Chapter 6

6

Jeffrey

Jeffrey checked his appearance in the rear-view mirror as his car parked itself alongside the grass verge outside the New Northampton house. He was clean-shaven, teeth recently bleached and eyebrows tamed with nail scissors. He licked his fingers and patted down a clump of hair on his crown that insisted on growing vertically no matter the product he slathered it in. First impressions always counted.

His stomach had been churning like a tumble dryer for much of the journey to a town he’d actively avoided for sixteen years. And with good reason. This is where it had all ended and begun.

Based on their photographs, the couple living in this modern-build home in an unfamiliar addition to the town, were intimidatingly handsome. Jeffrey, however, knew that he was not. He was neither attractive nor unattractive and he’d often wondered if Mother Nature had been side-tracked midway through his creation. It was only in his teens and when he was left with the scar around the socket of his right eye that people began to remember him. But when surgery had made it almost invisible, so was he again. He had, however, inherited the genetically muscular physique of his father and grandfather, along with their physical strength. The latter had come in useful on more than one occasion.

He looked at his watch – it was time to reprise his role as a Relationship Responder. Four years ago, Jeffrey had been one of the youngest applicants accepted in the training programme. And following a rigorous nine-month Government-funded course, he’d sailed through his exams. A probationary period had involved counselling a real-life couple under the tutelage of an experienced instructor before, finally, he’d practised solo. He had never looked back or returned to the half-light of the margins.

Jeffrey turned to look more closely at the property where he was to spend the coming weeks. As with five other towns and cities across the country, billions of pounds of Government regeneration funding, demolition, rebuilding and gentrification had created a territory only for those who had signed up to the Sanctity of Marriage Act. This was a starter home for a newly married couple. And it was Jeffrey’s job to decide if this was where their marriage would also end.