The House Mate

by Nina Manning

  As I was leaving a practical lesson that afternoon, my phone rang, and I saw Joe’s name on the screen.

  ‘Hello,’ Joe said, his soft Scouse accent poured through the receiver like honey. This man had saved my life. When I wanted it all to end, when I could not wake up one more day feeling wretched and unable to breathe, Joe was the one who slowly but surely brought me out of myself. I wasn’t perfect afterwards – I had developed a series of behaviours and compulsions that I had to perform throughout the day when I felt a spike of fear rise within me – but at least I felt as though I could wake up and not be beaten down with the heavy guilt that crippled me and made me wish I was no longer alive.

  ‘Joe,’ I said. Already my breathing, which I hadn’t realised was laboured, started to feel lighter.

  ‘How are you? How’s the college course going? You did start it, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did, yes and it’s going well, thank you.’

  ‘Good, good, then I know you’re not just ringing to catch up, so what can I do for you?’

  ‘I wondered if you could fit me in for a couple of sessions. I’ve been feeling… different recently, and I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. ’

  ‘When you say different, how do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, different as in, I’ve started to feel things. Whereas before I felt, well, sort of numb, now I feel actual feelings, like anger, frustration, and, on one or two occasions, actual happiness.’ I felt a laugh bubbling in my throat.

  ‘Well, this all sounds really positive, so why do you feel you need to see me? I mean, I’m happy to see you, I’ll never turn down the work.’ He gave a soft laugh.

  ‘I know it sounds weird, I just don’t want to mess it all up, you know? I just want to know that this isn’t a trick.’

  Joe paused and I heard the click of his pen. ‘I’d be happy to chat it through with you, when can you come in?’

  I made an appointment for the following Tuesday morning and then on my way home from uni I decided to stop at Waitrose and pick up the dinner which I had failed to cook the other day after the jogger incident. I allowed a small smile to creep across my lips as I realised that although it wasn’t Tuesday, it was Whatever Wednesday, and because we hadn’t eaten tacos yesterday, I thought I would make them today.

  As I meandered the aisles of the supermarket for cod, avocados, limes, mangoes, red onions and green chillis for the pico de gallo, a small spark of joy ignited within me. There was a song playing softly through the supermarket speakers that I recognised and I heard myself humming along. In the next aisles I grabbed some crunchy taco shells and a couple of bottles of Pinot Grigio.

  I stood in line at the till, mentally preparing the meal, how I would serve it and what dishes I would use, when I felt a chill and I knew someone’s eyes were on me. I looked up and saw the face of my neighbour, the flash of her short, bleached-blonde hair. She was right in front of me, having just completed her shop. Now she was staring at me with venom in her eyes. She moved towards me and I tried to take a step backwards, but it was almost 4.30 p.m. and the supermarket had got pretty busy. There was no room for me to go anywhere with three other shoppers and their trolleys behind me.

  ‘I know it was you,’ she spat in her European accent. ‘You called social services, you think I cannot look after my own son.’

  I looked around. Eyes were boring into me. I could feel my public guise being stripped away, that spark of joy extinguished.

  ‘I see you – you think I don’t see you? I see everything. Just because I forgot my purse, you think I can’t buy my son medicine. I have plenty, you know nothing.’ She pointed a chipped red nail towards my chest, turned back to her trolley, which was full with packed bags, and stormed towards the exit.

  I cleared my throat, looked behind me at the queue of shoppers and to either side of me; it seemed everyone had paused what they were doing or saying to stop and listen. I took a few steps forward with my basket and began placing my items on the conveyor belt. I looked awkwardly at the young lad behind the till and gave him a lopsided smile.

  He gave a quick sniff. ‘Would you like a bag for that?’

  I walked home at a hurried pace, the bag digging awkwardly into my fingers. I wished I had taken up the offer of a second bag to distribute the weight of the wine. But at the till I had felt the inner me slowly being exposed to the other shoppers, so I had quickly stuffed all the items into one.

  As I walked, my fingers burning from the tightness of the plastic, the idea of cooking for my house mates was quickly evaporating. At least this time I got as far as buying the food.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about what she had said and the way she had said it. She was right, of course she was right. What the hell did I know? But why would the child be so unhappy all the time? It broke my heart that I had no control over the situation.

  The urge to just go home and crawl into bed was fast becoming the favoured option. But I did not want the girls to know that there was something wrong. I was trying my best to be a good house mate and I had drawn far too much attention to myself recently and not in a good way. It was time to rectify that. I would get on and cook the damn tacos and act as though everything was fine and that for once I was just a normal woman getting on with my life.

  I took my time to chop and prepare the pico, and just as I had everything prepared, the girls started to filter through from various parts of the house. Finally Steve arrived – through the front door having rang the doorbell and then knocked far too aggressively.

  ‘Wow, this looks great,’ Mini said, getting up close. ‘How colourful does that look?’ She pointed at the pico, then pulled out her phone and snapped a photo.

  ‘It’s the salsa, it’s called pico de gallo,’ I said, feeling a smattering of the joy I had felt in the supermarket returning.

  ‘Pico de gallo. Wow, you’re spoiling us, Regi,’ she said, looking down at her phone as she quickly altered the colours to make the pico look even brighter than it was.

  ‘It’s the sort of thing I learned to cook a few years ago. Up until then, I didn’t have a clue about flavours and what not. I would just cook stuff out of packets, pies and chips, that sort of thing.’ I thought back to the days when I would sit down to eat at the table alone, the seat opposite me perpetually empty.

  ‘Well, you’ve got the hang of it now, girl. I’m salivating, I really am.’ I looked over Mini’s shoulder as she posted the pico photo to Instagram with a hashtag. #tacos

  ‘Great. Well, tell the others as it’s ready.’

  Everyone, including Steve, gathered around as I brought everything to the table in little separate bowls so they could help themselves.

  I watched as a perfect sequence of table etiquette unfolded in front of me; dishes were passed, and quiet mouthings of appreciation evolved into enthusiastic approval; even Karen managed to mumble a few complimentary words.

  ‘This is literally the best non Taco Tuesday or Whatever Wednesday we have ever had,’ Mini said.

  ‘Good shout on the fish,’ Steve said, taking a bite of his overly stuffed taco. I had made extra knowing his appetite would cover at least two people’s.

  I hadn’t really been taking much notice of Sophia, but suddenly I saw she had only a small portion on her plate. She hadn’t loaded a taco and she was just picking at the pico and moving the fish about her plate.

  ‘Are you okay, Soph?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘I don’t know, it all smells a bit funky.’ Sophia pulled a funny face.

  ‘I know, it’s great – I have never had fish tacos before. I just love the crunch of the tacos muddled with the softness of the fish.’ Mini grinned.

  ‘All right, Mini, you’re not Greg bloody Wallace,’ Karen said, taking a bite of her taco.

  ‘Well, I think Regi’s cooking is MasterChef standard – it’s truly delicious.’ Mini was undeterred as usual by Karen’s negativity.

  Suddenly, Sophia stood up and pushed her chair back too quickly so it fell
backwards. Steve was up on his feet as though he was back in the army and the enemy had just arrived. He swept Sophia’s chair back up again as though it had never happened. By this point, Sophia was on her way out of the kitchen, her hand over her mouth mumbling something about having drank too much at the weekend.

  ‘Oh my God, how dramatic,’ Karen said and carried on eating.

  ‘I didn’t see her drink that much at the weekend,’ Mini frowned.

  ‘I did,’ I said quickly. ‘I saw her disappear to her room with a bottle of wine when you lot went to bed.’

  Karen pulled her mouth down in disgust and shook her head. ‘We’ve all done it.’

  ‘Well, that’ll do it, drinking right before bed,’ Mini added.

  Both of them were oblivious to my lie. I had suffered the symptoms and seen it enough times to recognise the early signs of pregnancy. Now I knew which of the three house mates the pregnancy kit had belonged to. I kept my poker face. But who could be the father?

  I stayed at college late for the rest of the week. Will had had a word with the cleaners for me, and so there was no repeat performance of the door being locked with all of my stuff inside. We exchanged numbers – he said to save me walking all the way across the college to reach him if I needed to again. Once I had his number in my phone, I felt a sudden urge to text him something small-talkish and flirty, but the longer I thought about it, the more it made me cringe. What I wanted to say to him would never be properly executed because I had absolutely no experience of being cool or flirting or any of those things. I hadn’t perfected those skills in my late teens or early twenties the way all other girls that age did. Whilst they were making endless mistakes, moulding themselves into the people they were to become in their later life, my life was leading up to making one of the biggest mistakes in my life, one that I could never recover from or could be rectified.

  25

  Now

  I really began to throw myself into my work for the remainder of the week. Will had suddenly become elusive. Yet again I considered sending him a text but bottled out at the last minute. I decided to try to use the quieter time in the evenings to focus on myself. I did not need to be wondering what Will was up to today, or if he was wearing that trademark denim jacket with the hoody that made him all the more appealing, or how looking at his shiny eyes and listening to his easy voice loosened my breathing and lifted the weight from my heart.

  I was, however, worried about Sophia. I knew her parents were affluent – employed staff on their countryside weekend residence kind of affluent – so I knew she would be set financially. But I was worried that she had got herself in trouble; with no mention of any male friends, her pregnancy could only have been the result of a silly one-night mistake.

  I didn’t want to think any more about my neighbour and her child. The more time I spent at uni, the less I would hear the crying. The incident in the supermarket would occasionally creep back and bother me. It was usually just as I was dropping off to sleep when the finger of shame would tap me lightly on the shoulder and remind me to feel a little more mortification.

  On Friday I arrived home from the art rooms to the lingering smell of fajita. It was gone 10 p.m., and I was absolutely starving. I hoped that someone had the foresight to leave a plate of food out for me. I placed my bag down in the hallway and headed for the kitchen. I stopped when I heard hushed whispers coming from inside and stood behind the closed door. The hallway was in darkness – someone needed to replace the bulb and I felt a surge of annoyance that it would probably be left to me.

  I could hear a female voice and a male voice. It could only be Steve and Karen arguing again. They had been doing a lot more of that recently. I was intrigued to know what they could be discussing at such a late hour outside the privacy of Karen’s bedroom. What had happened to love’s young dream? They had once been joined at the hip, now there was a tension in the air whenever Steve was around. The cracks were starting to show.

  It had suddenly gone very quiet, and so I thought I would leave them to it, pop back for my fajitas when they had come out. I was about to turn around and pick up my bag and head upstairs when Sophia almost collided with me as she came racing out of the kitchen. Even in the darkness of the hallway, I could see she had been crying.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ I said. ‘I was just going to see if there were any fajitas left.’

  ‘There’s some left in the fridge, just reheat them in the microwave.’ She was already heading for the stairs.

  ‘Great, I’ll…’ I was about to say I would pop up and see if she was okay in a minute but she was already taking the stairs two at a time.

  Next out of the kitchen came Steve.

  ‘Guess she’s still got that sickness thing,’ he said and, again, he hurried past me, up the stairs and I heard him open Karen’s door and go in.

  I stood in the dark hallway for a few seconds and let the reality of what was happening sink in. Sophia wouldn’t have had to go anywhere to get pregnant. It had been happening under this very roof. All those days when Steve was here and Karen wasn’t.

  Suddenly the thought of leftover fajitas was no longer enticing.

  Over the weekend a heavy tension increased like a thunder cloud after a heatwave. I heard plenty of raised whispers from Karen’s room and Steve left the house several times only to come back half an hour later on each occasion. Sophia spent the whole time hibernating in the bedroom.

  By Sunday morning, Steve had gone and Karen was sat at the kitchen table sipping a coffee, looking deeply sorry for herself.

  ‘It feels like summer now,’ she said to the room, even though she knew I was in there, clearing through the fridge, getting rid of the old food and giving it a good wipe down. I had seen a post that morning from Mrs Clean and she had been doing the very same thing. It inspired me to keep up the momentum. So many germs breed in the fridge. I had taken a picture beforehand and I was even thinking about doing my first tap-to-tidy post and tag Mrs Clean in it.

  ‘I love the summer. I was so looking forward to the summer with Steve.’ She pulled her legs up to her chest as she sat on the chair and pulled her sweatshirt down over her bare knees. She was wearing what looked like a pair of Steve’s boxer shorts. Her hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail. ‘I don’t think we’ll last that long though.’

  I stopped my cleaning and turned towards Karen. She had a wad of tissue in her hand and for a moment I thought it was for her hay fever.

  She put her legs on the floor and spun towards me.

  ‘I think he’s fallen out of love with me.’ Her voice broke and tears spilled from her eyes. ‘He left this morning, said he wasn’t sure when he would be back, said he needed “time” to think things over,’ she said, accentuating and almost spitting out the final words.

  I edged towards the table, unsure whether to sit down and try to comfort her.

  ‘Time, time for what? Did he say?’

  ‘No, that’s just it, it’s a bloody cryptic quiz with him. I literally cannot get a word of sense from him. I don’t think he even knows what he wants. All that time he was coming here when I wasn’t here, I thought it was because he loved being here so much, because it made him feel close to me or something. When you said that he was here as often as he was, I had no clue. I only gave him a key for the odd occasion he may need to let himself in. I really felt we were moving on, going places. How can he go from being that keen, to this, leaving and not saying when I might see him again?’

  It made sense that Steve and Sophia had become so close so quickly if he was here when Karen wasn’t. I moved to the kitchen table, peeled off the Marigolds, took a deep breath and tentatively placed my hand on top of Karen’s, hoping this would offer some sort of comfort.

  ‘I don’t know is my answer. But I really think you need to speak to him properly and make him be up front and honest with you?’

  She looked at me with panic in her eyes. ‘Why, do you know something I don’t?’

  I gulped. ‘God. No.
’

  ‘Cos I saw you in the summerhouse the night of the party.’

  ‘We were just talking. I don’t really remember, to be honest, anyway. The point is, if there is something he has on his mind, it’s only fair he shares it with you. Tell him he has a couple of days to mull it over and then he has to be square with you. Life is too…’ I stopped myself from saying the final word. I hated it, I hated admitting that life was too short when I had experienced how short it could be. ‘Life should be spent with the person you know loves you as much as you love them. I can see you love Steve a lot and if he doesn’t love you, then he needs to make that absolutely clear and not mess you around. Do not let him mess you around,’ I said and got back up and carried on cleaning the fridge.

  Karen let out a long sigh.

  I had just picked up the spray gun and was about to clean the final bottom shelf when I heard her softly say, ‘Thank you, you’re a good friend.’

  I felt something swell inside of me, a sort of gratitude. I knew I hadn’t felt the same closeness with Karen as I had with Sophia and even Mini, so it felt good to know I wasn’t just a source of her continued grievance.

  I was just thinking of something suitably friendly to say back to her when the doorbell rang through the hallway. I looked at Karen.

  ‘I can’t go looking like this,’ she said. Sophia would still be in bed – she didn’t seem to rise before nine these days. I had no idea where Mini was.