by Jenny Colgan
At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then I realised, and blushed hotly. She thought I was going to steal things in the house and sell them to make money. Then I quickly realised this was a good idea and wished I’d thought about it before. Not that I’d have sold my jewellery. My necklaces and bracelets had come straight from my father. We’d chosen them together. They were special things, special moments. They were us, all I had left of him.
‘What about things that are mine?’ I said.
‘Anything that comes under the house insurance policy can’t be moved right now,’ she said. That meant, I guessed, all my jewellery and bags. Then she looked up. ‘But they’ll be right here waiting for you, Sophie.’
I heaved a sigh. ‘Can I take, you know, a change of underpants? ’
‘Of course, of course, it’s just the insurance . . .’
‘That’s fine,’ I said, cheerily, holding up the paper. ‘Not everywhere I’m looking at has a dressing room and a walk-in wardrobe anyway.’
So I scoured websites, and called estate agents, and finally, just as I was considering joining that convent with really nice premises in Chelsea - it certainly wouldn’t have made my love life any worse - I got a male voice on the phone. It sounded distracted.
‘It’s about the room,’ I said, trying to sound cheery, but not annoyingly so, friendly but not nosy, and very, very tidy, with a reasonable, but not ridiculous, cat tolerance (just in case this was required), all in the space of four words.
‘Oh yeah?’
He didn’t immediately say, ‘It’s gone,’ so this was an up.
‘I don’t smoke or anything . . . uh, and I’m quite easy to live with.’ As long as, I thought to myself, you don’t do a straw poll of Gail and Esperanza, the two other people in my current house.
‘So, can I come and see it?’
There was a pause, as I waited, all my nerves straining to see if I’d passed the telephone test or not.
‘Yeah, all right.’
He gave me an address in Southwark. I’d never been down there.
‘Can I come straight over?’ I was trying not to betray my desperation, although I suppose a phrase like ‘can I come straight over’ doesn’t exactly sound like someone who has millions of offers of great places to live and is weighing them up.
‘Yeah, all right.’
OK, I was not such a puffed-up spoiled little madam that I’d never taken public transport, but I still felt an idiot at Sloane Square station, when I’d queued for about nine hours for my tube ticket, until someone told me there wasn’t actually a tube station on the Old Kent Road, where I was headed, and that I had to go to Elephant and figure it out from there. Yeah! And how much did they want for a ticket? Surely a car service couldn’t be more expensive than this.
At Elephant, where I emerged feeling quite proud of myself, I immediately found myself faced with a vast and completely incomprehensible roundabout. Was this the motorway? Immediately I realised that pretending I knew what I was doing here was completely futile. I was going to have to throw myself on someone’s mercy. People were dashing by with shopping bags, children, bicycles, swooping down into underpasses or climbing stairs to random locations. There was a huge red building in one corner that looked terrifying, like some kind of children’s prison, and traffic roaring past at about a thousand miles an hour.
‘Excuse me?’
A young woman carrying loads of bags of heavy shopping pushed past me and didn’t stop. Oh well. I tried someone else, an older-looking woman. ‘I’m looking for the Old Kent Road?’ She stared at me and unleashed a barrage of what sounded like Polish for ‘Go away stupid girl and don’t bother me with your ridiculous questions about roads I know nothing about.’ Or something like that.
A gang of small boys on bicycles came up to me and eyed me curiously.
‘Hey, lady!’ they shouted. Oh great. That was all I needed; was I going to be mugged by a bunch of children. Weren’t they all meant to be feral down here or something?
‘You want the Old Kent Road?’
Help!
‘She doesn’t know where the Old Kent Road is,’ one said in disbelief.
‘NEH,’ said another one. ‘Let’s send her to Brighton, innit?’
The one with the biggest bike, who was obviously the leader, hushed them with a look. ‘Old Kent Road,’ he said, indicating a wide traffic-filled road stretching miles into the distance, ‘is that way.’
Then with what looked a bit like a nod, he took his little gang away. I felt oddly mollified, although the rain seemed to be falling a bit more heavily. I wished I hadn’t worn my Sonia Rykiel soft suede boots, but I wanted to impress these people into letting me move in with them and I figured these boots impressed everyone. Normally.
Three quarters of an hour later I was very close to tears. The Old Kent Road is enormous. It should be called the Endless Fucking Old Kent Road that continually subdivides itself and refuses to stick to numbering rules, even if that would make it a bit tricky to fit on the A-Z.
I was looking for 896a. I was on 165, with many, many diversions, hypermarkets, motorway underpasses and general miseries en route. My suede boots were getting a white rim right across the top, and my feet were killing me. And probably by the time I got there the flat would have already been rented to a Bulgarian pianist or the Australian water polo team or something, or I’d have to sit down and answer (as had happened recently in Harlesden) questions on what bands I liked. Take That had not passed muster.
Every time I came to a row of houses I’d eye them up beadily. Quite often, it was true, to make sure somebody actually lived in them and that they weren’t just waiting to be knocked down. As I passed one hovel after another I’d let out a sigh of relief, and hope there was going to be a nice row of white stucco houses coming up after the next Cash and Carry. There never was though.
After sixty-five thousand years, I realised this had to be it. My heart sank as I saw the wheelie bin half-blocking the gateway. A big green filthy wheelie bin with HANDS OFF graffittied on it in dripping white paint. I tried to push open the creaking iron gate that had rusted to immobility. I took a deep breath. Six months, I had to keep telling myself. Six months then back to my normal life, or what was left of it.
I gingerly reached out my finger, noticing as I did so that I was in need of a manicure. Fat chance. Bits of rust were flaking off the gate. I wondered if I needed a tetanus shot. As I stood there on the threshold of the scrubby little patch of front garden, I hovered for a moment. I’d seen some pretty grotty apartments on my travels, but this had to be the worst yet. I didn’t even know where the hell I was.
‘You can come in - we don’t have a butler,’ came an amused-sounding voice. I looked up to the top of the four crumbling steps that led to the peeling front door. I glanced up. A burly chap with the most ridiculous mop of black curly hair strewn over his eyes - like one of those big shaggy dogs you see around - was standing there looking curious.
‘It just looks a little bit dangerous,’ I said. ‘The gate, I mean.’
The man didn’t look in the least bit dangerous.
‘Yeah, we know. Keeps the crack dealers and muggers from sitting in the garden. Uh, kidding,’ he added hastily and not very convincingly when he saw my face. ‘Is it you I spoke to on the phone? About the flat?’
‘How did you know?’ I asked, gingerly pushing the gate.
‘I know, it’s amazing,’ he said, coming down to grab the gate - there was obviously a knack - and give it a solid twist. ‘Almost everyone phoning up about it sounded exactly like you.’
I squinted. ‘How do I sound then?’
As far as I knew I sounded like all my friends. The man stuck his bottom lip out then obviously thought better of whatever he was about to say.
‘You sound great,’ he said. We were now facing each other. ‘I’m Eck.’ He put out his hand. ‘Short for Alec.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought you needed to shorten Alec,’ I said, gi
ngerly mounting the steps, and shaking his large outstretched paw.
‘Oh, it’s saved me literally minutes over the years,’ he said. ‘Come on up. Watch out for the—’
But I’d seen it already.
‘Mattress,’ I said. It was lying across the stairs.
‘No, the mattress is quite useful after a heavy night,’ said Eck. ‘I was meaning more the springs popping out of the mattress.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Thanks. I guess.’
In my head, I sternly told myself that I must pretend that I was a princess in a story, being tested before my true form could be revealed and I could live happily ever after in South Kensington.
The communal front hall was a mishmash of post addressed to loads of different people; bicycles and bits of bicycles, and trainers that looked like they needed to be carted away by men wearing full-body chemical suits.
I followed Eck’s broad back up some rickety stairs.
‘How many flats are in the house?’ I asked. It was about a quarter the size of ours, judging by the outside.
‘Six,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the biggest one though.’
Six? Six? How many people lived in the building? A hundred?
On the first floor he stopped and pushed open the door.
‘James! Cal! Wolverine!’
Wolverine?
I followed him through a narrow dark hall to a kitchen at the back, which had a rickety table propped up with a Yellow Pages and five mismatching chairs. Not the least effort had been made to tidy up for people coming round to visit. Or, terrifyingly, maybe it had. It was filthy. In the sink there were cereal bowls with smears round the rims. Teabags had been draped gracefully over the chipped Formica countertops. There was a distinct smell of something, but I couldn’t quite get a grip on it. Lentils, I thought. Overlaid with toast.
Eck was obviously about to offer me tea but, giving the mug situation a quick glance over in a worried kind of a way, he just looked at me and said ‘Um . . .’
‘I’m fine,’ I said quickly. ‘Uh, if you were offering tea . . .’
Suddenly I remembered that I was meant to be impressing these people with my keenness to rent and suitability as a tenant. But looking around, the only suitability criteria I could imagine would be to have grey fur, sharp teeth and a long scaly tail.
There were scampering noises in the hall, then the others emerged, like they’d just got up. Maybe they had.
‘Hello,’ said the one Eck had indicated as James. I was surprised by how neat he looked, given his surroundings. I wondered if he was gay or in the military. ‘Welcome. Is Eck showing you around? He’s a very good front man.’ The military then.
‘Well, we’ve done most of it,’ said Eck, knocking my last remaining hope that somewhere there was a huge conservatory-cum-sitting room-cum roof terrace that I just hadn’t been shown yet.
‘Excellent!’ said James. ‘Tea?’ Then he too glanced at the cup situation. ‘Er.’ He made the same helpless motion Eck had.
‘No, thank you, I’m just fine.’
‘Great. Excellent. A flatmate that doesn’t drink too much tea . . .’
‘That’s definitely the kind of flatmate I am,’ I said.
He looked at me closely now. I could tell he rather liked what he saw.
‘Well, OK then.’
‘Um, James,’ said Eck, who looked to be the kind of de facto leader of the flat. ‘Don’t you want to ask her any other questions?’
James looked cornered. ‘Uh, Eck, she’s a lady.’
‘So?’
James sighed and stuck out his bottom lip whilst he tried to think of a question to ask me that would prove my suitability as a tenant. Finally he came up with, ‘Uh . . . do you believe in a strong military defence for the British Isles?’
We all looked at each other. Eck rolled his eyes.
‘Yes,’ I said brightly. ‘Yes, I do. Submarines and all that.’
‘Jolly good,’ said James. ‘Right. I’m off to play squash.’
‘Yeah, OK, well thanks for all your help,’ said Eck.
‘I did my best.’ James had lowered his voice so he was supposedly only talking to Eck, but I could hear every word. ‘I mean, if I can’t talk to girls at parties how am I supposed to talk to them in weird flat-sharing situations.’
‘OK, OK, just go,’ said Eck, flapping his hands at him.
‘James is in the army,’ he added once he’d gone.
‘Really,’ I said. ‘Wow.’
I was not going to be drawn on the subject of James, in case he was Eck’s brother or something.
Eck sat down on a rickety chair and indicated that I do the same. I’d really have rather not, but I didn’t have a lot of choice.
‘So, uh, Sophie. Why are you looking for a flat?’ he asked.
Inner princess, I thought again. You are in a magic spell where you must prove yourself humble and then everything your heart desires will be yours.
I thought about what I’d buy when I had my own money. One of those little cottages in Chelsea perhaps - small, but really lovely, pink and cosy. I drifted off slightly. With a little back garden where I could grow herbs. I didn’t know how you grew herbs, but how hard could it be?
Eck coughed expectantly. Obviously I wasn’t going to tell the princess version, so I told the story I’d honed which I thought might explain things.
‘I’m trying to get into photography,’ I said, honestly. Getting my old job back with Jules was next on my list of ‘hideous things I must do’, straight after ‘finding a flat’.
Eck looked at me a bit strangely. ‘On the Old Kent Road?’
I hardly heard him, however, as I was transfixed by two men who’d just sidled in the door. The first was tall and saturnine, with dark floppy hair and razor-sharp cheekbones. He was extremely handsome. Not in the fresh-faced rosy-cheeked Windsor way of the boys I usually met, but rather in a let-me-tie-you-up-and-play-with-this-candle-wax kind of a way. I liked it.
The other was a small crouched figure with hairy hands and arms, and hair that looked like it had been thatched. Wolverine, I surmised. I switched my attention back to the first guy.
‘It smells of wet blazers in here,’ he said.
‘Uh, that’ll be me,’ I said, rather clumsily. I managed to refrain from pointing out that my soggy DKNY soft cashmere blazer still smelled better wet than their entire flat did dry.
The man looked at me a bit more closely.
‘So, we’re just asking Sophie here some questions,’ said Eck. ‘Want to join in?’
‘Sure. Why do you want to move into this shit hole?’ he asked, in a pleasant tone of voice.
‘Cal,’ said Eck. ‘Can you be nice, please? You keep scaring people off.’
‘Not much scares me,’ I said, flirtily. Then I realised I was surprised at myself. Post Daddy and Rufus I hadn’t really thought I’d ever be capable of flirting again.
‘Really? Not even slugs?’ said Cal, flicking on the kettle.
‘Slugs!’ agreed Wolverine, a hairy hand scrabbling in a bag of sugar cubes before grabbing some and stuffing them in his gob.
I glanced at Eck. ‘You’ve got slugs?’
He rolled his eyes at Cal. ‘Stop talking about slugs.’ ‘Um, that wasn’t a no,’ I pointed out. It was gradually becoming clear why this flat was still available. That Cal guy was hot though.
‘We had a slug,’ said Eck. ‘OK, two slugs.’
‘And when two slugs get together . . . a little music, a little wine, a bit of romance . . . many little slugs,’ said Cal. ‘Don’t rent out the room, Eck.’
‘James says it’s fine.’
‘James likes to sleep in a trench with sixteen other boys all masturbating into the same sock.’
Eck looked at me with a disappointed look on his face, as if he completely understood why I was about to run from the flat with my tail between my legs. He probably thought this was about the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
‘D’you want t
o see the rest of the flat then?’ he asked in a slightly defeated tone of voice.
‘Sure,’ I said brightly. All the boys looked surprised.
‘Right. I’m going to tell her about the snake,’ said Cal.
‘Snake!’ said Wolverine.
‘There really isn’t a snake,’ said Eck, half-smiling. ‘I promise.’
‘You didn’t mention a snake in the ad,’ I said.