After his meeting with Ian, Jackson drove to Paradise Pines, where he was living with his mum, Cilla. He wasn’t going to tell her about the deal, because she wouldn’t approve.
He hated the park. It was a lie. It was advertised as some sort of heavenly haven for the over fifty-fives. ‘Your own little slice of paradise: peace and tranquillity in the Cotswold countryside.’
It was a dump.
Never mind the rusting skip in the car park, surrounded by untaxed cars and wheelie bins and the mangy Staffie tied up in the corner that represented the ‘security’ promised in the brochure (‘peace of mind twenty-four hours a day, so you can sleep at night’).
He slunk past the Portakabin where Garvie, the site manager, sat slurping Pot Noodles and watching porn on his laptop all day. Garvie was supposed to vet visitors, but Ted Bundy could have floated past arm in arm with the Yorkshire Ripper and Garvie wouldn’t bat an eyelid. He was also supposed to take deliveries for the residents, deal with their maintenance enquiries and be a general all round ray of sunshine for them all to depend upon. Instead he was a malevolent presence who reminded each resident that he was all they deserved.
Garvie was obese, with stertorous breathing, and smelt like the boy at school no one wanted to sit near. He turned Jackson’s stomach. Cilla said she was fond of him, but Cilla liked everyone. She had no judgement where people were concerned.
Jackson wondered how he could have turned out so differently from his mother. He didn’t like anyone. Not at the moment, anyway.
Except Finn, of course. And Wolfie.
He ploughed on along the ‘nature trail’ that led to his mother’s home. It was an overgrown path with a very thin layer of bark to guide you. There was no nature apparent, though more than once Jackson had seen a rat scuttle into the nearby undergrowth. He should let Wolfie loose up here one day, even though you were supposed to keep dogs on a lead on the site. He would have a field day, routing out the vermin. But there was no point. The residents left their garbage rotting. The rats would be back in nanoseconds.
The fencing that surrounded the little patch of grass belonging to each home was rotting and the grass itself was bald and patchy. There were lamp-posts lighting the paths, but hardly any of them worked, and the hanging baskets hanging from them trailed nothing but weeds.
Maybe it had been all it had proclaimed in its brochure once upon a time. Maybe the grass had been lush and manicured; the grounds tended immaculately. Maybe the owners had taken pride in their own homes.
Jackson had felt utter despair the day his mother told him what she had done. She had been conned. Taken into a show home and given a glass of cheap fizzy wine and bamboozled by a spotty youth in a cheap suit and white socks, who had convinced her this was the best place for her to invest her savings. She’d had a fair old nest egg, Cilla, because she’d always been a saver. And Jackson was shocked by her naiveté. Couldn’t she see the park homes would lose value the minute the ink was dry on the contract? Couldn’t she see the management fee was laughably high? Couldn’t she see that the park owners had absolutely no incentive to keep their promises once all the homes were leased? As a scam it was genius. But it made him sick to his stomach that his mother was now going to be forced to live out her days here. No one wanted to buy on Paradise Pines. Word was that you went there to die. It was one step away from the graveyard.
And now here he was, living with her in the place he had come to hate. It had only been supposed to be temporary. When Mia had first thrown him out, two years ago, when Finn was three, he had thought it wouldn’t be long before she allowed him back. He knew now he’d been useless, but he just hadn’t been ready to be a dad. It had been a shock, the realisation that a baby was there round the clock. It had been too easy for him to slide out of his share of the childcare, coming home late from work, stopping off at the pub on the way, having a few too many beers.
And to be fair to him, Mia had changed. Motherhood had made her overanxious, sharp. She fussed over Finn too much, and Jackson told her repeatedly to stop worrying. It had caused a lot of friction between them. He spent more and more time out of the house, not wanting to come back to arguments and disapproval and crying (usually Finn’s, sometimes Mia’s). He tried to do his best but somehow he always managed to end up displeasing her. So it seemed easier to stay out of her way.