The Lonely Fajita

by Abigail Mann

  ‘You don’t fancy getting it out for Craig, then?’ I smile at her and glug some milk into my cup. There’s a clump of lint spinning on the surface of my tea, but I don’t say anything.

  ‘Am I horrible?’ Annie’s rings clink against her teacup as she lifts it to her mouth.

  ‘Well, he’s … very friendly.’

  ‘We’re all ladies here, love. Call him what he is: a right sleazy bastard, is Craig. Something about him … puts me on edge. I figure that if I pretend to go a bit doolally he’ll stop coming round to eat my chocolate biscuits, but he still waltzes in and helps himself, along with leftovers from the fridge.’ Annie catches my expression and continues. ‘Oh yeah, he’ll have the lot. I pretended I’d fallen asleep in the garden chair and he had a very nice time filling that gut of his with my food. Greedy sod.’ Annie sips from her cup whilst resting her elbows on the table. She sucks her cheeks in and taps the table. Her rings clink against the wood and I sit up taller, trying to think of something to say. She fiddles with the thin gold chain around her neck, sliding the catch round to the back, and breathes out through her nose. We look at each other and I smile, but it’s strained and Annie remains passive. ‘Where are you from, love?’

  Ah, this question. A lot of people, especially older people, don’t quite know where to place me. Usually I can tell when it’s asked out of curiosity and when it’s phrased like an accusation. When I moved to the capital, I didn’t stand out so much amongst London’s patchwork community, so it stopped being the first thing I was asked.

  ‘Well, my Mum and Dad were both born here; Mum is half-Welsh, half-English, and Dad is technically from Tristan da Cunha, but his parents came here after the volcano erupted, so—’

  ‘No, I meant whereabouts in London do you live. At the minute.’

  ‘Oh, right! Well, I’m living in Stockwell at the moment.’ For the next week, anyway. ‘And before that I was in Kent.’

  ‘And why do you want to live with an old bird like me?’ says Annie.

  I don’t, is the long and short of it, especially if I’m always going to be this on edge. Come on Elissa, you’ve been through enough interviews to figure out the correct response to questions like this. I’m trying to gain experience in the field of geriatric wellbeing? I have dreams of becoming a carer? I’m on a mission to brew the perfect cup of tea and think that the elderly community is best suited to use as a trial study?

  ‘My boyfriend doesn’t want to live with me and I have nowhere to go because he was the one paying the rent.’

  Annie blinks and her eyes crinkle as a smile pushes up her plump cheeks, revealing a row of starkly white dentures. ‘I think we’ll get on fine here, you and me.’

  ***

  Craig returns a few minutes later and I’m sure I see him bridle when he spots the plate of biscuits between Annie and me.

  ‘How have we got on, ladies?’ says Craig. A small damp patch has spread across the top of his stomach from the exertion it took to visit the house next door.

  ‘Perfectly fine,’ says Annie, in her Yorkshire accent. ‘You tell the people up at ElderCare that I’ll have ’er’. My stomach twists uncomfortably. I take our cups over to the sink and turn the tap on, but Annie flaps her hands at me and gently pushes me out of the way with a bony hip. ‘Go on, I’m sure you’ve got lots to be getting on with today; you don’t want to be hanging round here with a bunch of old codgers on a Saturday!’

  ‘Oh, okay, if you’re sure,’ I say as I wipe my hands on a neatly folded tea towel hooked through the railing of her cream-coloured Aga. ‘See you, Annie.’ The sun breaks through the window and illuminates wisps of her hair like she’s been set alight. ‘It was nice meeting you,’ I say, fulling intending on this being the first and last time. Annie nods without facing me, so I turn around to pick up my coat and scarf, but they’ve disappeared off the back of my chair.

  ‘I’ll see you out, Elissa!’ says Craig from the next room. Annie turns to face me, eyes narrow. ‘Bye, love.’

  Craig is standing next to the front door with my coat between his hands. I really don’t want to put it on when he’s holding it out like this. He’s got a strange look on his face that could seem friendly at first glance, but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. I quickly jab my hands through the arm holes like I’m doing a bizarre karate move, but this makes my jumper gather around my armpits and I end up wriggling on the spot with Craig’s hands pinned on my shoulders, which, it must be very clear to both of us, isn’t helping.

  I take a step forward, my coat half on, and lunge for my tote bag, which I’ve kicked across the floor in an effort to escape from his tentacle grip. When I’ve detached myself, I pull the front door open and step out onto the porch, turning back to say a brief goodbye. A flash of something akin to anger crosses Craig’s face, but he paints a smile back on and strokes the door frame. ‘Alina will be in touch,’ he leaves a beat, ‘about the outcome of today.’

  ‘Okay, thanks, bye!’ I mumble over my shoulder, stumbling as I cross onto the lawn with its perfect lines. Annie’s right. Craig is a bloody pervert. Maybe she only wants me there to stop him from creeping about the place. I pause at the ridiculously ornate archway that leads out onto the cobbled lane and look back at the cottages that encircle the green.

  What a weird experience. Imagine if I ended up living here? I don’t belong, but then again, Annie doesn’t seem like she does either. Not that it’s unbelievable that a brash, wobbly woman from Yorkshire could live in a house with rooms that looked out onto the kind of garden you only see on TV when Alan Titchmarsh trundles around the Chelsea Flower Show. It’s just that Annie didn’t seem like the other people round here, with their trotting dogs and Burberry trench coats. She has absolutely zero pretension and wears a knuckleduster’s worth of gaudy signet rings that I’m sure she didn’t inherit. Her accent is rich and oddly entrancing.

  I read somewhere that adapting your speech patterns is your brain’s way of subconsciously assimilating within a community. I did it all the time when I first came to London, eager to shed my round country burr for a sharper accent that sounded more settled than I felt. Perhaps it hasn’t been like that for Annie. I guess if you don’t want to assimilate, you don’t.

  ***

  I walk back down the cobbled hill and turn right at a lilac café, then cross the road between two antique shops and head down the high street, which has largely emptied since I first walked up.

  When I get to the station, I fish out my Oyster card and hold it against the sensor as normal, but the gate bleeps angrily at me and I bounce off the closed barriers. Already, a person behind me has walked into my back and huffed, like I’ve done it specifically to annoy them. I try again, but once more a red light flashes and the bleep turns into a continuous, ear-splitting alarm. There’s an orchestra of sighs behind me and I hear someone say, ‘Oops, rejected!’ in a plummy accent. They must have assumed they were out of earshot. Or they’re just an arsehole. The queue meanders around me to use the neighbouring gate and I try my contactless bank card as well. Another red light. Fuck. I was sure I had enough money. I got here, didn’t I?

  I check my account on the top-up machine and the worry worm in my stomach turns into a writhing snake. I don’t have the funds to get back on the tube, and after dashing to an ATM, the prognosis looks bleak. If I squint really hard, it looks like I’ve got over £1000 in my account, but the minus sign in front of it says otherwise. I must have got my dates mixed up, because according to my statement I haven’t had any money come in since last month. What Mitchell refers to as my ‘expenses’ works out to around £100 a week, but it’s a completely arbitrary amount based on literally nothing, as he doesn’t ask me to submit receipts. Essentially, I’m paid a quarter of the national minimum wage. I groan.

  I go through a list of travel options in my head that all involve a level of risk or outright criminality, in order to get back to central London. I could order a car through an app and then bail at traffic lights before
they charge me, but I don’t trust my ability to do that without getting mown down on the North Circular. I could walk, but it’d take at least two hours and I’m wearing these awful shoes that rub my toes into raw nubbins.

  Tonight, Suki is going to assume I’m up for a big night out and she’s not wrong in the slightest. I really, really want to drink a whole load of vodka cranberry mixers and dance to Beyoncé in a place where you won’t get bothered by men looking for an easy hook-up, but I have no idea how I’m going to pay for it.

  I’d like to get through a day without crying in public. I push down the familiar prickles in my throat and blink up at the sky. I’ve got one more option. My last option. Propped outside the station is a row of clunky bicycles locked into a quick release stand. I’ve got just enough money to take one out.

  Chapter 10

  By some stroke of fortune, after I tangled my bag in the spokes and veered off down the steps into Trafalgar Square to avoid colliding with a rickshaw, I end up in Spitalfields market. I clunk the bike into a free stand, thus ending my Tour de London and, with it, my heart palpitations. I walk past painted steel girders between empty market stalls and skirt around a queue of people lined up outside a posh chippie. Although Suki has said I can head over to her place before we go out, I’m not sure she’s expecting me four hours early. Maggie is meeting us at Snatch with Martin, although I’m not sure he knows what he’s letting himself in for. He’s never witnessed a room full of women singing along to ‘No Scrubs’ by TLC. It’s really quite powerful. I consider lingering in a bookshop, but at this point I’m dying to sit somewhere that doesn’t come with an obligation to buy something. There’s only so many places you can nurse a cup of tea for whole afternoons before you’re blacklisted from the coffee shops of East London.

  I reach a grubby glass door just off Falkirk Street, fitted with four long metal bars and papered with flyers for grime nights and a travelling circus (do they still exist?). I’ve never been inside Suki’s place, although I’ve seen her slip down this road when I’ve veered off to meet Tom and his boring colleagues in the bars beneath the financial towers of the City. I’d always assumed it was one of those communal warehouse-living situations, where the walls are made from MDF partitions and polygamy comes as part of the tenancy agreement.

  I double-check the address on my phone and examine the keypad. Someone once told me that drunkards piss on the ‘wait’ button at traffic lights and ever since then I’ve been slightly paranoid about touching buzzers. I pull my sleeve over my finger and press. No answer. I press it again, holding it in this time. Still no answer. Stepping back onto the pavement, I look up, but it’s unclear which part of the building is office space and which is housing. I’m about to press the buzzer once more when Suki’s voice echoes around the concrete alcove.

  ‘Hello?’

  I can’t see where the microphone is, so I sort of shout near the buttons. ‘Suki? It’s me! I’m really early, sorry! Long story!’

  ‘Elissaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Evannnnnnnnsssssss,’ she yells, as though announcing a WWE wrestler. A group of puffer-jacket-wearing hipsters look over as Suki’s voice booms into the street. ‘Sure, babe, I’ll buzz you up! I was sort of in the middle of something, if you know what I mean—’

  ‘Suki!’ interjects a voice from the background.

  ‘Just pull the door, babe!’ A whirring sound, like an amplified mosquito, cuts through. Hmm, maybe I should linger in the hallway to give Suki some time to put her pants on?

  ‘Up here!’ shouts Suki from the top of the stairs. She’s waving at me from over the banister, an oversized T-shirt hanging off one shoulder. I plod to the top floor and when I reach the landing, she swings an arm across my shoulders, kicking open her front door with a bare foot.

  ‘No trousers Saturday?’ I say.

  ‘No trousers Shag-er-day, my friend.’

  I raise my eyebrows. ‘Lucky you!’

  ‘Oh yeah, lucky me! Jazz does this thing where she puts her leg round my …’

  We move into her flat and I forget to keep listening. Suki’s place is just about the coolest thing I’ve seen outside of an Urban Outfitters. There’s so much air and space and light; light that comes in at an angle through the three warehouse windows that line the wall. It’s essentially a huge open-plan room with a bathroom tucked next to the front door and a bed space that sits on a split-level platform. A spiral staircase leads up to it and a number of trailing houseplants tumble from each ascending step.

  A girl who must be Jazz (although it’s never safe to assume) gently glides back and forth on a swing that’s hooked to a ceiling girder, her toes brushing against the floorboards. Suki walks over and slips her into an embrace, smacking a noisy kiss on the girl’s cheek that makes her giggle. ‘This is Jazz. Jazz, Elissa.’

  Jazz has a voice that tips one word into another, like some of the girls I knew at uni who studied art and took a lot of MDMA at the weekends. ‘Elissa, hey! Cool scarf!’

  ‘Er, thanks!’ I’d knitted it, badly, about five years ago and I’m not sure it’s ever seen the inside of a washing machine. Thank God for the trend of ‘clothes so bad the charity shop won’t have them’.

  ‘Oh, hang on, you’re the vagina girl, right?’ She looks up for confirmation to Suki, who clenches her teeth in an admittance of guilt. I already like Jazz less than her predecessor.

  ‘Sorry, babe, Jazz overheard.’

  I sigh and drape my coat over the kitchen counter. ‘I really hope that doesn’t become my identifier.’

  ‘No, no, it’s funny! I thought it was hilarious!’ Well, I’m glad the girlfriend Suki’s had for five minutes knows about my ‘hilarious’ fanny too. Brilliant.

  ‘I’m just gonna jump in the shower, be back in a min,’ Jazz says, gently removing Suki’s hands from her stomach and glancing coyly over her shoulder as she pulls a towel from the banister. When she’s gone, Suki puffs her cheeks out in exhaustion and rubs her hands together in glee.

  ‘Mate. She’s wild.’

  ‘She’s something.’

  ‘Beer?’

  ‘Yeah, go on then.’

  We sit on the sofa beside one of the windows where dusk, or more likely light pollution, has turned the sunlight into the beautiful pink and orange tones of early evening. Suki clinks the cap off a bottle of beer by smacking it down on the edge of her coffee table.

  ‘Four pounds from IKEA and not a chip. Amazing,’ she says as she passes the bottle to me. ‘So, what’s the deal with that twat Tom? And before you say “nothing”, you’ve barely spoken about him in the past few weeks, so don’t bother lying.’ Suki tucks a leg underneath her and swigs, holding her bottle by the neck.

  ‘I haven’t heard from him since he left. I don’t think I will, either. He’s a thousand miles away and surrounded by girls who use glitter like body lotion. I doubt he’s thinking about me.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds dangerous.’

  ‘Does it?’

  Suki ignores my question. ‘Are you guys okay, though?’

  ‘Yeah? Like … I mean, yeah. We’re fine. Still trundling along. He’s been out a lot recently and … well, the next few months are going to be weird.’ I sigh and trace my teeth with my tongue.

  ‘Weird how?’

  I tell Suki about Shamaya’s thinly veiled eviction notice, and Tom’s subsequent reluctance to move somewhere else with me. She doesn’t interrupt but listens with her head tipped back.

  ‘I don’t want to freak him out and force him to live with me in a flat he hates. If we have to live apart for a while before finding somewhere new together, it won’t be all bad. At least I’ll know I won’t be coming home to him rather than it being a surprise.’

  I glance up at Suki, not knowing how to articulate what I’m feeling.

  ‘I’m gonna be honest with you, babe: what you just said was really depressing. The way you talk about Tom? I’ve had stronger feelings for a houseplant.’

  Tom and I never really spoke about our emotions, not towards
each other, anyway. It was a norm we established at the beginning. He always struck me as the kind of kid who was never hugged as a child. He saved affection for special occasions, or performed it ironically. I met Tom during a temping stint at a literacy charity, in the long days of being ignored by my colleagues whilst the kettle boiled. I recognised him from alcopop-fuelled sports socials at university, but then he carried business cards, whereas I scanned the ‘reduced’ aisle at Tesco for sort-of-fresh food. His firm offered free consultancy to barely functioning charities, which is how I ‘booked’ him for a twenty-minute slot that mainly consisted of me staring at his sharp jawline. He has always been serious and assertive, so it was easy to say yes when he asked me out and easier still when he said it was ‘okay if I wanted to move in with him’. He was radically consistent, which was wildly attractive to me. It’s no surprise he doesn’t want to break a lease.

  ‘Truthfully, do you really love him?’ Suki rests her chin on her hand.

  I hesitate and swallow a mouthful of beer. My words are so close to my mouth, if I don’t say it now they’ll fight their way out later when I’m pissed and less coherent. ‘What if the problem’s not that me and Tom don’t “love each other”,’ I say in a silly voice, ‘because we get on great, usually. It’s more that … I’m not sure I can feel … that. For anyone.’ I drink some beer, my bottom lip quivering. Suki furrows her brow.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Of course you can. If you haven’t felt it yet, it’s no big deal.’ She sits up and pulls a cushion behind her back. ‘Look, you and Tom … I don’t know, it might just be a thing you’re going through, but it doesn’t sound normal. I’m not saying he’s a shit. Not a Patrick Bateman level of shit, but still. You fancied him at one point, right?’ I nod pathetically. ‘And when you move in with someone it feels like your relationship is moving forward, when maybe it’s not. You are allowed to change your mind. How long were you together before you moved in?’