The Love Shack by Jane Costello Page A

become a granny herself. It’s small and self-contained, with a chalky blue front door flanked by pots of Ferrari-red geraniums. At the front is a bright patio, where Grandma spends summer days reading on the sweetheart bench my grandad made for her fortieth birthday.
    Mum starts banging on the door. ‘MUMMM!’
    ‘Don’t you have a spare key?’ I ask.
    ‘I wanted one , but she seems to think it’d be compromising her independence,’ Mum says, rolling her eyes. ‘I don’t know what she thinks I want to do – break in and do her washing up for her?’
    She bangs again, with no response. ‘I can’t imagine what she could be doing.’ Her hand shoots to her mouth. ‘Oh God, what if something’s happened?’
    This tends to be my mum’s default position. If the cleaning lady’s late, she won’t assume it’s because there are roadworks in the village, but that she’s been kidnapped, held at knifepoint and sold to a human trafficking gang.
    ‘Something won’t have happened,’ I say reasonably. ‘She’ll be playing online Boggle, or have her hearing aid switched off, like you said.’
    ‘She’d have still heard that knocking,’ Mum says. ‘I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit.’
    ‘Dan,’ Gemma turns to me, ‘I think you should climb through a window.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘We’ll give you a leg up,’ Mum offers.
    ‘I don’t need a leg up. She won’t want someone climbing through the window. Look, let me go and see if she’s gone for a walk first. I’ll be five minutes.’
    ‘Five minutes might be too late,’ Mum protests.
    ‘What if poor Flossie has fallen and can’t get to the door?’ Gemma says, her eyes heavy with disappointment in me.
    ‘She won’t have,’ I assure her.
    ‘I can’t believe you’d be so heartless,’ Mum responds.
    ‘I’m not being—’
    Gemma tuts. She’s only been here twenty-three minutes and she actually tuts.
    ‘Okay.’ I hold up my hands. ‘You win.’
    We march round to the kitchen window, which is the biggest, and find that it is open, but with no sign of Grandma. I examine the available space and estimate that a fifteen-year-old ballet dancer couldn’t squeeze her hips through without surgical intervention. ‘I’ll never get through there.’
    ‘Just breathe in,’ Gemma declares, as if this is an issue that could be solved with a pair of Spanx. ‘Here, stand on my hands.’
    ‘Gemma, I’m too heavy.’ I give her my most authoritative glare, to ensure my point is made.
    ‘We’ll both do it,’ Mum says, shuffling into place with her usual bulldozer subtlety.
    This is very obviously a bad idea.
    Yet there’s some perverse sense of macho pride digging at me, refusing to let me walk away. So, with the Mission Impossible soundtrack running through my ears, I shove one size 11.5 shoe on Mum’s hands and another on Gemma’s, pulling myself up as they make these monstrous sounds, like a pair of labouring hippos.
    I get halfway through, my legs out of the window, when I become aware of something.
    There is nothing like knowing that your mother and girlfriend are standing by supportively, watching your heroics in concern and awe, as you face any number of dangers (splinters mainly) without a thought for your own wellbeing.
    And this is nothing like that.
    Both are near incontinent with laughter at the sight of my arse in the air.
    Ignoring their cackles, and the fact that they’ve apparently overcome their concern that this is a life-or-death situation, I shunt through the top window and press my hands on the edge of the sink. Then I straighten my legs and end up recreating a human version of that Mousetrap game – as if someone only need drop a silver ball on my shins to catapult my head into the ceiling.
    Gemma and my mother are now hysterical. I edge through, sweating and panting as I realise there is literally no way down without rupturing a kidney.
    ‘Are you okay, darling?’ asks Gemma, failing to stifle her laughter