The Flatshare

by Beth O'Leary

  I have one new message.

  So good to see you yesterday. I was there for work, and when I saw “Katherin Rosen and assistant” on the program, I thought, hey, that’s got to be Tiffy.

  Only you could laugh your way through someone reading out your measurements—most girls would hate that. But I guess that’s what makes you special. J xx

  Hands shaking, I stretch the phone out to show Rachel. She gasps, hands to mouth.

  “He loves you! That man is still in love with you!”

  “Calm down, Rachel,” I tell her, though my heart is currently making an attempt at a getaway via my throat. I feel as if I’m choking and breathing too much all at the same time.

  “Can you text back and tell him that comments like that are the reason womankind cares so much about their measurements? And that by declaring that ‘most girls would hate that,’ he is perpetuating the female body image problem, and setting women up against one another, which is one of the greatest problems feminism faces to this day?”

  I narrow my eyes at her, and she flashes me a big grin. “Or you could just say, ‘Thanks, come over and show me how special I am all night long’?”

  “Ugh. I don’t know why I talk to you.”

  “It’s me or Martin,” she points out, gathering up the layouts. “I’ll take in these changes. You go get your man back, all right?”

  * * *

  “No,” Gerty says immediately. “Do not text him that. He is scum of the earth who treated you like shit, tried to isolate you from your friends, and almost certainly cheated on you. He does not deserve a text of this niceness.”

  There is a pause.

  “What made you want to reply with that message, Tiffy?” Mo asks, like he’s translating for Gerty.

  “I just … wanted to talk to him.” My voice is very small. The tiredness is starting to eat away at me; I’m curled up on my beanbag with a hot chocolate, and Mo and Gerty are staring down at me from the sofa, their faces a picture of concern (actually, Gerty’s isn’t—she just looks angry).

  Gerty reads my draft message out again. “Hi Justin. So good to hear from you. I’m just sorry we didn’t get to catch up properly, despite being on the same cruise ship! And then two kisses.”

  “He did two kisses,” I say a little defensively.

  “The kisses are last on my list of things to change about that message,” Gerty says.

  “Are you sure you want to start up contact with Justin again at all, Tiffy? You seem a lot better in yourself since you’ve moved out of his flat,” Mo says. “I wonder if that might not be a coincidence.” He sighs when I don’t say anything. “I know you find it hard to think badly of him, Tiffy, but whatever excuses you can give him for everything else, even you can’t ignore the fact that he left you for another woman.”

  I flinch.

  “Sorry. But he did, and even if he’s left her, which we don’t have any evidence he has, he still went off with her. You can’t reason that away or convince yourself you’ve imagined it, because you’ve met Patricia. Look back at that Facebook message. Remember how it felt when he turned up with her at the flat.”

  Ugh. Why do people keep saying things I don’t want to hear? I miss Rachel.

  “What do you think he’s doing, Tiffy?” Mo asks. He’s pushing so hard all of a sudden—it’s making me squirm.

  “Being friendly. Trying to get in touch again.”

  “He’s not asked to meet up,” Mo points out.

  “And the look he gave you was more than friendly, by the sounds of it,” Gerty says.

  “I…” It’s true. It wasn’t a hey, I’ve missed you so much, I wish we could talk again look. But it was … something. It’s true I can’t ignore the fiancée, but I can’t ignore that look either. What did it mean? If he wanted to—if he wanted to get back together …

  “Would you?” Gerty asks.

  “Would I what?” I ask, buying myself time.

  She doesn’t answer. She knows my game.

  I think about how miserable I’ve been these last few months, how bleak it was to say goodbye to his flat. How many times I’ve looked Patricia up on Facebook and cried onto my laptop keyboard until I got a bit worried about electrocution.

  I was so lucky to have him. Justin was always so … fun. Everything was a whirlwind; we’d be flying from country to country, trying everything, staying up until four in the morning and climbing onto the roof to watch the sunrise. Yes, we fought a lot and I made a lot of mistakes in that relationship, but mostly I’d just felt so lucky to be with him. Without him I feel … lost.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But a big part of me wants to.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gerty says, standing up smartly and patting me on the head, “we won’t let you.”

  12

  LEON

  Hi Leon,

  All right, fine—the truth is, I panic-bake. When I’m sad or things are difficult, baking is my go-to. And what of it? I turn my negativity into delicious, calorific goodness. As long as you can’t taste traces of my misery in the cake mix, I don’t think you should be questioning why I have been baking every night this week.

  Which, as it happens, is because my ex-boyfriend turned up on my cruise ship* and gave me the eye and then buggered off. So now I’m all muddled. He sent me this sweet text about how special I was, but I didn’t text back. I wanted to, but my friends talked me out of it. They’re annoying, and usually right about stuff.

  Anyway, that’s why you’ve had so much cake.

  Tiffy x

  *Not my cruise ship. No offense, but I wouldn’t be sharing a bedroom with you if I was the sort of person who owned a cruise ship. I’d be living in a Scottish castle with technicolor turrets.

  Hi Tiffy,

  Sorry to hear about your ex. Guessing from your friends’ reactions that they don’t think he’s good for you—is that what you think?

  I’m Team Ex if it means cake.

  * * *

  Leon

  Hi Leon,

  I don’t know—I’ve not really thought about it like that, actually. My kneejerk reaction is yeah, he’s good for me. But then, I don’t know. We were very up and down, one of those couples everyone’s always talking about (we’ve broken up and got back together a few times before). It’s easy to remember the happy times—and there were tons of them, and they were awesome—but I guess since we broke up I’ve only remembered those. So I know that being with him was fun. But was it good for me? Ugh. I don’t know.

  Hence the Victoria sandwich with homemade jam.

  Tiffy x

  * * *

  On a large ring-bound printout of a book, titled Built: My Amazing Journey from Bricklayer to High-end Interior Designer:

  Be honest—picked this up off table as thought it sounded hilariously rubbish. Couldn’t put it down. Didn’t get to sleep until noon. Is this man your ex? If not, can I marry him?

  Leon

  Hey Leon,

  I’m so glad you enjoyed the book! My beautiful bricklayer-turned-designer is not in fact my ex, and yes, he is much more likely to want to marry you than me. I imagine Kay would have opinions on the subject, though.

  Tiffy x

  Kay says am not allowed to marry beautiful bricklayer-turned-designer. Shame. She says hi.

  Good to catch her yesterday! She says I’m making you fat with all the cake. She made me promise to channel my emotional turmoil into healthier options from now on, so I made us carob and date brownies. Sorry, they’re totally disgusting.

  I’m moving this Post-it on to Wuthering Heights now as I need to take Built back to the office! x

  * * *

  On cupboard above kitchen bin:

  When is our bin day again?

  Leon

  Is this a joke? I’ve lived here for five weeks! You’ve lived here for years! How can you be asking me when bin day is?!

  … but yes, it was yesterday, and we forgot. x

  Oh, thought so … Can never remember if it’s T
uesday or Thursday. It’s a days-beginning-with-T thing. Difficult.

  Any news from the ex? You’ve stopped baking. It’s OK, freezer stockpile will get me through for a while, but am keen for you to have another crisis in, say, mid-May.

  Leon

  Hey,

  Total radio silence. He’s not even been updating his Twitter or Facebook so I can’t stalk him—so he is probably still with his fiancée (I mean, why wouldn’t he be, all he did was look at me a bit funny), and I probably completely misread the cruise-ship moment, and he’s probably a despicable human being like my friend Gerty says he is. Anyway, I’ve paid him back all the money I owe him. I now owe the bank a terrifying amount instead.

  Thanks for the risotto, it was delicious—you’re a really good cook for someone who only ever eats meals at the wrong times of the day!

  Tiffy x

  * * *

  Beside baking tray:

  Jesus. Didn’t know about the fiancée. Or the money.

  Does millionaire shortbread mean you got news?

  * * *

  Beside baking tray, now full of crumbs:

  Nothing. He’s not even sent a message to say he received the payment. This is totally tragic but I found myself wishing yesterday that I’d just kept paying a few hundred a month—then in a way we’d still be in touch. And I wouldn’t be quite so deep into my overdraft.

  Basically, in summary, he hasn’t said a word to me since the cruise-ship text. I’m officially an idiot. x

  Eh. Love makes us all idiots—first time I met Kay I told her I was a jazz musician (saxophone). Thought she’d like it.

  Chili on hob for you.

  Leon x

  APRIL

  13

  TIFFY

  “I think I’m having palpitations.”

  “Nobody has had palpitations since the olden days finished,” Rachel informs me, taking an unacceptably large sip of the latte the head of Editorial bought me (every so often he feels guilty for Butterfingers not paying me enough and splashes out £2.20 on a coffee to assuage his conscience).

  “This book. Is. Killing me,” I say.

  “The saturated fat in your lunch is killing you.” Rachel prods the banana bread I’m currently munching my way through. “Your baking is getting worse. By which I mean better, obviously. Why aren’t you getting fatter?”

  “I am, but I’m just bigger than you, so you don’t notice the difference as much. I stash my new cake weight in bits you won’t spot. Like the upper arm, for instance. Or the cheek. I’m getting rounder cheeks, don’t you think?”

  “Edit, woman!” Rachel says, slapping a hand on the layouts between us. Our weekly catch-ups about Katherin’s book soon became daily catch-ups as March slipped by; now, faced with the terrifying realization that it is April and our print date is only a couple of months away, they have become daily catch-ups and daily lunches. “And when are you getting me the photos of the hats and scarfs?” Rachel adds.

  Oh, god. The hats and scarfs. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about hats and scarfs. There is no agency free to take on making them at such short notice, and Katherin really doesn’t have time. Contractually she doesn’t have to make all the samples herself—this is a mistake I will never make again at negotiation stage—so I have no ammunition to make her do it. I tried actual begging, but she told me, not unkindly, that I was embarrassing myself.

  I gaze mournfully at my banana bread. “There is no solution,” I say. “The end is nigh. The book is going to go to print with no pictures in the hats and scarfs chapter.”

  “No, it bloody well isn’t,” Rachel says. “For starters, you’ve not got enough words to fill the space. Edit! And then think of something! And do it fast!”

  Ugh. Why do I like her again?

  * * *

  When I get home I put the kettle on straight away—it’s a cup-of-tea sort of evening. There’s an old note from Leon stuck on the underside of the kettle. They get everywhere, these Post-its.

  Leon’s mug is still by the sink, half full of milky coffee. He always drinks it that way, from the same chipped white mug with a cartoon rabbit on the side. Every night that mug will either be on this side of the sink, half drunk, which I guess means he was pushed for time, or washed up on the draining board, which I assume means he managed to get up with the alarm.

  The flat is pretty homely now. I had to let Leon reclaim some of the space in the living area—sometime last month he removed half of my cushions and put them in a pile in the hall with a label reading, “I Am Finally Putting My Foot Down (sorry)”—but he may have been right that there were a few too many. It was getting quite hard to sit on the sofa.

  The bed is still the strangest part of this whole flatsharing thing. For the first month or so I put my own sheets on and took them off again every morning, and I’d lie on the farthest edge of my left-hand side, my pillow pulled away from his. But now I don’t bother alternating the sheets—I only lie on my side anyway. It’s really all quite normal. Of course, I still haven’t actually met my flatmate, which I acknowledge is technically quite weird, but we’ve started leaving each other notes more and more often now—sometimes I forget we haven’t had these conversations in person.

  I chuck my bag down and collapse on the beanbag while the tea brews. If I’m honest with myself, I’m waiting. I’ve been waiting for months now, ever since I saw Justin.

  Surely he’s going to get in touch with me. OK, so I never replied to his text—something I still intermittently hate Gerty and Mo for not letting me do—but he gave me that look on the cruise ship. Obviously it’s now been so long that I’ve almost entirely forgotten the look itself, and it’s just a compilation of different expressions I remember on Justin’s face (or, maybe more realistically, remember from all his Facebook photos) … but still. At the time it felt very … OK, I still don’t know what it felt. Very something.

  As more time passes I’ve found myself thinking about how weird it was that Justin was on that very cruise ship on the one day that Katherin and I were doing the How to Crochet Your Own Clothes Fast show. As much as the thought appeals, it can’t have been because he came specially to see me—we were rescheduled at the last minute so he wouldn’t have known I was going to be there. Plus his text said he was there for work, which is perfectly plausible—he works for an entertainment company which arranges shows for things like cruises and tours of London. (I was always a bit hazy on the details, to be honest. It all seemed very logistical and stressful.)

  So if he didn’t come on purpose, then doesn’t it feel a bit like fate?

  I grab my tea and wander into the bedroom, at a loose end. I don’t even want to get back together with Justin, do I? This is the longest we’ve ever been broken up, and it does feel different from the other times. Maybe because he left me for a woman he then promptly proposed to. It’s probably that.

  In fact, I shouldn’t even care whether he’s going to get in touch with me. What does that say about me, that I’m waiting for a man who most likely cheated on me to give me a call?

  “It says that you’re loyal and trusting,” Mo says, when I ring him and ask this very question. “The exact qualities that mean Justin is likely to try and get in touch again.”

  “You think he will, too?” I realize I’m twitchy, jumpy, hungry for reassurance, which annoys me even more. I start tidying my Gilmore Girls DVDs into the correct order, too jittery to stand still. There’s another note jammed between series one and two; I yank it loose and skim over it. I’d been trying to persuade Leon to try actually using our television, offering him my very high-quality DVD collection as a place to start. He was not convinced.

  “Almost certainly,” Mo says. “That seems to be Justin’s way. But … are you sure you want him to?”

  “I’d like him to talk to me. Or at least acknowledge me. I don’t know where his head is at. He seemed so mad at me about the flat, but then that message after I saw him on the cruise ship was really sweet, so … I do
n’t know. I want him to call. Ugh.” I clench my eyes shut. “Why is that?”

  “Maybe you spent a lot of time being told you couldn’t manage without him,” Mo says gently. “That would explain why you want him back, even when you don’t want him.”

  I flounder around looking for a change of subject. The latest episode of Sherlock? The new assistant at work? But I find I don’t even have the energy to be diverting.

  Mo waits quietly. “It’s true, though, isn’t it?” he says. “I mean, have you thought about dating anyone else?”

  “I could date someone else,” I protest.

  “Hmm.” He sighs. “How did that look on the cruise ship really make you feel, Tiffy?”

  “I don’t know. It was ages ago now. I guess … it was kind of … sexy? And nice to be wanted?”

  “You weren’t afraid?”

  “What?”

  “Did you feel afraid? Did the look make you feel smaller?”

  I frown. “Mo, give it a rest. It was just a look. He definitely wasn’t trying to scare me—besides, I rang you to talk about whether he’ll ever call me, and thanks, you made me feel a bit better about that, so let’s draw the line there.”

  For a long while there’s silence at the other end of the phone. I’m a little shaken despite myself.

  “That relationship took its toll on you, Tiffy,” Mo says gently. “He made you miserable.”

  I shake my head. I mean, I know me and Justin argued, but we always made up and things only got more romantic after a fight, so it didn’t really count. It wasn’t like when other couples argued—it was all just part of the beautiful, crazy roller coaster that was our relationship.

  “It’ll all sink in eventually, Tiff,” Mo says. “When it does, you just get on the phone to me, OK?”

  I nod, not really sure what I’m agreeing to. From my vantage point I’ve just spotted the perfect distraction from how I’m feeling right now: the bag of scarfs under Leon’s bed. The one I found on my first night here, which convinced me that Leon was probably some kind of serial killer. There’s a note on them which I’m sure wasn’t there when I looked at them before—it says FOR CHARITY SHOP.