The House Mate

by Nina Manning

  I walked the two blocks from the station to the university. Flashes of the black baseball cap kept appearing in front of my eyes, and I had to physically shake my head to shift them. I needed more distractions. Karen, through her subtle micro-aggression, was absolutely right; I needed to get out, even if it was just for my own sanity. I didn’t need to look at anything long-term, but I needed to start finding my way back to some sort of normality, not just painting by numbers and pretending that I was a normal person just because I paid rent and bought a fancy, overpriced coffee every now and again. I needed to do it, not just to show those around me that I was okay, but to prove to myself that I could. I needed him to know I had moved on; once he could see that, maybe he would leave me alone.

  I knew what I would start with, and the conversation I had with Will the other day reverberated in my ears. I would sign up for the exhibition. I needed to fill my days and hours with as much as I possibly could.

  I went to the main art block and found there was a little desk with a piece of paper taped to it. I wrote down my name, student number and a rough outline of what my exhibition would be.

  From the images I had been collecting on my phone, I had been subconsciously building towards a project. Now I had a reason to create it.

  I headed to my first lesson of the day. It was a practical, and I knew I could lose myself in the colours and textures. I had been making some preliminary sketches, and I felt a wave of enthusiasm that it might turn into something good.

  At lunchtime, I found myself in the spot where Will and I had sat and chatted a few days ago. I didn’t want to sit and imagine Will showing up, taking a seat and distracting me with his shiny eyes and easy conversation, so I pulled out my phone and checked in on Mrs Clean. She had posted, in her stories; this time a photo of a toilet taken on an angle. There was some sort of hanging plant spidering its way from a basket that was attached to the wall. There was a candle on the windowsill and I realised it was an ad for this particular candle brand. It said, Swipe up to buy. So I did, and found myself on a website that sold purely organic candles. Without too much thought, I ordered a lavender, basil and lemon one. I had never heard of that combination, but I was pretty sure that was the one Mrs Clean had on her windowsill.

  I looked up from my phone, half expecting to see Will, but I didn’t. I felt something in the pit of my stomach; regret at not taking him up on his offer for a drink. I thought about the dating app that Mini had installed for me and talked me through. I hadn’t looked at it since we uploaded my information yesterday.

  Mini had asked why I didn’t have any photos of myself on my phone. I hadn’t taken a photo of myself in years, I told her.

  It was hard not to think about when I was a different person, and I did, all the time. I felt truly robbed of everything, not just the loss of the life I knew and loved, but I had totally lost who I was. I looked back on images or texts from days before it happened and thought to myself, how could I have ever been so happy? How can I now feel so different to that person who was bantering on text messages and taking selfies with a perfect streak of lens flare across her face? It was me, but it wasn’t me any more. That me was gone, and I didn’t think she would ever return.

  I looked at the dating app and I could see there were profiles of suitable men in front of me, and I was now supposed to what? Check them out, decide if liked them? ‘Swipe right to say you like them, left if you don’t,’ was what Mini said. I looked at the first profile. It was a tall man in a police uniform. I immediately swiped left. I was presented with another potential suitor: Darren, stocky, muscles, clean-shaven, likes going to the gym and socialising. I swiped left.

  Next, a preppy-looking guy with neat, dark hair, wearing a corduroy jacket and jeans. Solicitor, enjoys walks, meals out and books. Okay, I thought, this sounds as though it could be something I could possibly endure for an hour or two. I took a deep breath and swiped right, then quickly shoved my phone away. If he decided he liked me too, then it was going to be okay, I reminded myself. It was just two people having a conversation, but I would have to make sure we only went for a drink; eating food in front of strangers was out of the question. I had just about managed to train myself to eat with my house mates, and I did that as little as possible.

  But it was going to be okay. Because much worse things had happened.

  By the time I had arrived home from college, I had received a match. He, Calvin, had decided he liked the look of me and had messaged me, suggesting meeting for a drink at the weekend. For that I was grateful. I couldn’t handle anything more than that.

  I went into the house and was relieved to find I was alone after I hollered a couple of hellos and poked my head around Karen’s door to make sure there was no sign of Steve. I made a herbal tea and went out to the summerhouse. I sat and closed my eyes, my tea cradled in my hands. The sounds came floating through, the same sounds I had been hearing for weeks: the pained cries of a child. My body flooded with the same fear I had been plagued with for years. I stood up and put my mug down on the table and went to the doorway. The child’s cries were strong and persistent. I couldn’t look over the fence again. I remembered the hedge at the end of our garden. Although I had yet to explore it further, I was sure that it could take me through to their garden. I left the summerhouse and headed towards the hedge. I shot a look back at the house to make sure that no one was watching me from the window and got down on all fours. Edging forwards, I clambered to my right, through the undergrowth until I could feel I was pushing my way into their garden. The hedge opened up again into a small clearing.

  Finally, I could see the child. It was a little boy. My heart pounded and tears sprung into my eyes. He was almost exactly like… No, it couldn’t be. The long, unruly hair, the size and age of him, it was all so familiar. He was standing just inside the house next to an open patio door. Alone. I took a chance and shifted myself forwards into the clearing. I was still surrounded by shrubbery with a wide view of the patio and a small patch of grass in front of me. As though he could sense me there, the little boy looked up at me with his big eyes in alarm. He was standing quietly, no longer crying, but I put my finger to my lips and a small ‘shhh’ escaped them. He edged forward so his feet were balancing on the patio-door ledge. He looked uncertainly behind him, then placed one foot on the patio. He took another precautionary glance over his shoulder, then placed the other foot on the patio. My heart was filling up with maternal love as I imagined him breaking into a sprint and running into my arms that had been so empty for so long. But he just stood there. I looked around the garden and noticed how there were no toys, no sandpit, no push bike, scooter or football. Nothing. The garden was perfectly clear and exceptionally well pruned. There was shout, a name was being called.

  ‘Raff… Raff,’ came a woman’s voice, the same woman I had seen and heard before. The boy looked panicked and rooted to the spot.

  ‘Raff! Raff!’ she was screeching in the European accent I still couldn’t place. Then she continued to shout in a language I didn’t recognise. Raff, who was still frozen to the spot, let out a high-pitched wail. I shuffled backwards as I heard the woman arriving at the doorway and turned my body into the shrubbery. The screams continued and then faded as the patio doors were slammed shut. I shuffled back, but I was still looking at the spot where he had been standing where there was now a small puddle.

  I felt sick as I went back into the house. I paced around the kitchen, looking for something to do to relieve the panic that was building through my body. I raced upstairs, wringing my hands, an act that I only did when things were spiralling out of control. I opened and closed my window six times, making sure the latch was firmly across on the final lock. Then I paced my room, desperately thinking of ways to feed the monster who had reared his ugly head. I went back downstairs and began pacing the kitchen again.

  Suddenly, I heard the front door close and I stopped dead. I couldn’t see anyone like this. I went to the kitchen door to make my way back
upstairs again, but Sophia was already there before I could make my escape.

  ‘Hey, how are…’ She trailed off. ‘Regi, are you okay? Do you want to sit?’

  She dropped her bag on the floor and strode over to the cupboard, took a glass down and filled it with water. She guided me to the table and I sat, shaking; I couldn’t keep my legs still. She sat next to me and I placed a hand on my quivering leg.

  ‘Regi, what is it?’

  I looked at her. ‘The boy, the boy next door, I…’

  Sophia looked quizzical. ‘What boy?’

  ‘There’s a child, a boy, long hair, and his mother…’

  I stopped.

  The mother; her face and her voice were suddenly so familiar to me. I had met her before.

  ‘Who is his mother?’ Sophia stroked my hand lightly.

  An image from a few weeks ago sprung into my mind. ‘I remember, I saw her, she was in the shop. She couldn’t afford a kid’s bottle of paracetamol. So I bought it for her.’

  Sophia tightened her grip on my hand. ‘Oh, Regi, that was such a nice thing to do. Good for you.’ Sophia tilted her head to one side. ‘And the boy?’

  I looked down at Sophia’s hand on mine. I now felt embarrassed for what I had done, sneaking into someone’s garden that way.

  Sophia was still looking at me intently, waiting for a reply, and even though I had been trying for so long to hold it all in, the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  ‘He reminded me of my son.’

  18

  Then

  A baby boy arrived late summer shortly after my twentieth birthday. I called Mum and told her, saying I would try to get over to see her. But I never did. I wasn’t surprised when there was no offer of a visit from her either. I had stopped expecting one. I wondered if she knew how things were between D and I? If there were any telltale signs during our phone conversations that she then likened to her own relationship with my father?

  But, deep down, I knew I overthought things when it came to my mum. She was no longer capable of real emotions. I could hear it in the hollowness of her voice.

  D hadn’t laid a finger on me since he found out I was pregnant again. We had moved into a four-bedroom detached house on the outskirts of a village so with that and the baby arriving, life held a novel aspect to it. I had come to recognise that boredom often brought on bouts of anger, which I would be at the receiving end of.

  I still hadn’t learnt to drive. D said it was too dangerous for me to learn when I was pregnant. And once he had made it abundantly clear that my life was at home with the baby, I couldn’t imagine asking him to sit with his son whilst I booked in a few lessons. The only way for me to get anywhere was if D took me or if I called for a taxi. We were now miles away from my mum. We were miles away from anything or anywhere, and I didn’t know anyone.

  D appeared to be pleased with the baby. He kept spinning him around and lifting him up too high over his head. I would touch his arm and ask him to be careful – he was still delicate, I reminded him. He would look at me with a hardened expression and continue his spinning game. I could take whatever he did to me, but not what he might do to my baby. Not again.

  I couldn’t think of a suitable name for him, and D’s lists of complicated names from past uncles and second and third cousins did not suit him at all. D referred to him as the baby; to me he became Baby Boy. I would keep thinking of names. I watched the credits at the end of every film, trying to spot a name that I liked and that I thought would suit him.

  He had a set of lungs on him, and I became more tense with him when D was around. I needed to walk and to be out of the house so I could calm him and that worked for all of us. D would have his headspace back and be able to ‘hold a bloody thought in his brain’ and me and Baby Boy would get some time together alone.

  I had a growing sense of unease, and I was sure that was what fuelled Baby Boy’s crying; it was as though he could sense my worry. D may have kept his distance during my pregnancy, but he began changing again; the same signs were back: the look of disdain, the stressed tone, the unnecessary requests for me to perform menial tasks at times that were inconvenient to me, such as when I was feeding the baby or cooking dinner. Times that he knew I might protest or if I asked a simple question or made a suggestion. I knew better than to push things any further. I knew when to stay back and when to be quiet.

  I stayed inside the house a lot. I lived my life on a knife edge, always looking and waiting and expecting. There were times when his love was completely wholesome, when he would look me in the eye, tilt my head up so I was looking at him too, and say exactly the right thing. He would tell me that I was everything that he ever needed. And that would be enough to push the thoughts away, and I would once again feel that all-consuming sense of hope, that this was it, and things could only get better.

  I woke one morning to yet another searing hot day. It felt tropical as though a thunderstorm was needed to clear the sweltering heat. The atmosphere felt too close and had made D’s mood palpable.

  Baby boy was loving the warmth and slept deeply all morning in only a nappy with a muslin draped over him; his tiny arms spread upwards, his little legs slightly curled inwards. He’d not been quite so content in the night. D had groaned and rolled over, muttering something about shutting him up. Eventually I had retreated with Baby Boy in my arms to the spare double bed where we both dozed until late into the morning.

  It had been such a long time since he had done anything to physically hurt me that I had become lackadaisical. The housework had got on top of me; clothes hanging for days and yesterday’s dishes were still sat stacked next to the sink. The heat was pressing down on my skull, making me feel weary from only a few full hours sleep. Baby Boy was just two weeks old and I had read that it was best to get a nap in when the baby slept.

  I had just laid him down for his afternoon sleep in his basinet in the spare room, hoping I could get just half an hour’s shut-eye, then I’d strap the baby to my chest and tackle the housework.

  D had been out and I jumped at the sound of the front door slamming. I could smell the alcohol on his breath when he got into the house, but I knew he had driven. I didn’t dare comment.

  He reached out to grab my arm to pull me to him. I knew what he wanted from me, but I was exhausted and still postpartum. I must have jerked my arm away – an instinctual action in my weary state. I had forgotten how to be alert.

  I watched his face change colour. A deep red crept from his neck and flooded his cheeks as he spat the insults at me; a prelude before the main act.

  Fear gripped me, effervescent bubbles of terror frothed in my throat. The beautiful bond that had been forming between me and Baby Boy had filled me with so much love that I had forgotten what it was like to be perpetually terrified.

  He didn’t hold back this time. The kicks and the punches found their way to every part of my body. I held an image of Baby Boy’s face in my head, knowing I had to survive this for him.

  Afterwards, as I lay in the corner of the lounge, I made up excuses for him in my head: he was drunk, he was tired, he was stressed. It was a slight blip. Tomorrow, I would try harder and we would be okay.

  After he had left that night and I knew he wouldn’t be back until morning, I went to put the night latch on the door. Half an hour later, in my tired and bruised state, I could not remember doing it, so I returned to the door, checked the lock and, to be certain, I unlocked and locked it again.

  Just before I went to bed, I checked it once more.

  19

  Now

  Sophia closed the door softly behind her and left me alone in my bedroom. She had brought me a vodka, neat, and I managed to swallow it down through my gulps of tears. She knew she wouldn’t get much out of me, and so she had kindly walked me to my room and laid me down on my bed, with the vodka doing its work. There was a part of my brain that was willing me to get up and start doing something in the bedroom, strip the bed, straighten some
thing out, but the more prominent side had been lulled by the alcohol and didn’t want to do anything but lie still until the thoughts had disappeared. The niggling thought, the one that was willing me to perform a compulsion, was that I had stupidly brought up the subject of my son with Sophia. It was a natural thing to do, of course, but I had stopped sharing my true feelings such a long time ago. It was the child; he had brought all the feelings to the surface. He reminded me so much of what I once had. I felt like a failure, that everything I had been trying to hold on to was suddenly out of my grip. I had tried to keep it hidden for so long from everyone.

  I woke up fully clothed. The room was pitch-black. My throat was dry and scratchy and I knew I had been sleeping with my mouth open, probably snoring. I grabbed my phone from my bedside table and saw there was a missed call from the number. He had called only a few hours ago. It was now 2 a.m. I wondered how much longer I would be able to get away with ignoring him. Not much longer. It wouldn’t be long before I would find myself face to face with him, and the thought of that made my gut twist with terror.

  I had been asleep for almost ten hours. Apart from a slight dull buzz in my head, I felt wide awake. I knew getting back to sleep any time soon was going to be tricky. It was alarming to be suddenly awake at 2 a.m. when the world felt so empty; it was easy to feel all alone.

  There was a pair of clean pyjamas folded neatly over the end of the bed, so I removed the clothes I had been wearing at college that day and pulled them on. I decided a hot drink would help me get back to sleep.