Guerillas In Our Midst

by Claire Peate

  “All right?” Babs gave her a curt nod from her raised doorstep.

  What a witch, Beth mouthed to me when Babs turned and headed indoors. “Look Eds, as much as I hate to agree with the old hag next door but yes maybe you ought to take care. Maybe she is on to something with Eustace Fox.”

  “Enjoy Café Rouge!” I shooed her out of the gate. “And as we’re dishing out warnings and cautions, you be careful with the blue cheese and the alcohol. And laughing too much. And using coarse language.”

  “I will! And hey – good luck with your lodger. Is it tomorrow he arrives?”

  “Yup. Do you want me to be careful about him too? Babs thinks there’s a chance that lodgers can get angry and bake their landladies into pies.”

  “No, darling, I’m sure you, Amanda and Babs chose a good one. Byee!”

  189 Geoffrey Road was now home to three: me, Fin and Robert Willoughby. It was moving in day and Babs and I had been philosophising over the garden wall for the last half hour while Robert and and his famous father Max moved boxes in.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Babs pointed a thoughtful fag in the direction of my sundial, “I like what you’ve got going on ’ere. It’s better than that bleedin’ mess you made before. But what I don’t know is how yer did it.”

  “Oh, you know,” I said, “I just got the urge one night and sorted it all out.”

  “All them weeds! I thought it were too much for one person to clear that lot! An’ what’s with the tiny maze then? Is it for kids or somethin’?”

  I managed to conjure up an excuse about a long held love for Elizabethan knot gardens and that it seemed the perfect use of space to make my own version.

  “I don’t get the sundial either love I ’ave to say.”

  “Oh. Well. I’ve always liked sundials,” I said, lamely.

  “Don’t get no sun in the front garden though do we darlin’? Not until June, and then only after four o’clock.”

  There was no answer to that.

  We paused the conversation, to my relief, as Robert and his silver fox dad walked past with boxes. I smiled at them and Babs raised a friendly fag. Every time they staggered past me with Robert’s belongings I felt a stab of guilt at not helping. I’d offered of course. Many times. But the boxes were heavy and they said they were fine as they were. It didn’t stop me feeling immensely guilty though, standing around watching them.

  The trouble was I had no idea of landlady/lodger etiquette. What was I supposed to do when a lodger moved in? I’d asked Amanda and Beth. Both of them had said I should definitely be in the house, rather than leaving him to get settled in on his own, and that I should offer to help. So far, so good. Beth had said the best thing I could do was to make tea and just be nice. Amanda said I should suggest lunch at a bar, probably in Greenwich, as a way to welcome him. So I spent the morning smiling, regularly offering to make tea (no more just yet thanks), and gearing up to ask them out to lunch. Which, in reality, boiled down to dithering around in the front garden and talking to Babs.

  “’e shook me ’and.” Babs said when Robert’s dad walked past with a pot plant. “Max Willoughby actually shook me ’and.” She stared at the hand with a look of awe. “I ain’t never gonna wash it again.”

  “He seems like a nice chap. For someone who’s famous,” I said. “I mean – sometimes you hear of famous people being really up themselves.”

  “Ooh, if I were ten years younger…” Babs stared wistfully after Max Willoughby. “’e reminds me of me husband. God rest ’is soul.”

  “I didn’t know you were widowed. I’m sorry.” I added, because I thought that’s what I ought to say.

  “Don’t be.” Babs laughed phlegmily. “Shittin’ bastard ’e was,” she leant in so close I was practically smoking when I breathed in her breath. “He slipped an’ fell on a bread knife ’e did. Terrible accident it was.” And then she winked at me. “’specially as I was ’olding the bread knife at the bleedin’ time! But that’s between you an’ me an’ this wall right?”

  Ngh.

  “Yeah it’s all well an’ good lookin’ all shocked about it Edda, but what you don’t realise,” she dipped her voice as Max and Robert appeared again, “what with your sheltered young life, is that some folks are proper fuckin’ bastards. Bastards we’re better off without. An’ I were better off without me ’usband. I did miss the breadknife though – it was a good one: bone ’andled it was, proper expensive.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, pondering the loss of the breadknife. “Anyways, I got a new one, eventually, down Deptford Market. And me boyfriend is the best thing that’s ’appened to me since I had me veins done.”

  “Hi … hi!” Completely unexpectedly, Amanda bounced down the garden path, the most welcome vision I had ever seen in my entire life after Babs’ revelations. “I didn’t know you smoked, Edda!” she chirruped.

  I stubbed the cigarette out on the wall. “I really felt like one,” I said. News of Babs’ killing her husband had sent me straight to the filterless fags.

  “Well. I was just passing and, like, I wanted to see if anyone needed any help.”

  I felt my eyes narrowing. “You weren’t just passing.” I said, with the intuition of the most cunning of police detectives.

  “Nope!” She bounced up towards me. “I see the van’s parked outside, so I guess they’re here, then? Is Max here, too? It is moving in day, isn’t it? I have got it right haven’t I?”

  “Yes, he’s inside. That’s a nice dress, by the way.”

  “Ah thanks! You don’t think it’s, like, too short and everything?”

  “Well actually…”

  “It’s not real leopard skin, though!” she laughed. “My old gran thought it was! Can you imagine! Like I’m some kinda Tarzan girl and stuff. Come on then, shall we go in?”

  We sat in the back garden with coffees, making good use of the inspired biscuit selection Robert had produced from a box marked “kitchen”. There were Jaffa Cakes, Party Rings and chocolate Malted Milks along with Jammy Dodgers and custard creams. Amanda had, without doubt, picked the right lodger for me.

  “It’s really such a charming house you’ve got,” Max Willoughby said. “And I can see why you’d want to have a lodger: it’s enormous. Is it four bedrooms, Edda?”

  “Five. Well, six if you class the loft room.”

  “Six bedrooms!” Amanda gazed up at the house. “Like, you are so lucky! I know you lost your parents and stuff, but you have this amazing house and Brockley’s really posh these days isn’t it? You must be minted.”

  “So, have you had lodgers before?” Robert stepped in.

  I hastily finished off a yellow Party Ring. “My best friend. We lived together for a few years until she moved in with her boyfriend. Just around the corner actually.”

  “Well it’s such a nice spot here what with—”

  “Yeah, but your friend’s like moving really far away, isn’t she?” Amanda added, and turning to Max, went on: “Poor Edda she’s being platonically divorced from her best friend. It’s, like, this really big deal for her ’cause, what was it, Edda, you were like sisters and stuff? Anyway, now this friend is moving away and getting married and having a baby, and all that, so Edda’s just been left abandoned, haven’t you Edda? It’s really sad.”

  “It’s fine!” I smiled my best smile. “Amanda’s just exaggerating. I mean it’s sad, but it’s fine.”

  Max nodded. “Surrey is it?”

  “Yes. How did you guess?”

  “They all do the Surrey thing.”

  Robert looked vexed. “So why do people move out to Surrey? What happens if you raise a child in Brockley?”

  “Terrible things would happen!” I said, trying to think of all the horrors that Beth was hoping to escape from. “Raising a child in Brockley would pretty much guarantee it would become a prostitute if it was a girl, or a drug addict gang member if it was a boy.”

  Robert and his dad laughed, but Amanda was wearing a horrified Really, like, oh
my God and everything expression, despite the fact she’d been brought up in the borough without suffering such a fate.

  “Well, thank God they’re escaping to Surrey.” Max said smoothly. “The only bad habit it will get into there is a weak tennis serve.”

  “Or a penchant for caviar,” added Robert.

  “Or a dependence on Waitrose.” I laughed.

  “Hello there,” Beth was walking towards us. “I love Waitrose! Why are you talking about Waitrose?”

  Oh. I stared at my best friend, open-mouthed.

  This morning my house was like some terrible theatrical comedy with people arriving unannounced Stage Left and Stage Right. Any second now my dead parents would stroll in, covered in seaweed: But didn’t you know darling, it was all an impossible, impossible mistake!

  “Sorry to walk in uninvited, Eds.” Beth planted a kiss on my cheek, bending down slowly to accommodate the bump. “I did knock, but you didn’t hear me. Hi!” She looked at the others around the table. “I’m Beth, Edda’s best friend. And you must be Robert.” She singled him out and shook his hand. “Hello. Welcome to Ed’s place. I lived with her for years and it was great! And … Max Willoughby!” She lost it for a second in the aura of celebrity, but regained it just as quickly and shook his hand. “Yes. Well. Wow. I just thought you were in a TV soap or something.” Max smiled politely and said something gracious about blooming.

  “Ahh,” Beth turned to Amanda giving her a lightning-quick up-and-down and taking in the tiny leopard skin dress and the four inch wedge sandals. “And you must be the Amanda I’ve been hearing so much about.”

  “And you must be the best friend I’ve been hearing so much about,” Amanda retorted. The two met eye-to-eye in a silent tense standoff. I sat in my chair and wondered what the bloody hell was going on – it was like old-boyfriend meets new-boyfriend.

  “Does anyone fancy going out for lunch?” I chipped in. “There’s a new bar just opened up, near Hilly Fields, that I thought we could try…”

  I sat on the edge of my bed staring out of the window at my skipless view. It had been an odd day. And now, downstairs, was my new lodger. I could hear him in the kitchen putting away the last of his food in the cupboards. My cupboards. It felt so strange after so long living on my own to know there was a man downstairs – a man with his own set of keys to my house – putting away his cereal boxes in my cupboards. I didn’t even know if he had a middle name. Was that important? Probably not. The most important thing was that he didn’t seem likely to put me in a pie, although there was bound to be something about him that Babs wouldn’t like, given time.

  I stared out of the bay window for a few more minutes. What I really wanted was a glass of water but I was already in my pyjamas and it didn’t seem appropriate to go downstairs when Robert was down there. Stupid I knew, but nevertheless it didn’t feel right. It was night-time: bed time. And not time to go swanning around with strange – if perfectly nice – men. Beth would have told me to pull myself together and go downstairs – goddamn it, Eds – and do it. Amanda would have persuaded me to ditch the pyjamas and do it.

  It had been so strange to watch the two of them at lunch – a lunch which Max had insisted on picking up the tab for. After sizing-up Beth and engaging in spiky conversational warfare with her, Amanda pretty much only had eyes for Max. She sat beside him at the restaurant and spent the meal flirting outrageously: Here, try some of mine, feeding him with her cutlery, hanging on to every word he said, touching his shoulder, his arm. And Max Willoughby looked more than happy to oblige and had effortlessly adopted the role of mentor, explaining the size of wine glasses: that’s for white wine, that’s for red, that’s for water, which completely blew her away.

  And this left Robert, Beth and me to talk amongst ourselves: which had been surprisingly easy and enjoyable. Robert turned out to not be one of those men who get completely cowed by the disgusting and unknown wonder of pregnant women: the sort who daren’t look at a baby bump for fear it would explode in their face like an atomic baby grenade.

  “He’s really nice, Eds,” Beth had whispered to me as we all made our way back from the bar after lunch. “You’ve completely lucked out that the handsome famous father had a nice son.”

  “He does seem OK doesn’t he?” I whispered back.

  “Do you think – you know – that you might …” she raised her eyebrows at me.

  “What? No! God, you’re as bad as Amanda – she wanted me to get a lodger to shack up with. And anway, I told you about Guy didn’t I? I mean I know it’s casual. Very casual. And it might be nothing but, well, it’s worth keeping the schedule clear if you know what I mean. I think I might be on to something with him.”

  “Yeah the artist sounds hot! What does Robert do for a job? I know you told me.”

  “He’s a history teacher.”

  “Mmm. Historian or artist. Yeah – no contest really is there?” she’d said and linked her arm through mine as we walked back to 189 Geoffrey Road.

  And now Robert the history teacher was making himself a drink in my kitchen before, probably, going to bed up the stairs that passed my room. It was all just too strange.

  “How are you getting on with your new tenant?” Amanda bounced up to my desk and then bounced on to it. Peach.

  “Very well.” I said, “He cooked Sunday lunch for me yesterday.”

  “Very nice,” Amanda said and then added. “His dad took me out for breakfast on Sunday morning.”

  It took a few seconds to register what she’d said. “Pardon? Pardon?”

  “Oh come on, Mrs Prude.” She slapped my arm. “We’re all grown-ups.”

  “Yes but Amanda he’s really grown-up. He must be forty years older than you.”

  “So? And it’s thirty-two years actually. But, like, oh my God, can older men teach you a thing or two!”

  Our boss looked up from her PC, frowned slightly and turned back to the report she was pretending to read. I squinted over to the open page and saw the words caught in his throbbing ardour. Crikey. The Sea Captain’s passion was not abating.

  “Anyway,” Amanda continued in a slightly quieter voice that could now only be heard as far away as the lifts in Education (I knew this because all the middle-aged women in Accounts were still looking at each other pointedly, while beyond the lifts they were straining to hear what was being said). “It was a totally cool breakfast. We went into Greenwich and I had Eggs Benedict, which I’ve never had in my life before but I love. You know what … he is just, like, so clever and everything. He knows everything. Eggs Benedict! Crazy!”

  “I’m very pleased for you.” I said. And I was. But also I was rather worried what effect Amanda’s relationship with Max was going to have on mine with my new lodger. Would it make things awkward that my friend – friend? – was having it away with his dad? Or would it give us something to talk about? Or would it make no difference whatsoever? Although, obviously, there were going to be some subject areas that were going to be off limits: Amanda said your Dad really knows his way around a woman’s body. Can you pass the corn flakes please, Robert…

  “So, your mate Beth seemed a bit uptight and stuff.” Amanda brought me out of my alarming thoughts.

  “You think so?” I said. “I think she was probably just tired.”

  “I think she’s jealous.” Amanda crossed her legs with a peachy flash.

  “Jealous? What on earth do you think she’s jealous about?”

  “I think she’s like realising what she’s leaving behind. “ Amanda said. “I think she’s going to miss you.”

  “You really think so?” I said, not unhappy to hear that another person had picked up on something I had considered, thus making it absolutely certain that Beth was now looking back at me and not just running thoughtlessly forward towards babydom.

  “Yeah ’cause it’s like I said, it’s divorce isn’t it – and she’s gutted that you’re, like, moving on already and so quickly and stuff. She’s jealous of me. I, like, totall
y got that impression. She kept looking at me funny.”

  “Probably because you had a tiny leopard-skin dress on,” I hazarded.

  “Nah. Not the way she was looking at me. And I reckon she’s going to be jealous of that Robert chap, too. Well, it’s no good regretting where she’s going is it? It’s not a train from which she can disembark is it?” She clocked my expression and then added, “That’s something Max said. He’s got a real way with words, hasn’t he? And with his hands, if you get my meaning!” She giggled.

  “Yes. Thank you. Loud and clear. So, when are you seeing Max again?”

  “Tonight!” she leapt off the desk and bounded round me. “Guess what? He’s taking me to the theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, to see some play about incest that his friends are acting in! And he’s driving us there in his sports car! And then we’re going for dinner after, somewhere on the Strand. How cool is that? Oh man, I am so glad I helped you get a tenant.”

  “Oooh,” came a noise behind us and Rosemary snapped closed a thick report on Economic Indicators: South London’s Spatial Plan. Red faced she stood up from her desk and wobbled away towards the lifts.

  Amanda and I giggled. “Do you think she was enjoying the stiff probing urgency of Lewisham’s regenerated town centre?” I said.

  Amanda snorted and then, “Hey,” she said, grabbing my arm, “talking of which, you should totally come and see my screen saver.”

  And there he was, Max Willoughby, giving the camera a sexy serious pose in his guise as Detective Calvados in a TV drama.

  “Does he fight crime by pouting?” I said.

  “Actually, Detective Calvados fights crime using detective skills honed from years on the beat.” She was reciting it word for word again. “And using the psychic intuition passed on to him by his Romany gypsy mother. In one episode…” at which point I tuned out, preferring instead to daydream about Guy hard at work in front of an enormous canvas, stripped to the waist, sweating… Obviously working for the Council pushed a woman into living in a fantasy world if the third floor was anything to go by.