The Flatshare

by Beth O'Leary

Venture in, intrepid. Let out a strangled wail. It looks like someone vomited rainbows and calico in here, covering every surface in colors that do not belong together in nature. Horrific, moth-eaten blanket over bed. Enormous beige sewing machine taking up most of desk. And clothes … clothes everywhere.

  This woman owns more clothes than a respectably sized shop would stock. Has clearly not been able to manage with the half of wardrobe I freed up for her, so has hung up dresses on back of door, all along wall—from old picture rail, actually quite resourceful—and over back of now-almost-invisible chair under window.

  Consider ringing her and Putting Foot Down for approximately three seconds before reaching inevitable conclusion that that would be awkward and, in a few days, I will have stopped caring. Probably stopped noticing, actually. Still. Right now, opinion of Essex woman has reached new low. I’m about to head back to spot on very inviting beanbag when I notice the bin-bag of the scarfs Mr. Prior knitted me, poking out from under bed.

  Forgot about those. Essex woman may think I’m odd if she finds bag of fourteen hand-knitted scarfs stashed under bed. Have been meaning to take them to the charity shop forever, but of course Essex woman won’t know that. Haven’t actually met her; don’t want her to think I’m, you know. A scarf collector or something.

  Grab pen and paper and scrawl FOR CHARITY SHOP on a Post-it, then stick it to bag. There. Just to remind myself, in case I forget.

  Now to the beanbag for dinner, and bed. So tired that even the horrible tie-dyed bed blanket is beginning to look attractive.

  9

  TIFFY

  So, here I am. On the freezing cold dock. In “neutral clothing I can work with” according to Katherin, who is beaming cheekily at me, the wind whipping her straw-blond hair against her cheeks as we wait for the cruise ship to batten down the hatch, or turn three sails to the wind, or whatever it is these ships do in order to let people on board.

  “You have the perfect proportions for this sort of thing,” Katherin is telling me. “You’re my favorite model, Tiffy. Really. This is going to be an absolute scream.”

  I raise an eyebrow, looking out to sea. I don’t see a vast selection of other models for Katherin to choose from. I have also, over the years, gotten a bit tired of people lauding my “proportions.” The thing is, I’m like Gerty and Mo’s flat in reverse—just about 20 percent bigger than the average woman, in all directions. My mother likes to declare that I am “big-boned” because my father was a lumberjack in his youth (was he? I know he’s old, but didn’t lumberjacks only exist in fairy tales?). I can barely walk into a room without someone helpfully informing me that I am very tall for a woman.

  Sometimes it annoys people, like I’m purposefully taking up more room than I’m allowed, and sometimes it intimidates them, especially when they’re used to looking down at women they’re talking to, but mostly it just makes them compliment me on my “proportions” a lot. I think what they’re really saying is, “Gosh, you’re big, but without being particularly fat!” or, “Well done on being tall but not lanky!” Or perhaps, “You are confusing my gender norms by being very woman-shaped despite the fact that you are the height and width of an average male!”

  “You’re the sort of woman the Soviets liked,” Katherin goes on, oblivious to my raised eyebrow. “You know, on their posters about women working the land while the men were out fighting, that sort of thing.”

  “Wear a lot of crochet, did they, the Soviet women?” I ask rather tetchily. It’s drizzling, and the sea looks very different from a busy dock like this—it’s a lot less glamorous than when you’re on the beach. It’s basically just a big cold salty bath, really. I wonder how warm the rights director is now, in her meeting about the international reach of our spring season titles.

  “Possibly, possibly,” Katherin muses. “Good idea, Tiffy! What do you think—a chapter on the history of crochet in the next book?”

  “No,” I tell her firmly. “That won’t be popular with your readers.”

  You have to nip ideas in the bud fast with Katherin. And I’m definitely right on this one. Nobody wants history—they just want an idea for a new crochet item they can give their grandson to drool on.

  “But—”

  “I’m just conveying the brutality of the market to you, Katherin,” I say. That’s one of my favorite lines. Good old market, always there to be blamed. “The people don’t want history in their crochet books. They want cute pictures and easy instructions.”

  Once all our documents have been checked we file on board. You can’t really tell where the dock ends and the boat begins—it’s just like walking into a building and developing very slight light-headedness, as though the floor is shifting a little beneath you. I thought we might get a different, more exciting welcome for being special guests who’ve been invited here, but we’re just traipsing on with the rest of the riffraff. All of whom are at least twenty times richer than me, obviously, and much better dressed.

  It’s actually pretty small for a cruise ship—so only the size of, say, Portsmouth, rather than London. We’re shuffled politely into a corner of the “entertainment area” to wait for our cue. We’re to set up after the guests have had lunch.

  Nobody brings us lunch. Katherin, of course, has brought her own sandwiches. They’re sardine. She cheerfully offers me one, which is actually very sweet of her, and eventually my stomach-rumbling gets so bad that I concede defeat and accept it. I’m twitchy. The last time I was on a cruise it was through Greek islands with Justin, and I was positively glowing with love and post-sex hormones. Now, huddled in a corner with three Aldi bags of knitting needles, crochet hooks, and wool, accompanied by an ex-hippie and a sardine sandwich, I can no longer deny the fact that my life has taken a turn for the worse.

  “So what’s the plan, then?” I ask Katherin, nibbling the crusts off the sandwich. The fishiness isn’t so bad at the edges. “What do I need to do?”

  “I’ll demonstrate how to take measurements from you first,” Katherin says. “Then I’ll talk through the basic stitches for any beginners, then I’ll use my pre-prepared bits to show them the tricks of compiling yourself a perfectly fitted outfit! And, of course, I’ll show them my five top tips for measuring as you go.”

  “Measuring as you go” is one of Katherin’s catchphrases. It has yet to catch on.

  In the end, when it’s finally time for us to kick off, we gather quite a crowd. Katherin knows how to do that—she probably practiced at rallies and things, back in days of yore. It’s largely a crowd of old ladies and their husbands, but there are a few younger women in their twenties and thirties, and even a couple of guys. I’m quite encouraged. Maybe Katherin’s right that crochet is on the up.

  “A big hand for my glamorous assistant!” Katherin is saying, as though we’re putting on a magic show. Actually, the magician in the other corner of the entertainment area is looking pretty miffed.

  Everyone claps for me dutifully. I try to look cheerful and crochet-ish, but I’m still chilly and I feel drab in my neutral clothing—white jeans, pale gray T-shirt, and a lovely warm pink cardigan that I thought I’d sold sometime last year but rediscovered in my wardrobe this morning. It’s the only colorful element to this outfit, and I can tell Katherin is about to …

  “Cardigan off!” she says, already undressing me. This is so undignified. And cold. “Are you all paying close attention? Phones away, please! We managed without checking Facebook every five minutes in the Cold War, didn’t we? Hmm? That’s right, a bit of perspective for you all! Phones away, that’s it!”

  I try not to laugh. That’s trademark Katherin—she always says bringing up the Cold War startles people into submission.

  She starts measuring me—neck, shoulders, bust, waist, hips—and it occurs to me that my measurements are now being read out to a really quite large group of people, which makes my urge to laugh even more powerful. It’s the classic, isn’t it—you’re not allowed to laugh and suddenly that’s what you want to d
o more than anything.

  Katherin shoots me a warning look as she measures my hips, chatting away about pleating to create sufficient “room for the buttocks,” and no doubt feeling how my body is beginning to shake with suppressed laughter. I know I need to be professional. I know I can’t just burst out laughing right now—it’ll totally undermine her. But … look at me. That old lady over there just wrote down my inner thigh measurement in her notebook. And that guy at the back looks—

  That guy at the back … that …

  That’s Justin.

  He moves away when I clock it’s him, slipping off into the crowd. But first, before he goes, he holds my gaze. It sends a shock right through me, because it’s not your ordinary eye contact. It’s a very distinct sort of eye contact. The sort you get locked into in the moment just before you toss a twenty on the table and scramble out of the pub to make out in a cab home, or in the moment when you put down the wineglass and head upstairs to bed.

  It’s sex eye contact. His eyes say, I’m undressing you in my head. The man who left me months ago, who hasn’t picked up one of my calls since, whose fiancée is probably on this very cruise with him … he’s giving me that look. And in that moment I am more exposed than any number of elderly ladies with notebooks could make me feel. I feel completely naked.

  10

  LEON

  Me: You could have found each other again. Love finds a way, Mr. Prior! Love finds a way!

  Mr. Prior is unconvinced.

  Mr. Prior: No offense, lad, but you weren’t there—that’s not how it worked. Of course, there were lovely stories, girls who thought their lads were long dead, then came home to find them traipsing up the path in their uniform, fresh as a daisy … but for every one of those, there were hundreds of stories of lovers who never came back. Johnny’s probably dead, and if he’s not, he’s long since married to some gentleman or lady somewhere and I’m forgotten.

  Me: But you said he wasn’t on that list.

  I’m waving a hand at the list of war dead I printed, unsure why I’m pushing this point so hard. Mr. Prior hasn’t asked to find Johnny; he was just pining. Reminiscing.

  But I see a lot of elderly people here. I’m used to reminiscing; I’m used to pining. Felt this was different. I felt Mr. Prior had unfinished business.

  Mr. Prior: I don’t think so, no. But then, I’m a forgetful old man, and your computer system is a newfangled thing, so either of us could be wrong, couldn’t we?

  He gives me a gentle smile, like I’m doing this for me, not him. Look closer at him. Think of all the nights when I’ve arrived to chatter about visitors from other patients, and have seen Mr. Prior sitting quietly in the corner, hands in his lap, face folded in neat wrinkles like he’s trying hard not to look sad.

  Me: Humor me. Tell me the facts. Regiment? Birthplace? Distinctive features? Family members?

  Mr. Prior’s little, beady eyes look up at me. He shrugs. Smiles. It folds his papery, age-spotted face, shifting the tan lines like ink on his neck, left there from decades of shirt collars of precisely the same width.

  He gives a slight shake of the head, like he’ll tell someone later how barmy these modern nurses are, but starts talking all the same.

  * * *

  Thursday morning. Ring Mam for short, difficult conversation on bus.

  Mam, bleary: Is there news?

  This has been customary greeting for months.

  Leon: Sorry, Mam.

  Mam: Shall I call Sal?

  Leon: No, no. I’m dealing with it.

  Long, miserable silence. We wallow in it. Then:

  Mam, with effort: Sorry, sweetheart, how are you?

  Return home afterward to find pleasant surprise: home-baked oat bars on sideboard. They’re filled with colorful dried fruit and seeds, like Essex women cannot resist clashing colors even in food, but this seems less objectionable when I see the note beside the tray.

  Help yourself! Hope you had a good day night. Tiffy x

  An excellent development. Will definitely endure high levels of clutter and novelty lamps for three hundred and fifty pounds per month and free food. Help myself to largest bar and settle down with it to write to Richie, filling him in on Holly’s condition. She’s “Knave Girl” in my letters to him, and a bit of a caricature of herself—sharper, snarkier, cuter. I reach for another oat bar without looking, filling page two with descriptions of the stranger Essex-woman items, some of which are so ridiculous I think Richie won’t believe me. An iron in the shape of Iron Man. Actual clown shoes, hung on the wall like a work of art. Cowboy boots with spurs, which I can only conclude she wears regularly, looking at how worn they are.

  Notice absently, as I fiddle with the stamp, that I have eaten four oat bars. Hope she really meant “help yourself.” While pen is in hand, scribble on back of her note.

  Thanks. So delicious I accidentally ate most of them.

  Pause before finishing the note. Feel I need to repay her in something. There really are hardly any oat bars remaining in tray.

  Thanks. So delicious I accidentally ate most of them. Leftover mushroom stroganoff in fridge if you need dinner (on account of having hardly any oat bars left). Leon.

  Better make mushroom stroganoff now.

  * * *

  That was not the only note left for me this morning. There’s this one on the bathroom door.

  Hi Leon,

  Would you mind putting the toilet seat down please?

  I’m afraid I was unable to write this note in a way that didn’t sound passive aggressive—seriously, it’s something about the note form, you pick up a pen and a Post-it and you immediately become a bitch—so I’m just styling it out. I might put some smiley faces to really hammer the thing home.

  Tiffy x

  There are smiley faces all along the bottom of the note.

  I snort with laughter. One of the smiley faces has a body and is pissing toward the corner of the Post-it. Wasn’t expecting that. Not sure why—I don’t know this woman—but hadn’t imagined she had much of a sense of humor. Maybe because all her books are about DIY.

  11

  TIFFY

  “That is ridiculous.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “That was it?” Rachel yells. I flinch. Last night I drank a bottle of wine, panic-baked oat bars, and barely slept; I’m a little fragile for shouting.

  We’re sat in the “creative space” at work—it’s like the other two Butterfingers Press meeting rooms, except annoyingly it doesn’t have a proper door (to convey a sense of openness), and there are whiteboards on the walls. Somebody used them once; now the notes from their creative session are engrained in dried-out whiteboard marker, totally incomprehensible. Rachel has printed out the layouts we’re meeting to discuss, and they’re spread out across the table between us. It’s the bloody Pat-a-Cake baking book, and you can really tell I was hungover and in a rush when I edited this the first time round.

  “You’re telling me that you see Justin on a cruise ship and then he gives you an I want to fuck you stare and then you go on about your business and don’t see him again?”

  “I know,” I say again, positively miserable.

  “Ridiculous! Why didn’t you go looking for him?”

  “I was busy with Katherin! Who, by the way, gave me an actual injury,” I tell her, yanking my poncho out of the way to show her the angry red mark where Katherin pretty much stabbed my arm mid-demonstration.

  Rachel gives it a cursory look. “I hope you brought her manuscript delivery date forward for that,” she says. “Are you sure it was Justin? Not some other white guy with brown hair? I mean, I imagine a cruise ship is—”

  “Rachel, I know what Justin looks like.”

  “Right, well,” she says, throwing her arms out wide and sending layouts sliding across the table. “I can’t believe this. It’s such an anticlimax. I really thought your story was going to end with sex in a cabin bunk! Or on the deck! Or, or, or in the middle of the ocean, on a ding
hy!”

  What actually happened was that I spent the rest of the session in paralyzed, panicky suspense, desperately trying to look like I was listening to Katherin’s instructions—“Arms up, Tiffy!” “Watch your hair, Tiffy!”—and simultaneously keeping my eyes on the back of the crowd. I did start to wonder if I’d imagined it. What the hell were the chances? I mean, I know the man likes a cruise, but this is a very large country. There are many cruise ships floating around the edge of it.

  “Tell me again,” Rachel says, “about the look.”

  “Ugh, I can’t explain it,” I tell her, laying my forehead down on the pages in front of me. “I just … I know that look from when we were together.” My stomach twists. “It was so inappropriate. I mean—god—his girlfriend—I mean, his fiancée…”

  “He saw you across a crowded room, semi-unclothed, being gloriously you-like and pissing about with a middle-aged eccentric author … and he remembered why he used to fancy the pants off you,” Rachel concludes. “That’s what happened.”

  “That’s not…” But what did happen? Something, definitely. That look wasn’t nothing. I feel a little flutter of anxiety at the base of my ribs. Even after a whole night of thinking about this, I still can’t work out how I feel. One minute Justin appearing on a cruise ship and catching my eye seems like the most romantic, fateful moment, and then the next I find myself feeling a bit shivery and sick. I was all jittery on the journey home from the docks, too—it’s been a while since I’ve traveled outside London on my own to anywhere other than my parents’. Justin had a real thing about how I always ended up on the wrong train, and he was sweet about taking journeys with me just in case; as I waited alone in the darkness of Southampton station I felt categorically certain I’d end up taking a train to the Outer Hebrides or something.

  I reach to check my phone—this “meeting” with Rachel is only in the diary for half an hour, and then I really do need to edit Katherin’s first three chapters.