Day 83

Thursday May 13

On our first 13th of the month together, which was March, we almost killed a cat. On the 13th of the next month broke her ankle, throwing all our plans into chaos. I wonder what will happen on this one. Surely we’re due a good one, if for no other reason than to balance out yesterday.

We’re up at 8am and at 8:30, just like Craig said, we call the mechanic. He goes against all Paul’s pessimism and promises they will have the car ready today. We’ll see, but right now I’m happy to take his word for it. We chill around for a bit, try to call a few house prospects but get either no answer or no luck, then at 12 we have to check out. In the meantime I call Paul and he says he’ll be here sometime around 4pm.

So at 12, all packed, we leave the hotel and find ourselves out on the street. We’re in a pleasant enough seaside pedestrian area called New Brighton but today is not a day for daytrips in the sun. It’s raining and a little bit chilly. And we’re out in this and homeless. And Covid restrictions are still in place, meaning we can’t even go inside anywhere to warm up. Not a library, not a cafe, not even a bar. Bars are open, but for outside table service only. We do the only thing one can do in such a situation. We go to the seaside promenade shops and get donuts. The kind that are made right there as you order them. They really are quite wonderful and we go and find a bench on a covered bandstand and settle down with our hot sugary paper bag.

This done and we call Cris. Last night, once he’d decided to believe us, and once he’d got over the shock, he offered to pay for the repair of the clutch. We don’t mention the cost of a call-out, or the cost of the hotel. It’s a well meaning, genuine gesture and I know he’s horrified and thought he’d done everything he could to prevent anything bad happening. A clutch repair is no small financial thing so yes, we’ll be grateful to accept a reimbursement for that alone.

Well, we’re on the seaside, so once the donuts are done, we might as well go for a seaside walk. There is an interesting looking fort type building and we think we might go and have a look at that, but closed. Of course it is. So we take a casual walk along the seaside edge and pretend it’s not raining. During this we try to call a few more house calls. Nope. Nothing.

We reach the end of the promenade and we’ve come to one of those newly built shopping arcade areas. The ones with a cinema and bowling and stuff. My phone rings. It’s a guy called Adrian calling from the house Maja emailed late Tuesday night and which she apologised for doing so Wednesday morning. He says he’s had a few viewings but he likes the short story we presented of ourselves on our email to him; all our emails have also included links to our website so people can really see what we’re about. It seems he’s actually gone that extra little bit and bothered to have a look. On the phone now we get into a bit of a chat and I tell him a little of what’s happened and a few encouragingly sympathetic sounds and words come back. I go for it now and say that our ferry leaves at 10 tonight. We’ll be in Northern Ireland around 6 the next morning and can be at his house sometime late morning, however long it takes to drive there. I promise we will absolutely be there. Would he give us a guarantee that the house is ours if we turn up as promised? He mulls this over and I almost break the phone from holding onto it so tight in suspense. Maja can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but she definitely has the gist of it. She’s also looking at me in the highest of anticipations. The silence seems to go on forever and I don’t want to break it and break this guy’s thoughts. I just have to wait to see what comes back. His thinking done and he replies. Yes. Yes I can do that. See you at 12 more or less. Oh thankyou. Thankyou very very much. I hang up and me and Maja hug tightly but not yet in celebration. But finally finally, we do have a destination. And hope. Realistic hope. 

Almost as soon as I hang up on that call Paul calls. He couldn’t have timed it more perfectly. He’s ten minutes away so it’s off to the pub where we’ll meet. We did have a little check on bars in the area on our walk earlier and so have our location all staked out. We tell him what it is and make our way there. 

The three of us all arrive at pretty much the same time and just manage to get the last table under the awning. Yep, it’s still raining. Him and Maja have a big hello then we sit down and have lunch while Paul hears a little more of how we got here, and the big news of our last phone call just a few minutes ago, not that anyone’s completely relaxing just yet.

While we’re here, we have a look at the map and think about where we want to cross into the Republic from Northern Ireland. There’s no hard border but we still want to avoid any stops from anyone. We just don’t want to flaunt that we’re trying to move there, especially given the fact we don’t have an actual address to give, which we know is one of the requirements when entering a country during these Covid times. We are still homeless. So we don’t want to cross the border at the first opportunity, instead we plot a route across Northern Ireland, planning to plunge south deeper into the country.

Final leg planned and we continue our joyous hang and catchup until we become aware it’s painfully close to 5pm and the garage still hasn’t called. I have been in touch sporadically but with no real news. Then at 4.30 my phone rings and it is the mechanic. Our car is ready. Wow. Guys, we have to leave. Like, right now. We finish our teas and cokes and Paul drives us to the garage where the mechanics lead us to the newly repaired car. As we’re doing this, one of them comes out with the broken clutch that was the cause of all our problems yesterday. ‘How far did you say you got on this?’ he asks. ‘A hundred and fifty miles give or take. About two and a half hours.’ All around us are small gasps of wonder and appreciation. I’m almost surprised they don’t break out in applause for Maja’s feat of determination and concentration. ‘It doesn’t seem possible,’ one of them says. Yes, we had a massive rev count somewhere in the detour that started all this, but they are emphatic in pointing out that this clutch is worn out to oblivion. ‘No way this happened in one incident,’ one of them says. ‘This is clear wear over a long period of time. Basically, you guys had no chance.’ Wow. And now it can even be confirmed that even if we had made it to the ferry, with all the stopping and starting and attendant clutch work in such a situation, the car would have just broken down right there in the queue. We were never going to get on that ferry. So really, just as well it stopped us when it did is the conclusion. 

We get in the car now and Maja has a quick go at driving it and is almost hysterical with joy at how different the clutch feels. ‘It’s like driving a brand new car,’ she declares. ‘Thankyou thankyou thankyou.’ While she’s speaking to the guys and they’re still in wonder at that incredible feat of driving, the payment gets processed and we’re ready to be on our way with one last thankyou. As our two car procession leaves the forecourt, they close and lock the gates behind us, while happily waving to us, their day having ended on such a positive note. Wow. We really did just make it in time. There’s still another few hours till we have to be at the dock, so we stop off for another cup of tea or two at a lovely countryside looking bar with a decent sized garden.

About 7pm we say our goodbyes to Paul and head off to the dock. Once on board, Maja takes charge of finding us a spot for the night and finds a lovely sofa type thing against a wall facing the front. This is as good as it gets, she says. Yep. It’s very comfortable and will definitely do.

On February 26, day seven, we each made a list of the things we would have have to accomplish just in order to be able to be together: ‘As an entire list, it’s impossible. Just impossible,’ I wrote at the time. ‘There’s no other word for it. We are totally deluding ourselves if we think we’re going to get that lot ticked off and somehow sail into the sunset.’

And now, here we are on day 83, Thursday May 13, 2021

It’s still daylight when we find our little area and settle down with something of a spark of hope. That hope, of actually having a house to go to, of having a home to go to, lies with a man we have never met, and with whom we have no written agreement. We are leaping into the wide blue yonder with nothing to land our feet on. But when we get to where we’re going, we believe we’ll find something there. When we do get to that house, and if Adrian does keep his word to us, it will mean that after everything we’ve faced up to, including last night’s actual breakdown, we will have ticked off our impossible lists. With rising feelings of almost overwhelming relief, tinged with a bit of realistic caution, we settle down on our sofa and gaze out of the window at the slowly moving city skyline. As the ship leaves the dock, we are literally sailing into the sunset.