I blast Stone Temple Pilots until the seatbelt sign lights up, removing my headphones as the captain’s voice comes over the speakers, telling us we’re making our descent into London’s Heathrow Airport.
“The weather on the ground is cold and overcast so I hope you brought your jackets. It’ll be a bit of a shock to the system after Sydney’s recent heatwave. On behalf of myself and the cabin crew, we hope you’ve had a pleasant flight. Cabin crew, please prepare to land.”
“Here we go,” Elliot says, as he clips in his seat belt. “Did you bring a jacket?”
I nod and take a deep breath to calm my nerves. I desperately need this fresh start away from everything that’s defined me until now. When you get kicked out of home at fifteen, you fall into a lot of different situations in an effort to take care of yourself. No matter how hard I worked to change my lot, people from the past kept popping up with their long memories, reminding me what I once was, of everything I lost. When I get to London, the reminders will stop. I’ll just be Paige, the girl from Australia. I don’t need to be any more than that.
Four
Elliot
Waiting at the baggage claim, I look around to see if I can find Paige. I lost her as we went through our passport checks. I spot her as she hauls her bag off the carousel and starts to wheel it away.
“Paige,” I call after her. She stops and looks around for the source of her name, eventually spotting me.
She smiles slightly, and I feel lucky all of a sudden. “Elliot. Have you found your bags?”
I look at the crowded carousel and shake my head. “Not yet. I just wanted to say bye, I guess. Maybe see which direction you're headed. We could share a cab?”
She shakes her head. “There’s no need. There’s a shuttle bus that’ll take me where I’m staying.”
My hopes deflate as I realise this is it. Goodbye. I’ve really enjoyed her company—even though she didn’t talk much. “Oh, well… maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”
She smiles again, her eyes telling me she thinks I’m naïve. “I doubt that, Elliot. London is a lot bigger than Sydney. It was nice to meet you though. Good luck finding yourself.” She lifts her bag and walks away, waving over her shoulder as I stand here doing nothing and watch her walk out of my life.
Paige
My room is tiny. I can take four steps in one direction and only three in the other. There’s a small wardrobe, a minuscule desk and chair, and a single bed with a polka-dot quilt on top. The carpet is royal blue, and the walls are stark white. It's clean and doesn’t have any funky odours hanging about, so for that I’m thankful. I’ve stayed in some disgusting motels in my time. Cleanliness is the top of my pre-requisite list, and this place wins.
I drop my bag at the foot of the bed and lie down, the jet lag already seeping in and dragging my eyes closed. I sit up, not wanting to fall asleep and ruin my night by being wide awake. With no TV in my room, I would like to spend it sleeping.
Reaching into my bag, I find the folder of papers I’d printed out before I left Australia. I’m a trained hairdresser, so I made a list of salons to call about work in an area close to the city I can afford to live in. I’ve done some research on share accommodation, but I got really confused with what the different ‘zones’ mean. I’m planning to have a look around to see what’s what tomorrow. But for today, I’ll make phone calls to enquire about a job. I have limited funds, so a job is a high priority.
Leaving my room, I head for the hotel shop, sucking in my breath when I'm blasted by cold air the moment I open the main door to cross the small courtyard. Still hugging myself against the cold, I purchase a prepaid phone card and return to my room to activate it. The first place I call is a shop called ‘Stylz’ in Waterloo.
Elliot
I get out of the black cab in front of the block of flats I’m staying in and look around. It feels so strange knowing it’s the end of January but feeling so freaking freezing. Lifting my bag, I climb the short flight of concrete steps leading up to the rendered white building and press the button for number twelve.
“Hello?” A female voice with an Australian accent, crackles through the intercom.
“Hi, it’s Elliot. I just arrived from the airport.”
“Of course, I’ll just buzz you in.”
As I hear the buzz from the entry door, I push. “Got it, thanks,” I call out.
“Great, see you up here,” she says, I can hear the clunk over the intercom as she replaces the handset.
As I ascend the stairs, I can’t get that stupid Abba song out of my head. It’s the name of the town I’m staying in, Waterloo. I hope I get over that fast because I’m not an Abba fan and three months with that song in my head is gonna drive me mad.
A petite blonde girl waits at the door when I round the corner, she’s wearing jeans and a woollen turtleneck. Her brown eyes widen when she sees me, and I get the sense I’ll need to keep my distance from her now that I have put my screwing around days behind me. Unless she wants to screw around… I shake away the thought. Bad, Elliot. Your dick’ll fall off.
“Wow. You must be Elliot. I’m Naomi. Stephanie told me you were good-looking but wow.” Her mouth is actually open. I think this girl might be missing a filter or something.
“Hey.” I nod, walking into the flat as she steps to the side, but only enough so I have to brush past her. She even places a hand on my bicep and squeezes.
“Nice,” she says, meeting my eyes with a wicked glint in hers. “Let me show you where your room is then I’ll give you the tour.” Naomi leads me through the lounge room where another guy and girl are sitting draped across each other watching TV.
“Hi mate, you must be Elliot,” the scruffy-looking guy says. He’s wearing tracksuit pants that have a massive hole in the knee, and a hoodie that's also seen better days. His dark-brown hair is sticking up all over the place, and I’m not sure if he has a beard, or just hasn’t bothered to shave for a few days. He gets up to shake my hand. “I’m Gavin and this is Petra.” He indicates the tiny girl with a dark-brown pixie haircut, and large chocolate coloured almond eyes set in a face with small but pointed features. She gives me a finger wave but remains seated.
I nod at both of them as I shake Gavin’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you both,” I respond.
“I’m just showing him to his room,” Naomi tells Gavin, who nods his understanding and doesn’t hesitate before he flops back on the couch.
I follow Naomi down a hallway with four doors leading off it. She stops at the second one on the left and opens it. Inside are two single beds, two wardrobes, and some mess. That’s all. One bed is unmade and there are clothes on the end.
“You’re sharing with Brian. He's at work right now. But he’ll be home by dinner. You’ll meet him then.”
I nod again and rest my suitcase on the end of the second bed. I didn’t realise I was sharing a room with someone, but whatever. It’s only three months.
Naomi is standing in the doorway watching me unzip my bag while she twists, side to side, happily twirling her hair around her fingers. I pause my unpacking and look at her with raised eyebrows.
“Do you want me to show you around?” she asks.
Straightening up, I look at her and place my hands on my hips. “I think I’ll be OK. It’s pretty much kitchen, living area, bedrooms and bathroom at the end right?”
“Well, yeah,” she says, giggling a little. “But I could show you my room.”
“We just met.”
She shrugs. “Yeah. But time is limited. No sense beating around the bush when you might only get one chance.”
I can’t help but smile at her logic. She’s cute. Pretty in the ‘girl next door’ way. My dick even twitches a little, disappointed in me for the lack of exercise I’ve been offering it lately. Down, boy.
“Thank you, Naomi,” I say, placing my hand on the door. “But I think I’ll pass.”
“Well, I’m just at the end of the hall if you change your mind.”
She walks back from the door, maintaining eye contact until I’ve closed it on her. When I’m alone, I blow out my breath, walking away the gentle blood flow waking up my crotch. This reinventing myself thing will be harder than I thought. I’m just a man after all.
Paige
Wow, that was easy. I have a trial shift set up already. Tomorrow. Shit, now I’m petrified I won’t find my way there, or that I will get a terrible case of jet lag and cut some poor person’s ear off during the trial. Crap. Bouncing my legs up and down, I look at my phone screen and notice it’s picking up a Wi-Fi signal. When I select it, it has the name of the hotel I’m staying at, and blessedly it connects with no password.
I search for a trip planner to tell me how to get to Waterloo Station. The salon is in one of the shop fronts housed in the actual station, so finding it shouldn’t be hard. But, it will be over an hour’s journey. I’ll need to make sure my phone is fully charged so I'll have something to do.
I’m wishing I had sprung a few extra pounds for one of the rooms with a television. I have games and books on my phone, but it would be nice to kick back and watch something when I can’t sleep—which is often. Lonely nights in the dark are the worst. Maybe I should download Netflix…
Five
Elliot
“Here's to Elliot he's True Blue!
He's a Piss Pot through and through.
He's a legend so they say.
He meant to go heaven, but he went the other way!
He’s going down! Down! Down! Down! Down!”
I skol my beer without taking a breath, and the singing erupts into cheers when I hold up my empty pint glass. My new flat mates are the loudest people in the entire pub. Which is a pretty good effort because the whole place is noisy. There’s a football game on the telly, and the whole place is a cacophony of sound. It’s fucking great.
“Welcome to London, mate,” Gavin says, hanging over my shoulder after he plonks another beer on the table in front of me. I’m going to have the mother of all hangovers tomorrow, but I pick it up and drink, anyway. You only live once, right?
My arrival called for a celebration as far as Gavin was concerned, and the moment everyone got home, we took the five-minute walk to Waterloo station and jumped on the train—or maybe I should call it the ‘Tube’ now—to London Bridge and came to a place called the Southwark Tavern. It’s amazing. I feel like I’m in a movie or something, because pubs don’t look like this in Australia. Well, not any I’ve come across, anyway.
It’s on a corner and has this round-tiled façade with lead-light windows and these old-style lamps that look like the old gas lamps that had to be lit manually every night. I feel like taking photos, but don’t want to stand out as a tourist when everyone else acts like they belong here. Inside it’s wood panelling as far as the eye could see with leather-cushioned bar stools set around high tables.
“How’d you enjoy your first meal in an English pub?” Naomi asks, taking the stool beside me when Gavin vacates it. He’s jumped up to get a closer look at the big screen, making lots of ‘Aw’ and ‘Ar’ noises along with everyone else.
“Better than the plane food. And better than anything I could ever cook.”
She leans on her elbow and plays with her earring, giving me her undivided attention. “Not much of a cook?”
I shake my head.
“I can teach you if you like. We all take turns putting on the evening meal. I’ll show you a few tricks when it’s yours.”
I meet her eyes. She’s forward. Really forward. Everything about her positioning—solid eye contact, tongue touching her teeth, chest out—says she’s available if I want her. As the beer takes over my mind, I’m struggling not to curb my interest.
“Tricks, huh?”
“I have a lot of them,” she says. “In all areas of life. I can show you those too.”
A grin pulls at my mouth as I force my gaze to the drink in front of me. I’m interested. Fuck, I’m interested. “I’m trying to be good here.”
“I don’t want you to be good, Elliot. I want you to be bad.” She leans on my shoulder and now her fingers are playing with the shell of my ear, her other hand moving along my thigh. Fuck.
“This is a terrible idea.” I shake my head.
“Why resist? It’s just a little fun on your first night. Tomorrow morning we can pretend like it didn’t even happen.”
I hiss through my teeth as her hand lands on my crotch and she squeezes. “Fuck me.”
She bites at my ear. “Yes, please.”
The next morning, I roll out of bed with a thump, forgetting I’m in a single and miscalculating my space. Brian mutters something half asleep and rolls over to face the wall. The room smells like stale booze.
Trudging out of our shared room, I head to the bathroom and relieve myself. Then I gulp water from the tap like I’ve just spent a year in the desert. The cotton mouth is serious this morning.
“Ugh.” I look like shit.
Splashing water on my face, I grab my toothbrush out of my toiletries bag and run it around my mouth, groaning the whole time because this is death. I’m never drinking again.
That’s a lie. I totally will.
“Almost done in there?” A knock raps against the door, hurting my brain. “I’m busting.”
Reaching out, I flick the lock on the door and Naomi comes bursting in, dropping on the toilet with a groan as I spit out my mouthful of toothpaste.
“I was about to tell you I’d be done in a minute. Is this where we are now?” I ask, glancing at her through the mirror as the sound of her pee echoes in the small room.
“One bathroom. Six people. Get used to it.”
Shaking my head, I rinse my toothbrush and wash my mouth before clearing the sink then getting out of there. This will be a learning experience for me. I’m not used to sharing my space.
All up there are six of us in a three bedroom flat, so two in every room. I’m with Brian; he's an accountant working in the city. He seems all right. He's a small mousy-looking guy with glasses and a pointed nose. Naomi and Petra are the only two girls, and they share the largest room, while Gavin and a guy called Shane share the third. Shane looks like your typical Aussie surfer stereotype. He's a little shorter than me—around six foot—has longish blond hair, blue eyes and a medium build. He talks in a slow laid-back manner, sounding as though he spent a lot of his teen years with a bong in his hand. He says he works in advertising; doing what, I have no idea.
Work-wise, the rest of them are all in hospitality, either behind the bar or waiting tables at a restaurant. I guess that means the flat will rarely have all of us there at the same time. A good thing, I guess, it was pretty crowded here last night when we got back from the pub. Another good thing, because it meant that Naomi, and I didn’t end up sleeping together. In the cold light of my hungover morning, I’m really fucking happy for that. Sex always makes things awkward the next morning when that’s all you wanted from each other.
Making my way to the kitchen, I notice I’m not the only one with a sore head this morning. The lounge room is littered with bodies in a state of half-life.
“Remind me never to mix my drinks again,” Petra says as Gavin passes her a coffee.
“My liver can’t take much more of this,” he says in return.
“We could always stop. Go on a cleanse or something?”
They look at each other for a moment then burst out laughing. I just smile and grab some coffee and headache pills for myself.
“You know what we need?” Shane says, leaning back on the couch with an unlit cigarette between his lips. “A dirty-greasy Maccas breakfast. That’ll fix us up.”
“We should get it delivered,” Petra says, pulling out her mobile.
“Uber Eats. Yes,” Naomi says as she emerges from the hall. She’s wearing the oversized t-shirt she had on in the bathroom, but her hair is pulled into a neat ponytail now.
Putting our orders in, we gather around the table once it’s deliver
ed to eat the delicious hangover cure that is McDonalds breakfast. Unsurprisingly, Naomi sits to my right. I’m not getting out of this one easy. We made out a little at the pub last night, and I have a feeling she’ll be on me until she gets what she wants. I like that she’s bold. But she’s a little relentless.
“I’m not working until tonight if you’d like to sightsee today,” she suggests.
“Uh, yeah.” I scratch the back of my neck as I finish the food in my mouth. “I was planning on doing one of those open-top bus tours. Sounds lame, but I start work on Monday and want to see as much as I can before then.”
“I’ll come with you,” she says with an excited pitch to her voice.
“Me too,” Shane says, his mouth full of McMuffin. “I haven’t been yet, so—” His eyes go wide and he stops mid-chew, looking from Naomi to me. “Nah, actually. I’m busy today. I can’t, um, go.”
Naomi smiles and taps him on the hand. “Maybe Coral can take you?” She turns to me. “Coral is his girlfriend. You’ll meet her soon.”
“She busts my balls, but she does this thing in the sack where she—”
Petra clears her throat exaggeratingly loud. “Not while we’re eating, Shane!”
Naomi and I get to Waterloo station before most of the shop fronts have opened for the day. It kind of reminds me of the train stations in the City Circle back home. It’s a mini shopping centre.
As we follow the signs to the station entrance, I’m surprised when I see a girl who looks just like Paige. She’s standing in front of a hairdresser and I almost stop and go to her. But I think I’m mistaken. This girl’s hair is sleek and straight, not that mass of curls that Paige has. It sure feels like her though.
Struggle to Forever: a friends to lovers duet Page 46
