Living with Strangers (11 page)

I travel to the new flat the following Saturday. Part of a Victorian terrace that has seen better days, my room has a dubious charm and a permanent smell of gas. It has a high ceiling with elaborate, dirty plasterwork above the picture rail and round the central light fitting. The chandelier has been replaced by a single lightbulb and a round, white paper lantern, torn down one side. A large bay window overlooks the street, but in spite of this the room is sombre and heavy, walls painted dark blue that soak up the light. There’s some furniture: a wardrobe, two stand chairs, and a small sofa, stained and uninviting. The bed too doesn’t bear close scrutiny. I cover the mattress with an old, thick sheet and close my mind to whatever lurks beneath. There’s no fridge. Fresh food is bought daily from the array of food stores nearby, milk and fruit kept in a bowl of cold water in my room and out on the windowsill at night.

Kate comes round the day I move in, rolling up her sleeves and helping to clean the paintwork – at least as far up as she can reach. We restore some order of hygiene in the kitchen and bathroom, clearing away evidence of mice and setting traps to discourage further invasion. Then, to brighten it all up, we go to Portobello Road and buy cushions, several posters and two large Indian bedcovers. By the evening, we’re sitting on the newly vacuumed carpet with an open bottle of Blue Nun.

Kate raises her tumbler, ‘Welcome to the Smoke,’ she says, ‘you’ll love it.’

And I do.

*

London teems with possibilities. I have a little money and my own space. I gradually distance myself again from home, a gentle sliding away. I’m not tempted to phone; there’s no phone in the house anyway and most phone boxes nearby are rendered useless. Using the office would invite a curiosity that I’m anxious to avoid.

Occasionally I write, as I did from university, uninspiring pieces, skating over the details of my life, and Molly replies in similar vein. I go home once or twice. We muddle through a quiet meal, but I fidget and can’t wait to leave.

My fellow tenants are an intriguing group – aspiring musicians all hoping for their big break, a chance meeting with the right person to launch their careers. The two attic rooms are occupied by Josh and Felix, an inseparable couple, though I’m not sure of the nature of their friendship. A guitarist called Seth has the room below mine. I suspect this isn’t his real name, since no post ever arrives for anyone with the initial ‘S’. I assume that, like Gil, he has his reasons for hiding the truth. His name isn’t all that he hides, but it’s almost a year before I find that out.

From Finsbury Park I often walk part of the way to work, ending up on the bus when time runs out. I love the peaceful metronomic pacing, the endless lacework of streets, linking affluence to abject poverty and all the layers in between. Long summer evenings tempt me out too, to Hampstead Heath or Clissold Park. Sometimes with others from the house, we play football or throw a Frisbee till darkness falls.

Often there’s music – nights that start in Seth’s room after a meal – Josh and Felix emerging later from the attic to play saxophone or clarinet long into the small hours. Gradually the house fills up with callers, often in varying states of intoxication, drawn in by the lure of spontaneous jazz. At dawn, those of us still awake go for coffee at an all-night café in Newington Green – Josh and Felix playing softly for the down and outs curled up in the doorway. I then head home and sleep for an hour or so before going to work. Sometimes Kate joins us, more by default than design, since the noise must penetrate every part of her flat. With her neat clothes and carefully styled hair, she seems out of place in this pseudo-Bohemian setting, but I’m grateful to her for this passport she’s given me – the job, the company, the new home.

It’s all reminiscent of a long time ago, the flow of people turning up, guided like homing pigeons, the casual wanderings in and out to enjoy what’s on offer and then depart. But this differs from home. No longer stuck on the sidelines as I was then – too old to be appealing, too young to be of interest – I now step in and out as it suits me, central to the working of things. Solitude is achieved by simply closing the door, but if it’s company I need, that too is here. Without much effort there’s always someone to bed down with for a night or two. Even those I know to have girlfriends elsewhere seem unfettered by loyalty or commitment. Again, these atoms of comfort I take, wrapping myself in their tumbling, feckless simplicity.

It’s Seth, however, that draws me, for whom I almost allow a small glimmer of light to pass through the toughened shell I’ve built. Later, with relief, I emerge with a heart intact, for he manages to take quite a lot else. Until then, we spend increasing time together. I sit in his bed reading while he feverishly scribbles notation, his shoulder-length hair drooping over the keyboard. Or he’ll jump up suddenly and offer to cook, conjuring up an edible meal from whatever is in the kitchen. Most of all, he makes me laugh, and that’s no easy task.

He seems to live well for an out of work musician. There’s always food, a permanent supply of dope, new albums, even clothes that aren’t several years old like most of mine. I assume he has parents with money, willing to dole out cash in support of his dream. It was to Seth that I paid the initial deposit for the flat and to whom I continue to hand over the vast sum of £25 each month.

*

Early one Sunday morning, I wake up in my own room to an urgent hammering on the front door. As no one else in the house is responding, I grab the bedcover and grope my way downstairs to the hall. Then I stop. The hammering grows louder. A voice is shouting, ‘Open up! You have five minutes to open up or we’ll be taking possession of the property.’

What? What is this? I stand shivering in the hall, grit on the carpet beneath my feet. ‘Seth?’ I call, knocking on his door. ‘Are you there? There are people here – what do they want?’

There’s no reply from Seth’s room. I push the door and go in. Stripped of everything save the furniture, curtains flailing, cold air blasting from the open window – a scene from a crime drama. That, indeed, is what it turns out to be. And Seth, with our combined rent money for the past six months, is nowhere to be found.

Bewildered, I open the front door and let the bailiffs in. Two of them step into the hall, filling it with their bulk.

‘I’m sorry, Miss. We’re here to inform you that you’re charged with the non-payment of rent. We have the right to repossess the property forthwith.’ He speaks like a policeman though he looks like a heavyweight boxer.

‘But…’ I look round helplessly at Josh and Felix who’ve emerged at the top of the stairs. ‘We paid it – the rent – we paid Seth!’

‘And who might this Seth person be?’

‘He’s our lead tenant. We paid the rent money to him and he dealt with the landlord. At least… that’s what we thought.’

‘Well I’m afraid that’s not what happened. Your landlord hasn’t received any rent for six months. Reminders were sent, then a month ago, a final warning giving this date for repossession if no money was forthcoming. And since no money came forth, so to speak, here we are.’

I sit down on the bottom step. The others come to join me, a sorry trio, gullible, cheated, exposed, Felix in his Y-fronts and Josh in an oversized Kaftan. I seem to make a habit of receiving bad news wrapped in a bedcover.

An hour later we’re grouped outside like refugees, our belongings piled around us on the pavement. Kate, woken by the fracas, brings us tea and biscuits. She looks as distraught as I feel. ‘I’d love to take you in,’ she says, ‘but we’ve only got two rooms.’

‘It’s ok, really,’ I tell her. You’ve done more than enough.’

‘Didn’t do you any favours with Seth though, did I?’

‘That wasn’t your fault. You weren’t to know – any more than we did.’

Felix is pacing up and down the street smoking angrily. I’ve never seen him angry before – or sober for that matter.

‘I’m such an idiot,’ he says. ‘I should have known – all that new gear – keyboards, amps and stuff… I should have realised!’

Josh is sitting cross-legged on the pavement calmly rolling a joint – his answer in any crisis. ‘Josh,’ I say, ‘should you be doing that out here? Aren’t we in enough trouble?’

Josh licks the papers and pieces them together on his knee ‘Chill out, Maddie. If we’re arrested at least we’ll have somewhere to stay.’

Kate comes to sit next to me. ‘What will you do?’ she says.

‘Go home, I suppose – though that won’t be easy. Explaining what happened.’

‘Could you find another room? There must be something.’

‘Not unless much has changed since I last looked. At least I still have a job – I won’t be at home that much anyway. It’s just…’

‘Not the same?’

The lump rises in my throat. How on earth will I reconcile the way I’ve lived these past months with the mood that prevails at home? I dread returning to the emptiness there, the void, the lack of concern. Here, as at university, I have at least connected on my terms. But then here too, it has all gone wrong.

‘How will you get your stuff home?’ Kate looks doubtfully at my things.

‘It’s not the first time. I’ll manage – there’s not that much. You could have the cushions, maybe. Perhaps the bedspread too?’

‘I can’t do that.’ Kate thinks for a minute, then runs up the steps next door. ‘Wait here,’ she says, and disappears inside. Minutes later, she comes back, in organising mode. ‘Rob’s going to borrow his Dad’s car. He’ll take you home, or wherever you need to go. And you guys – what will you do?’

Josh turns up his bleary eyes. ‘We’ll be fine – hey Felix? We’ll be fine, right?’

Felix starts to collect his things from the pavement – a battered instrument case, an old rucksack, a sleeping bag. He’s travelled light. We all have, especially Seth. This was a mere touchdown, an interlude, a whistle stop. Josh flicks the end from his joint and puts it in his pocket, then heaving himself up, shoulders his pack too. ‘See you Maddie. Stay cool.’ Then they saunter off towards the city centre, and the river, where no doubt they’ll stand in a draughty underground station or damp arcade somewhere and lay down a hat for the next meal.

Kate and Rob take me home. I sit breathing deeply in the back of the car. ‘Do you think he’ll sue us – the landlord – try to get his money back?’

‘It’s unlikely,’ Rob says. ‘If he’s anything like ours, most of his dealings are dodgy anyway. Everything in cash – no paper trail and all that. He wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Don’t worry. It won’t happen.’

They drop me at the bottom of the drive and Kate gets out. ‘Good luck,’ she says, kissing me on the cheek, ‘see you tomorrow.’ And they drive off – back to their own world while I crunch up the drive to mine; which seems so far from London, which is unravelling like a jet stream behind me. Another unscheduled homecoming, another set of excuses. At least I know what to expect, what not to hope for. Measured indifference would be good. With luck I can slide back in and keep my head down until I work out what to do next.

But Molly and Saul do ask questions. I’m quizzed about the flat and why we’ve had to leave. I don’t tell them about the bailiffs, or Seth or the rent money. I tell them there have been complaints about the noise and that someone is suspected of dealing drugs, so we’ve all had to go.

‘If that was the case,’ Molly says, ‘why did you stay there in the first place – why did you stay with people like that? You must have known there were drugs in the house. Did you not think?’

I rile in silence. These people have become friends – in the case of Seth, misguided though it was, rather more than that. I’ve tried to do the right thing – to move away, be independent, to free them here from my presence. But now it’s gone wrong again and I really don’t want them to know that my judgement of character is so seriously flawed.

I wait anxiously for further word from the landlord; he would be within his rights to press charges – to take us to court if necessary to claim back the money we owe. But Rob was right, I hear nothing more and assume the landlord has simply cut his losses. It crosses my mind to talk to Adam – some pro bono legal advice could well resolve my unanswered questions. But the thought of telling him what has happened, to confess my incompetence, would simply endorse his long-held view of me. I don’t need a reminder of how much I’ve messed up.

I miss London. The noisy vibrancy, the dirt, the distractions are not the same when visited daily, herded in on a crowded train. By comparison, the inertia of my hometown holds little fascination. I grow restless, working late or staying over with Kate and Rob, sleeping half upright on their one armchair or shivering on the floor in a useless sleeping bag. Yet I’m wary of looking for another bedsit. I’ve been given a small pay rise at work, but I still couldn’t run to more than a single room, part of a shared concern, and I’ve no wish to take that risk again. I need to accept what has happened, to knuckle down with what I have or take off in another direction altogether.

The answer to this comes a few months later and from an unexpected source. My life is to change in ways I could never have imagined and I finally manage to grow up.

‘Maddie,’ Sophie says, putting her head round the schoolroom door, ‘guess who I’ve seen – just now, in the park?’

I look up from my book. ‘Mm? No, can’t guess. Tell me.’

Sophie pauses. ‘Gil!’

‘Gil?’

‘Yes, you know – Gil. He took us swimming and stuff, ages ago – remember?’

That I remember, and a lot more besides. I haven’t seen him for years, not since the meeting by the lake after his mother died. Much water has flowed between then and now.

‘And did you talk to him?’

‘Course I did. He didn’t recognise me at first, I suppose I was so little last time he saw me. His hair’s different. And he’s very tall. He asked about you.’

Oh, God.

‘I told him you were back at home again, that you worked in London and you’d lived in a flat but then you had to come home.’

Thank you, Sophie, spare no details. ‘And what did he say?’

‘Oh nothing much. He said to say hi.’

I pick up my book again, then for some reason ask, ‘Was he with anyone?’

‘Only a dog. A black one. It jumped up and put mud on my skirt. He asked about the others, too.’

‘The others?’

‘Yes – Mummy, Dad, Paul. He said he might call round if he had time. He’s only here for a few days.’

‘Oh, I see.’ I’m not sure that I do.

Gil does call round. A few days later, I hear voices in the kitchen and come down to investigate. Apart from friends for Sophie or Paul, it’s rare to have visitors these days. A curious scene greets me: Gil at the table, his hands round a large mug, Molly at the table too, as she so often is, but smiling – a warm open smile that shows her still good teeth. Saul too is smiling, standing by the dresser filling his pipe, talking animatedly. Sophie stands by his side, leaning on him shyly. I’ve walked in on another family, one I don’t recognise, to which I don’t belong. Is this how they are when I’m not around? I stand in the doorway and watch, as if I’ve just missed the joke.

‘And you think pharmaceuticals is the future do you?’ Saul points the stem of his pipe at nothing in particular, ‘That this is where good scientists should be investing their talent?’

‘Well,’ Gil shuffles in his seat, ‘I think it’s a good platform to learn from. Investment is huge and their research facilities are amazing.’

‘That’s something I suppose, but some of these companies are growing very rapidly – I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. And I don’t much like what they’re doing overseas.’

Molly intervenes. ‘I don’t think Gil came here to have his career choice interrogated, Saul – let him drink his coffee in peace.’ Then she looks over at the doorway. ‘Oh, Madeleine, there you are.’ I don’t imagine the change of tone. Disappointment, perhaps? Irritation?

Gil stands up, his legs caught behind the chair. ‘Hi, Maddie,’ he says, ‘how are you?’ He always did appear tall in our kitchen.

I’m not sure where to put myself in the room. There’s no obvious space for me to step into, so I stay leaning in the doorway. ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I say.

There’s silence now; I seem to have broken up a party. Molly goes to rinse her mug in the sink. ‘Well, I must get on,’ she says. ‘It’s nice to see you again, Gil.’ Then she disappears through the scullery into the garden.

Saul sticks his pipe back in his mouth. ‘And I must get on too – this scientist has a stack of very unglamorous books to mark.’ He’s still smiling as he passes me in the doorway. Sophie stays in the corner, twisting a lock of hair round her finger, then goes after Molly into the garden. I half expect Gil to leave too.

I join him at the table and sit down facing the window. ‘Sophie said she’d seen you.’

‘I’m not around for long – just thought it might be nice to call in. I’ve always…’ he fiddles with the handle of his mug, ‘I’ve always liked it here. Your folks are very kind. Welcoming.’

Clearly.

‘So what are you doing now?’ Gil says, ‘ Sophie tells me you’re working in London.’

I make more coffee, give him a scant summary of recent events and change the subject. ‘I gather you have a dog.’

‘He’s not mine. I walk him for a friend when she’s away.’

Friend?

‘She’s in hospital.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘She’s eighty-three.’

‘Oh.’

‘She lives next door to our old house. I come over to see her when I can – help out with the dog and things.’

‘And your job – the one Papa was talking about – you’re enjoying it?’

‘Very much. It’s a new field so we’re not supposed to talk about it.’ He taps the side of his nose. ‘Industrial espionage and all that.’

I think of the Peace March. ‘It’s not…military, is it?’

Gil looks up sharply. ‘You’re joking?’

It seems unlikely. But then, things change. ‘Sorry. I just wondered.’

‘What will you do now,’ he says, ‘stay here?’ He rolls a cigarette and offers me the tin.

I shake my head. I can see Molly and Sophie down the garden, heads close together, Molly pointing at the border. They’ve probably found a hedgehog. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It’s not easy and I hate commuting – it’s maybe time to change.’

Gil looks round for an ashtray, then fetches one from the dresser. ‘Do you speak any French?’ he asks.

I think of the Crow. ‘Not very well. Why?’

‘It’s just that I have a cousin who’s looking for an au pair. She lives somewhere south of Paris I think. My aunt phoned me last week – asked if I knew anyone.’

Looking after children has never been a high priority. I’ve never wanted to teach, as so many girls at school chose to do. Caring for Sophie is as far as it goes. Yet this intrigues me – a way out perhaps, an exit strategy. ‘How many children does she have, your cousin?’

‘Two, I think – one of each. I’ve only met them once, at my mother’s funeral. They were very young then. Are you interested?’

‘Maybe. It’s a possibility.’

‘Shall I phone her – let her know?’

‘Perhaps I should write first, give her my details, such as they are. I’ve not had much experience.’

‘That won’t bother Simone. If I remember rightly, it’s never mattered before. From what Aunt Isabelle said, she sounds pretty desperate – something about starting up a new business. Anyway, think about it.’ He stuffs the tobacco tin into his pocket. ‘I should probably go. I’ll ring you later, shall I, with the address?’

‘Please.’

‘Say goodbye to the others,’ he nods towards the window.

I follow him down the hall and pause at the front door.

‘It’s good to see you, Maddie.’

‘You too.’

And it is. It always is.