‘Sounds great,’ I say. ‘Full of Christmas cheer.’
‘Exactly,’ Jess replies.
‘And your mum’s a Conservative voter? That can’t be easy for you.’ Jess is one of the most political people I know. And Conservative, she is not.
‘Yeah,’ Jess says. ‘Mum thinks that voting the same way as rich people somehow makes her one of them. Something like that, anyway.’
‘Right,’ I say.
‘God, I love Bounties,’ Jess says. ‘I wish they’d make them vegan, though, because they do make me feel guilty.’
‘So what about if you took loads of gifts for everyone?’ I say. ‘If you tried to force them to have a proper Christmas? What would happen?’
‘They’d just turn their noses up at whatever I brought,’ Jessica says. ‘Honestly, it’s a no-hoper. It can’t be fixed. I’ve tried.’
By the time we arrive in Bristol, it’s bucketing down. The windscreen wipers are sloshing the rain back and forth, and occasionally lorries coming the other way chuck whole buckets of water in our direction making navigating the city streets, where major roadworks are in progress, anything but easy. Still, at least it isn’t snowing, I suppose. The Peugeot’s thermometer is only reading two degrees, so things could get worse at any minute.
Google Maps, into which Jess has fed the address of our Airbnb, leads us around the edges of the city, and then on south into what appears to be a massive, endless council estate.
Jess, who has taken control of the music, is playing The Cat Empire, her absolute favourite band of the moment. They’re really not my favourite band at all, but due to forced and repeated exposure I’m starting to at least get used to some of the songs. Today, as the grey rainy streets slide past, the contrast between the upbeat ‘Steal The Light’ and everything beyond the windscreen makes it seem like a kind of depressing, post-apocalyptic music video. The kind of thing Ken Loach would produce. If he did music videos, obviously . . .
I glance at Jess’s phone and note that we’re a mere minute away from our destination. ‘Are you sure this is the right address?’ I ask. ‘It’s pretty grim out there.’
‘Yep, definitely!’ Jess says, brightly, and I wonder if we’re even seeing the same thing.
‘I thought Bristol was supposed to be all hipstery and cool,’ I comment, as Mister Google directs me to turn on to Filwood Broadway.
‘I’m guessing that not all of Bristol is,’ Jessica says.
‘And you chose this particular area because . . . ?’
‘Because Zoe chose this particular area,’ Jess says. ‘Plus, the Airbnb is supposed to be really cool.’
‘Right,’ I say, doubtfully.
‘There!’ Jess shrieks, pointing. ‘That’s it.’
I pull over to the side of the road and open Jess’s side window so that we can peer out through the rain. Beyond a high grey spiked fence – the kind they put along railway lines – sits a hefty and quite funky-looking pine-clad Portakabin. It’s bang in the middle of a tatty car park, which itself is behind a run-down-looking community centre. The cabin looks as if it has been beamed down by eco-aliens or something. And it looks like they got their GPS coordinates mixed up and delivered it to completely the wrong place.
‘We can’t stay here,’ I mutter, frowning at Jess.
‘Of course we can,’ she says, and just to prove it, she pushes the door of the car open and steps out into the rain.
After a few minutes fiddling with various combination locks, we have managed to get through the steel gates and into the eco-lodge. It’s basically an ultra-modern, super-insulated one-bed unit, built from wood and straw bales, and triple glazed.
The interior is warm and modern, very Scandinavian-looking, and it’s well furnished and fully equipped with expensive modern appliances. It’s smart and well heated; it feels cosy and chic. The only real mystery is how it ended up in the Filwood Community Hall car park in the first place.
‘It’s lovely,’ Jess says, running one hand across the countertops and then swinging on the door jamb as she makes her way through to the bedroom. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ she calls from the next room. ‘I’d love to live in one of these.’
‘Yeah, just not here,’ I say. I’m peering out through the venetian blinds at a woman with a pushchair who is passing. She looks about eighteen, is soaked to the skin and is vaping aggressively, if such a thing is possible. She seems to detect my presence as she passes and turns to stare straight at me, causing me to duck back behind the blinds, but not before I see her raise her middle finger at me.
I follow Jess through to the bedroom, where she’s bouncing on the edge of the bed contentedly. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’ she says again. ‘A bargain!’
‘It is,’ I agree. ‘Weird place to have it, though.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘But that’s half the fun, right?’
We drag our suitcases in from the car and head out in search of food. As we lock the gates behind us, the rain has almost stopped. I worry that someone is going to key the side of the car. All the other cars in the street are old bangers and our brand-new, bright green Peugeot looks dangerously conspicuous.
We head on foot towards some shops Jess spotted as we drove in, but when we get there we realise that everything is closed. There’s a boarded-up graffitied cinema, a butcher’s, a pharmacy and a Salvation Army shop, all shuttered, apparently permanently.
‘Jesus, what happened here?’ I ask. ‘A nuclear war?’
‘Bad governance,’ Jess says. ‘Unbridled capitalism. The Tories. Take your pick.’
‘Could you have chosen a nicer spot?’ I ask.
‘Hey, half of Britain looks like this these days,’ Jess says.
‘Just not the half I hang out in.’
‘Well, no,’ Jess says. ‘Quite.’
‘Do you think it was ever better?’ I ask. ‘I mean, when Blair was in power, did it actually make any difference?’
‘A bit. But not much, I don’t think,’ Jess says. ‘Perhaps there was a bit more hope back then. People at least had the hope that things might change. But change takes a long time. A long time and a lot of money.’
At the end of the row, we come to the sole surviving shop: a combined newsagent, tobacconist and corner shop. ‘Yay!’ Jess says. ‘I knew there’d be something.’
We say hello to the friendly Asian owner and then scour the shop for vegan food options. There are no fresh vegetables or fruit on sale, just chocolate, white bread and ready meals, so we finally leave with beef-flavoured Pot Noodles, which amazingly Jess says are vegan, plus packets of crisps.
‘So Zoe lived near here?’ I ask, as we walk back towards the community centre. ‘You looked up the address?’
‘Yeah, it’s just up there,’ Jess says, pointing towards the derelict cinema. ‘Or maybe there,’ she says, pointing behind us. ‘I’m a bit confused now.’
‘Classy, my sister,’ I say.
‘I expect she had her reasons,’ Jessica says. ‘Do you know anything about how she ended up in Bristol?’