newspapers. He paused on the one of Jasper’s bedroom. The bed with its rumpled sheets and pile of clothing was hemmed in by stacks of paperbacks. Even the windowsill behind the bed was piled high, so only a crack of light filtered in at the top.