by Les Rolt
*****
The cab ride from his flat in Balham to her shared house in Streatham was a short one. Lucy occupied a large double-room in a converted loft at the top of an old Victorian redbrick house. The conversion had cost the place its character, and the locks on all the bedrooms gave Sam a sense of uneasiness.
“How many people live in this place?” He asked as they climbed the staircase.
“There’s four of us,” Lucy replied. “And we all get along fine.”
“What about the kitchen and the bathroom?”
“What about them?”
“Doesn’t it get annoying having to share? What if someone uses all the hot water, or eats someone else’s food?”
“Jesus Sam, you’ve been living alone for a long time, haven’t you.”
“I just don’t know why anyone would want to share a house.”
“I don’t know how anyone can afford not to share a house in South London. You own your place right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got no idea how anyone in their twenties could get together a deposit to buy a place.”
“Someone left me some money.”
“Lucky you.”
“Lucky me,” Sam replied.
Lucy turned the key in the lock and Sam followed her into the bedroom. There were clothes all over the floor; it wasn’t at all how Sam had expected it to be. It was a far larger room, with a double bed in the centre covered in satin sheets and a wardrobe opposite neatly stood between the two sloping sides of the roof. In his mind, he’d imagined going for office drinks and returning to her place, but he’d pictured a small single room, a single bed, perhaps a chest of drawers and little else.
“Can you grab that case?” Lucy asked pointing towards the top of the wardrobe.
Sam pulled down the leopard-print suitcase.
“You don’t seriously travel with this, do you?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Everything.”
“Well, when we’re picking up our stuff from the baggage claim, I’ll spot my bag straight-away whilst you struggle looking at all the tags of the dozens of black suitcases passing by.”
“That’s actually a pretty good idea.” Sam said, acknowledging her ingenuity.
“Here, take this.” Lucy said, passing him a leopard print scarf. “Tie it round the handle of your luggage and it’ll be a lot easier to spot.”
“Thanks.” He replied, tucking it into his pocket as Lucy opened the suitcase on her bed and begun packing.
“So how come you don’t have any photos?”
“I do,” Lucy replied.
“Where?” He asked, looking around the room.
“Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.”
“That doesn’t count.”
Sam perched himself on the side of the bed, and begun flicking through a magazine, occasionally looking up to catch glimpses of Lucy carefully folding items and placing them in her bag. It had never dawned on him how little space women’s clothes could take up.
“So what happens if you and your boyfriend do break up?”
“We have broken up.”
“Okay, well if it stays permanent. Are you just going to delete all the photos of him from Facebook?”
“Some of them, maybe. I don’t know.”
“Not so easy letting go of the past, is it.”
Lucy glared at him, before continuing to pack her bag.
“So how did you meet, you and your ex-wife?”
“Nancy. Her name was Nancy. Do you really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
“I don’t know, it was a long time ago – it doesn’t matter now.” Sam said, reflecting on a story he hadn’t shared in some time.
“She obviously meant something to you Sam. Otherwise, you wouldn’t still have photos of her in your apartment.”
“She did mean a lot to me.”
“How long since she left you?”
“It’s been almost three years.”
“Jesus, Sam! Three fucking years and you still have photos in your apartment!”
“Like I said, they’re sentimental.”
“So how did you meet?”
Sam picked up a small teddy bear that was perched upon the pillow and held it in his hands, staring down at it as if he were telling the story to the small, inanimate object.
“It was towards the end of the summer, about four years back. Those dog days when it’s still warm enough to not bother with a jacket. It was late, well late for me, somewhere between last orders and the last train home. I had that junk food craving you get after a few drinks; I’d stopped off at McDonalds and was just sat at a bench on one of the platforms at London Bridge waiting for my train home. There I was with my Big Mac and fries when this girl came and sat down next to me. Dirty-blonde hippy hair, and freckles. She broke the ice, told me that my food smelt good – I offered her a chip. It really was as simple as that.”
“Did you take her home?”
“No.”
“You asked for her number though, right?”
“We chatted for a while, and when her train arrived she grabbed me by the hand, pulled a pen from her pocket and scribbled her number down on my palm.” He said, holding his hand up and staring down at it as if the numbers were still visible. “As soon as the train pulled away and drifted out of sight, I punched the number into my phone. There was no way I was going to risk taking a shower and watching my chances with her wash down the drain.”
“So what went wrong?”
Before Sam could reply, the sound of Lucy’s mobile interrupted the moment. She pulled it from her pocket, staring down at it, before ignoring the call and stuffing it into her purse.
“Was that him? Your boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend.”
“Was that him?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t want to talk to him?”
“I’ve got nothing to say to him.”
“Fair enough.”
“Can you take this downstairs for me? I just need to grab a few bits from the bathroom.”
Sam picked up the leopard-print bag and headed towards the door; Lucy headed into the bathroom. Hastily, she stuffed her essentials into her wash-bag, before turning to open the door and halting suddenly, staring at the pedal bin. Kneeling down, she opened it and dug out the pregnancy test she had taken the night before, the two lines still visible. Placing it into her pocket, she headed downstairs.