by Sara Barnard
Part of me wants to stop in to Dilys’s room again, tell her what I remembered. She’d squeeze my hand and look at me with kind eyes, and that would help. But I came here to be supportive for her, not the other way around. I’ll tell her next time, not now. I’ll tell her when the memory – and the shock of remembering – has lost its sting.
Instead, I head out of the building, waving at Ines on reception as I go, and pull out my phone. ‘Hey,’ I say when Sarah picks up. ‘Can I come over?’
20
‘Keep Breathing’
Ingrid Michaelson
The good thing is that I don’t spiral. I take the memory, exploded into my head, and deal with it, talking it through with Sarah and then Erin, my counsellor. This is progress, I decide. I can be blindsided by my own repressed memories and not fall apart. A small victory, but one that matters.
December arrives as the weather turns icy cold, and I learn how bad my flat is at retaining heat. Looking through my clothes for the best layering options, I find Matt’s hoodie, the one I’d stolen from his hotel in Hastings. It’s big enough that it fits me whatever I’m wearing underneath so I snuggle into it, happily, every evening I’m alone. Rosie and I finally pin down a time for me to come and visit her in Norwich, and her excitement when we talk about it on the phone is enough to chase away my nerves that it’ll go the same way as Warwick.
Everything is going pretty great, all things considered, and I’m washing up at the sink, thinking idly about how I need to book the coach to Norwich, when the water from the tap slows to a useless trickle.
‘Great,’ I mutter, turning the handle ineffectually, trying the hot and then the cold with no success. I stand there for a moment, chewing my lip, then drop to my knees and open the cupboard door under the sink. It’s the first time I’ve opened this particular cupboard since moving in, and I take in the collection of dusty cleaning products, presumably left behind by the previous tenant, before moving them aside.
I have no idea what I’m doing, but I gamely run my hand over the length of the piping, trying to figure out what the problem could be. A blockage somewhere, right? My fingers are suddenly wet. Ah. I lean into the cupboard, trying to find the source. I can see water leaking out from the edge of some kind of gluey gunk, which is spread around what looks like a valve in a pipe. Someone has obviously tried fixing this problem before.
I’m wondering whether I should send a whiny email to my letting agency, fiddling with the site of the leak in a vague attempt to see if I can stop it, when it happens. Something gives under my fingers and a jet stream of water explodes out from under the sink, hitting me full force in the face.
Obviously, I scream. And then I panic.
The thing is, the water won’t stop. No matter how much I shriek and flail at the pipes with my hands, it just keeps gushing. I’m drenched. The floor is drenched. The bottles of cleaning products are swimming in the growing lake on the kitchen floor.
‘Stop – just – fucking—’ I manage to get a hold of two pipes and hold them together, which does next to nothing. There’s water everywhere. And it’s still coming.
Turn the water off. That’s what I should do. I wipe my wet hands on my soaking jeans and run to the boiler. How do you turn water off? Is that even what I’m meant to do? I run back into the kitchen and grab my phone from where I’d left it on the counter. I try Sarah and Brian, but it goes to voicemail both times. Who else can I call? I scroll through my contacts, my heart thundering. There’s no one. No one I can call for this kind of panic. This is what parents are for, isn’t it? This is when I would call my dad, if I was a normal nineteen-year-old. But I can’t call my dad.
The impulse is still there, though. I still want to call him. How crazy is that?
The water is cold against my bare feet. I’m in tears. I try Kel, but he doesn’t pick up. For a ridiculous second I seriously consider calling Caddy and asking her if I can call her dad, but dismiss it. I have some pride.
I google ‘how to turn water off’ and find entries about stop valves and turning them clockwise or anticlockwise. I google ‘how to find stop valve’ and wade through several entries telling me to find it ‘before an emergency’ before I learn that it’s probably under the sink.
It’s not under the sink.
The water is splashing up at my ankles. I’m crying and swearing at my phone. Why don’t they teach you how to do adult things at school? Why waste all that time on algebra and the periodic table when they don’t even teach you basic plumbing?
I finally locate the stop valve behind the boiler, and it’s so stiff I blister my hands trying to turn it off, but eventually I do. The water flow in the kitchen slows and then, finally, stops.
And then my phone rings.
‘Hey, kid,’ Brian says cheerfully. ‘What’s up?’
‘The pipe burst!’ I shout, too frazzled to even pretend to be calm. ‘There’s water everywhere!’
‘Oh,’ Brian says. There’s a pause. ‘Shit.’
I wait, but he doesn’t elaborate. ‘What should I do?’ I prompt. I watch as the water begins to seep over the linoleum and on to the carpet.
‘Turn the water off?’
‘I’ve done that.’
‘Uh … call a plumber?’
‘It’s eight o’clock!’
‘Call an emergency plumber?’
‘Brian!’ My voice is squeaky. ‘You’re not helping!’
‘I’m two hundred miles away, Zanne.’ He doesn’t sound even the slightest bit sad about this. ‘What do you want me to do?’
Be a better brother. ‘Oh, forget it,’ I snap, and hang up. I know this isn’t very fair of me; of all the things I could give him a hard time about, not being able to fix my broken pipe from 200 miles away is a pretty stupid complaint. But still.
I google ‘emergency plumbers Brighton’ through the blur of more tears and open the first result to load. When I call the number, the very nice woman on the other end of the phone assures me that Gary will be with me in half an hour. I think she can tell I’ve been crying.
Gary actually arrives in twenty minutes, and it’s not until I’ve opened the door and let him in that I realize what I must look like. I haven’t even changed out of the clothes I got drenched in, and my make-up-less face must be blotchy with tears. I almost want to say, This isn’t how I usually look. This isn’t how I usually am, but instead I stutter out an explanation about the pipe and lead him to the sink.
I stand at the edge of the kitchen area, playing with my sleeves and trying not to hiccup too loudly, as he kneels before the sink to investigate. Gary is in his fifties, tall and round, with kind eyes and a reassuring smile. While he works, he tells me about his daughter, Phoebe, who is around my age. She’s at university, the first in their family to go. She has a nut allergy, and he worries about her.
Before he leaves, he takes my email address and tells me that they’ll send me an invoice tomorrow. ‘Isn’t it my landlord that pays?’ I ask, suddenly panicked.
‘In that case, just send the invoice on to them,’ he says. ‘So long as we get paid, we don’t much mind who’s doing the paying.’ He smiles at me. ‘Just give us a call if you have any more trouble.’
When he’s gone, I’m left standing alone in the bedsit, looking at the mess. The water has soaked into the carpet, spreading out halfway across the floor. The kitchen floor is still sopping wet. No one is going to come and clean this up for me, and I don’t even have a mop. Don’t cry.
I do anyway.
It’s not until the next day that I find out my mistake.
‘If you call out a tradesperson without our express approval, we aren’t liable for the cost of the repair,’ the guy who answers the phone explains. His name is Karl.
‘So … who pays it?’ I ask, stupidly.
‘You,’ Karl says.
Panic like a punch. My voice comes out shrill. ‘It’s over a hundred quid!’
‘It’s company policy,’ he says, but he’s already distant, like he’s
not even listening to me. Or, worse, like he is listening to me, but I’m not even registering as an actual person, just a problem he wants to be done with.
‘What was I supposed to do?’ I try to say. ‘There was water everywhere.’
‘Contact us first,’ Karl says. ‘It’s in your contract. You should have turned the water off and then called us, so we could send a plumber from our approved list of tradespeople.’
‘It was out of hours.’
‘That’s why we have an emergency number,’ he says, overly patiently. ‘This is all in the contract you signed.’
‘But …’ I bite down on my lip, forcing myself to not get worked up. ‘It’s the same amount of money, isn’t it? So, OK, it was a mistake, and I’ll know next time. But can’t you just let it go, this time?’
‘It’s company policy. I’m sorry.’
‘What if it means I can’t pay my rent?’
There’s a pause. ‘Well, then we’ll have another problem,’ Karl says. When I don’t reply, he says, ‘Are you telling me you won’t be able to pay your rent?’
‘No,’ I say, and I hear how sulky I sound, even though what I feel is panicky.
‘OK. Call us if that changes. Can I help you with anything else?’
I hang up without answering. My throat is so tight. £125. One hundred and twenty-five freaking quid. I feel sick. My hands are actually shaking. How am I going to pay that much money? How?
I’ve tried to be careful with my money. I’ve been budgeting, for God’s sake, with a spreadsheet and everything. I’ve actually been proud of myself for being sensible with my money, paying my bills, not getting behind on rent. See, I’d even thought. See how well I cope?
And now that’s all been for nothing, because for all my monitoring of my incomings and outgoings, all my carefully scheduled direct debits, I do not have £125 spare. I just don’t. The money simply doesn’t exist.
Oh God, life is so hard. It’s so hard. Is it this hard for everyone?
But no. No. I’m not going to panic about this. What good would that do, anyway? I settle myself down on my bed, open my online banking and start calculating. I have to pay the plumber within two weeks, and my rent is due in three. If I pay the plumber and pay my rent, that will be all the money I have in the world until I next get paid, the following month. That means no money for food. No money for toothpaste or toilet paper or shampoo.
Breathe. I’ve got stuff in the cupboards to last me if I’m careful, and I’m not a huge eater anyway. I can drop in on Sarah a few more times than usual and she’ll feed me. I’ll walk everywhere instead of getting the bus. I’ll stop buying flowers for Dilys every time I visit; she’ll understand. I won’t buy any cigarettes, not even roll-ups. I won’t go out; Kel won’t mind if I hang out at his place instead. So long as I’m not confined to these four walls, I’ll be fine.
The thing that hurts the most is the thing I know is unavoidable, even as I go over and over my budget to find a solution. There’s just no way around it.
‘Hey!’ Rosie says. ‘An afternoon phone call, wow. What did I do to deserve such an honour?’ She laughs, like she does sometimes when she knows she’s being obnoxious. ‘I love my sober Suze conversations.’
I hadn’t expected to smile so wide during this phone call. ‘Is it a conversation if I can’t get a word in?’
‘Yes. An even better one.’
I laugh. ‘Roz. This is a bad-news phone call.’
‘Shit, really? Well, you’re not crying. Or having a panic attack. So it can’t be that bad.’
‘Roz, shut up for a sec.’ Silence. ‘OK. So. I had a plumbing nightmare and now I have to pay for it and basically I can’t come to Norwich to see you.’
Something in the silence changes. It’s like I hear her smile drop. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I’m sorry. Like …’ My voice catches, and I swallow. I feel so guilty I want to claw at my own face. ‘Really sorry. I want to come.’
‘I know. Why do you have to pay for it, though? You’re renting. You don’t have to pay for stuff like plumbing.’
‘I fucked up,’ I say bluntly. ‘And now I do.’
There’s another silence. ‘Aw, Suze,’ she says. ‘That’s properly shitty. Which bit can’t you afford? Is it travel? Can I help pay for it?’
‘It’s not just that.’ My chest hurts. ‘I literally don’t have any money. Like, to live on. So even if you helped me with the travel bit, I wouldn’t be able to eat. Or go out, or anything.’
‘We don’t have to spend money to have a good time.’
‘I’m not even talking about a good time, Roz. Just basic living.’
‘OK, well … I guess if you can’t come, you can’t come.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I’m sorry you don’t have any money. But I’ll be home for Christmas and that’s not long away, is it?’ She sighs. ‘God, I miss you, though. It would’ve been so cool to have you here.’
I think about Rosie’s small face, her curls, the way she smirks at me. I miss her so much. ‘Roz, remember when we went to that party when I was still new? The first one we went to together?’
‘Yes! My first tequila. Good times.’
‘I did your hair.’
‘You did! I’d never had it in a bun before.’
We’re both quiet for a while, listening to the other’s silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again.
‘It’s really fine,’ she says. ‘These things happen. Don’t worry. I’ll see you soon.’
21
‘Tabula Rasa’
Calum Graham
So I guess this is what being sensible is. Eating tasteless tinned beans on thin toast three days in a row until the bread runs out, sitting on the windowsill, watching other people’s lives because I can’t afford to live my own. I don’t turn the heating on because I’m scared of getting hit with a monster bill later, instead wearing three layers and wrapping myself up in blankets and drinking endless cups of black tea. I speak to my manager and message all my colleagues, hoovering up as many extra shifts as I can, not just for the extra cash but also for something to fill up the time.
The rest of the time, I go to Kel’s. At first, I’m hesitant, hovering on the doorstep, smiling my very best hopeful, don’t-you-just-want-to-take-care-of-me? smile when he answers the door. But each time he’s so cheerful and happy to see me that I relax. There’s always something going on: drinking Jenga, indoor Tories vs Labour paintball, elaborate baking missions and endless games of Cards Against Humanity. In the quieter moments Kel tells me about his engineering course and makes enough dinner for both of us without waiting for me to ask. We talk about Caddy and how much we miss her. He brings up Matt but I bat him away because I can tell by his voice that he’s going to lecture me and I can’t be bothered to tell him that he’s wasting his brotherly concern on the wrong part of my life.
At home, when I can’t sleep, I sit on my bed and play my guitar, trying to teach myself the Calum Graham song ‘Tabula Rasa’, which is so complicated it takes up my entire headspace. It feels good to focus my energy somewhere productive instead of just wallowing all the time. At some point I fall asleep, my fingers moving across the fretboard in my dreams, and when I wake up the melody is still in my head.
I message Matt that morning – Why does anyone bother doing anything else when music exists? – and he replies with such an overdose of enthusiasm and exclamation marks that it makes me smile. He sends me links to articles about music as therapy, music as its own language, even one about birds and their different songs. Do you ever get goosebumps when you listen to music? he asks. I reply, Of course! When it’s special. He sends me another link to an article about how not everyone does, that it’s actually pretty rare, which blows my mind. We’re special, he says. I smile down at the screen. So special.
All of this is to say, it’s not all that bad, those weeks when I don’t have any cash spare. Not any worse than it was before, anyway. I
just have to wait it out, which is easier when I’ve got the kind of friends I do, the kind who step up.
The buzzer goes while I’m doing the washing-up, which is the fun kind of thing I do on my Friday afternoons now I’m an adult with absolutely no money. I’m not expecting anyone and I consider ignoring it, but the buzzing just gets louder and more insistent, so I wipe my hands on my jeans and press the button.
‘Hello?’ No reply. I raise my eyebrows at no one. ‘Hello?’ Still nothing. I release the button and turn to go back to the kitchen.
Buzz.
OK, what the hell? I reach over and press the button. ‘Hello?’ Silence. ‘Seriously?’
This time, when I let go of the button, the buzz is immediate. For God’s sake. Swearing, I shove my feet into my Vans, open my door and sprint down the stairs. I reach the front door and wrench it open.
And there’s Rosie, grinning, fingers still pressing against my buzzer. She lets go. ‘Hi!’
I’m so stunned, I can’t do anything but stand there, gaping at her.
‘It would’ve ruined the surprise if I’d said who I was,’ she says. ‘I wanted you to come down and see me. Hi!’ She stretches out her arms. ‘Surprise!’
‘What …’
‘Am I doing here?’ she supplies helpfully. ‘Well, I was counting on seeing you, and then I was all disappointed. And I thought, wait, why do I have to wait for her to come to see me? I can go and see her. And go home for a weekend and sleep in my own bed. Win-win. Right?’ Her excitement has made her chattier than usual, or maybe it’s a new university-Rosie thing. Either way, I like it, and it unlocks me.
I launch myself forward and throw myself at her for a hug. ‘Oh my God, Roz!’
She hugs me back. ‘Let me in, then. It’s cold and I want to see if your depressing flat has got any less depressing since September.’
‘Spoiler, it hasn’t,’ I say, moving aside.
The spoiler doesn’t help, because her face still drops when she walks into my flat. She doesn’t even try to hide it.
‘It’s barely bigger than my room at uni,’ she says.