The House Mate

by Nina Manning

  ‘Don’t say it. Don’t say his name.’ My nose burned with the tears that I was holding back.

  ‘I wouldn’t say his name. Not until you say it first,’ Joe said quickly.

  We both stayed quiet for a few minutes as I let the reality of Joe’s words sink in. I had done this before. Twice before. Once just three weeks after it happened, and the last time about a year later. They were both boys. Around four years old.

  ‘Although there is the other thing to consider,’ Joe said eventually.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say.’ I looked away. I could feel the stinging sensation of tears now prickling behind my eyes. Joe was the only one who could extract this sort of emotion from me.

  ‘I know you know what I’m going to say, and I think that’s why you are here, why you have said that you have had all these feelings recently again. I think the real reason you came, the real reason you wanted to see me and assess your emotions, was because you needed someone else to say it. To verify it.

  ‘I think you are ready to be a mother again. I think you want to see him again, your other son. And I think you know he is missing you. He’s what? Fifteen now? I think it’s time.’

  29

  Then

  Olga, it turned out, was a nice woman; a good egg. She was incredibly helpful and didn’t ever overstep the mark. She was polite and always checked with me if something needed doing before she did it. When I finally got over the shock of her presence, I began to ask her some questions about herself.

  She said she was twenty-five, yet she looked so much older, as though she had been through so much already. I tried to extract more information from her, such as where she came from and what work she had done before, but she was good at holding back information. I even had the courage to ask her how much D was paying her. Her face went pale and she said, ‘He has been very generous.’

  Her answer made my blood run cold. Was she offering him services separate to the housework, or was he taking advantage of her? Even though I hated him for every bruise he had given me, he was my first love. I still felt a spark of something for him, some kind of ownership. He may have been cruel and flawed in many ways, but he was all I had.

  D was away more and more, and so we women fell into a routine of waking early with the baby. I would chat away to Olga whilst she mopped and tidied. She even took over the cooking, which, in a way, was a relief, but it also meant that I never really learned how to cook; something that made me quite sad. I had wanted my husband and then my son to look at me with gratitude when I presented them with a hearty meal.

  I suppose it was a blessing when Olga arrived. It would have been so lonely with just me and the baby otherwise. It was nice to have someone in the house with me, day and night; someone I could rely on to be consistent with their behaviour. When it was just us girls in the evening, we would pour ourselves a small glass of sweet wine, wrap ourselves in cardigans and blankets and sit out on the patio under the gas heater. We would giggle about stories we had seen in the news or TV programmes we had watched. I enjoyed having a girl around that I could relate to. I was so young, even though I did not feel it at the time. The saddest part was it made me realise I had never actually had a girlfriend before. I was so busy being there for Mum and then the first time I moved out, it was to be with D, so friends had always fallen by the wayside. There weren’t any siblings or friends who were doing the domestic-bliss thing that I could relate to. It was just me. I knew deep down that there was something fundamentally wrong between me and D, that this wasn’t the usual set-up; this was not how families worked. I even knew then I should have been fearing for the safety of my child more. I knew he wasn’t safe, and yet I did nothing to protect him. I stayed. I don’t know why. I suppose I had nowhere else to go? If I left and went to my mum’s, he would only come for me and how would my mum – as frail as a ninety-year-old woman at just forty-five – protect herself and two others? I would not want to put that stress on her. She deserved a quiet life. She had suffered enough already.

  One day, D came home and found Olga and I stood at the kitchen island laughing so hard over something that had begun with an unusually shaped vegetable and evolved as the wine took hold of us.

  I froze when he walked into the room. His jaw was set hard, his eyes fixed on me; he was ready to pounce. I could feel my heart pounding hard in my throat. But Olga was up and round the other side of the island, talking quickly at him. First, a string of compliments about the house, how much she had settled, how grateful she was. Then she told him to get himself comfortable in the lounge. She told him how I had been assisting her with his dinner preparations and it was almost ready. I watched in wonder how the tension in his jaw slackened and his eyes were drawn away from me and towards the cold beer Olga was handing him. He shuffled out of the room, clutching his beer, to the sofa where he would probably drink himself unconscious later.

  Olga returned to the island and busied herself finishing the meal. She must have felt the weight of my gaze as I stood looking on, not knowing how to discuss what had just happened and what hadn’t; how she had potentially saved me from a beating, and, thinking back, I realised it wasn’t the first time she had managed to deflect his behaviour. Eventually she turned to me with a sadness in her eyes. She understood the narrative of my life and she knew she couldn’t save me. She could only occasionally distract him.

  I had both hands laid out on the island, waiting to be of assistance. Olga reached across and pressed her hand into one of them. I felt a collision of shame and regret wash through me like a tsunami. I wished I could have been a stronger person and that we could have met in better circumstances. All of these unspoken words hovered between us, each of us understanding the other perfectly.

  Olga let out a long breath and picked up a peeler and the knobbly carrot. We both laughed through our noses. We shot a precautionary look towards the kitchen door then back to the island, where we tittered away like schoolgirls, preparing a meal for the man in my life that I secretly hoped he would choke on.

  30

  Now

  I sat on the train and could think of nothing else except the session with Joe. It had been so long since I had talked about my big boy, my firstborn, and doing so had brought a tidal wave of sadness. I looked around the carriage of the train as I pressed my eyelids closed and pinched my thighs to stop the tears that were threatening to erupt and never stop. The guilt was crushing me. I had neglected him. What must he think of me? But he would remember what I had done, that I was certain of. How the beautiful sibling he once had was no longer with us, and it was all my fault. Of course, Joe was right. I had been living out some sort of fantasy, every time the feelings reared themselves and the pain became too much, I would look for him, and I usually found him in another child.

  But I was still a mother. But did he need me? Would he want me? I couldn’t face the rejection. I had been hiding from the truth for so long, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel any more. I glanced around on the train at the other afternoon commuters who were all going about their days, perhaps with issues of their own, but you would never know or be able to tell from looking at them. I held on to these feelings of regret and hopelessness all day every day. I wondered if anyone else felt the same. I felt as if I was riding this journey of grief all alone.

  I had just about managed to suppress the tears, and as I continued looking around the carriage my eyes finally rested on a copy of the Metro on the table in front of me. I picked it up and began to flick through it. Nothing much kept my attention these days except for my textile work or Instagram, so I knew this magazine wasn’t really going to hold my interest for long enough. I was considering throwing it back on the table when I saw a flash of something that looked familiar. I couldn’t have been sure then what it was, as I began frantically turning the pages back, until I found what had caught my eye. It was an image of a rooftop cinema. The angle was slightly different and there were a few more people seated, but there was no doub
t that it was the same rooftop cinema that lucybest65 had taken a photo of from her armchair at home, claiming she had the best seat in the house. I looked at the text under the image. It was a short advertisement piece – but the words that stood out were those that told me exactly where it was. I felt a rush of heat run up my neck as I looked around the train carriage, certain someone would jump out from behind a seat any moment and catch me out; tell me it was a joke, just a test, and snatch the magazine away. But they didn’t. It felt too good to be true.

  The conversation I’d had with Joe, about meeting with my elder son, had been playing on a loop in my mind. But for now I would shelve it away into the dusty corners of my mind, where I could forget about it again for a while. I had this image in front of me, showing me that the rooftop cinema was only a few streets from my college campus.

  It occurred to me that perhaps lucybest65 was more obtainable than Mrs Clean with her million-plus followers, and I had always been interested to know why lucybest65 had such a vendetta against her. It would be a perfectly reasonable coincidence if I happened to be on the same street where lucybest65 lived, or even outside her house. Perhaps I would catch a glimpse of her coming out of her front door. Maybe I would engage in a conversation to find out if it was her, without her knowing that I followed her comments on Instagram. The idea that I had access to this kind of information about a complete stranger caused a rush of excitement to course through my body.

  Instagram post: 21st May 2019

  Hello, cleaners, how are you all getting on? Are you enjoying this lovely weather we’ve been having lately? You all know I have been spending a lot of time in the garden and also thinking about decorating my spare room in association with Oliver Bonas. So I have been sent images of these beautiful key pieces and I just wanted to share them with you. I’m really excited to get cracking.

  Today I am going to start with the mirrors. Here are a selection of four mirrors. Quite honestly, I love them all, so now it’s up to you guys to vote for which one you would prefer to see in the spare room.

  At the end of this project, Oliver Bonas are offering you all a 10 per cent discount – I will post the code later, as well as offering one lucky person a chance to win a £250 voucher to spend online or in store. I know!? I’ll reveal the winner later today. It’s a quickie competition so get your skates on. It’s a way for us both to say thank you for helping me decorate my room. It may look as though I know what I’m doing, but even I need a bit of help sometimes.

  I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

  Mrs C X

  #win #freebie #competition #mrsclean

  145,733 likes

  LucyBest65 she gets a whole room decorated and we get 10 per cent discount. That sucks ass.

  31

  Now

  I arrived home from my appointment with Joe in the early afternoon with a restlessness within me that I couldn’t suppress with my usual behaviours. I lined up coins, opened and closed windows and doors, even washed my hands for thirty seconds but nothing would shift the maddening sensation growing within me. As I packed a rucksack with an apple and a couple of satsumas, water and a few other snacks, I began to think about the distance between the college and where lucybest65 lived. I had already looked on the map on my phone and I had seen the route. I tried to push away the thoughts and instead focus on the exhibition. I needed to finish my piece so I would be ready for the end of July.

  I put a sweatshirt in my rucksack and then looked at my phone. It could do with a charge, but I could do it once I got to the art rooms. There was a train to the uni in a few minutes and if I hurried, I could catch it.

  I performed a few hurried locks on the front door as I left, before stepping out into the street and straight into the path of my neighbour.

  ‘Ahh, it is you.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Are you going to ring social services again, tell them what a wicked mother I am?’ Her lips were turned down in disgust.

  ‘I… I—’

  ‘No, I thought not. You think you can just go around saying what you like about whoever you like? I am a good mother, I am a good mother.’ Her tone changed from antagonistic to desolate and she seemed to almost go weak at the knees and her body slouched to one side as she grabbed at the wall.

  I instinctively reached out to catch her.

  ‘Get off me.’ She pushed me away. ‘You have no idea, do you? You think you can look over the wall or hear something and you make your mind up? Nothing is as it seems from a distance. You see a snippet of my life and you make your mind up. Always, people make up their mind without knowing.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I really am. I thought I was doing the right thing.’ I felt the panic surge through me. What had I done to this woman?

  ‘He is ill,’ she said eventually, leaning all her weight against the wall. She was wearing the long thick black jacket she had worn when I saw her at the shops, even though it was warm enough to go without. I could see her skin looked pale, she had make-up caked into the wrinkles around her eyes. She had on red lipstick, perhaps to compensate for her tired face, but it only accentuated her paleness.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I reached out my hand to touch her, but she waved it away.

  ‘He cannot go outside, if he does, he could risk picking up germs, and I hate it, I hate that he cries, that he doesn’t understand, that he is curious, that I have to tell him no, no, no.’ She used her finger as though she were scolding a child.

  She stood up straight, looked me in the eye once more before walking away in the opposite direction. I wondered if I should go after her, to try to explain to her my reasons for presuming her son was in danger. But I just watched her reach the end of the road and turn the corner.

  Realising I would almost certainly be late, I began running towards the train station in the opposite direction.

  I just caught the train as its doors were closing and as I took a seat, I couldn’t stop thinking about what my neighbour had said to me. I had been given an opportunity to be a good person. I could have rung on her doorbell, checked in on them, offered to make them a meal. Instead, I construed her child’s frustrated tears for abuse. I was overcome with regret for what I had done. And the familiar compulsion began growing within me. I needed to do something to rectify what I had done. If I didn’t, something terrible was sure to happen.

  I thought about lucybest65. Perhaps she was confused, frustrated, lonely. Perhaps all the comments she put out about Mrs Clean were, in fact, mirroring her own thoughts and behaviours about herself. We live on a small overpopulated planet where we are more connected than ever before, yet we feel lonelier than ever. I had found great comfort from Instagram, and finding my way into Mrs Clean’s world.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me that perhaps Lucy had given that information away about where she lived on purpose. And perhaps there was a reason. I had to find out and my mind would not let me rest until I had seen it through.

  By the time I had arrived at my stop, I had already made up my mind. Although I had been looking forward to spending some more time preparing my exhibition piece, an urgency was building inside of me. All I had to do was go there, see where lucybest65 lived and the monster would be satisfied.

  But that didn’t stop me from checking in with myself. I had made the wrong choice with my neighbour – it was human contact that was the most natural thing in the world. Instagram had become my new compulsion and with it I had discovered a world where the connections weren’t wholly organic, and forgotten about connecting to reality.

  I needed to do what I hadn’t done with my neighbour and check-in with lucybest65. She was, I supposed, a virtual neighbour of sorts. I had been observing her and what she projected out through Instagram for many weeks, and her negative comments hadn’t sat right with me. I wasn’t sure what I would do when I found her house, but I knew more or less where she lived. I couldn’t just ignore it; I had to do something with that information.

  I stepped off the train and for a few u
ncertain seconds, I stood absently in the middle of the platform as people hurried around me. I looked for the signs that would lead me out onto the street, suddenly unfamiliar with a place I had been coming to almost every day for weeks now, and slowly started to follow them.

  I had taken a photo of the rooftop cinema advert on my phone and I looked at it now, where the address was underneath the picture. I put it into the maps app on my phone and began to follow the route, which said it was a ten-minute walk away. I couldn’t take in my surroundings as I was glued to the map, not wanting to a miss a turning that would take me to where I needed to be. Once I was there, I would need to suss out which building would have the full-on perfect view of the rooftop cinema screen. This would be where lucybest65 lived. I would worry about that when I got there. For now, I just needed to concentrate on walking straight without bumping into people; already I could hear the tuts and sense the frustration from my fellow pedestrians. The words of my neighbour rang in my ear and urged me on. She was right, I knew nothing about her life and why would I presume to? I knew nothing about lucybest65’s life either, but maybe she was reaching out, conveying her loneliness through her posts. Would it be so impertinent to simply knock on her door and ask if she was okay?

  I pushed my way past people in the street until finally the maps app told me what I needed to hear. I had reached my destination. I put my phone into my rucksack and looked around me. There were tall buildings all around us in different styles, and I couldn’t work out which one held the rooftop cinema from this level. I began to turn in circles, trying to get some sort of bearing. I pulled out my phone again and looked at the photo of the rooftop from the picture I had taken of the newspaper. It did not offer any more clues.