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‘Do you know, I haven’t made a woman scream like that for years,’ drawled the well-modulated voice.
I relaxed slightly.
‘Josh, you have never made a woman scream like that. In fact, have you ever made a woman?’
‘Oh ho ho. Yes, of course.’
‘In your country of origin?’
He paused.
‘Not precisely.’
I’d been teasing Josh about this for as long as I’d known him, which was a l-o-o-ong time. Because he was attractive and also nice to girls, most people assumed he was gay. For someone with a posh background, a good job, and a nice haircut, he did horrendously badly with the opposite sex, which I couldn’t understand – not that I’d ever wanted to shag him myself; he was so nice.
Anyway, thank God he’d rung me back. Worriedly searching the ceiling for CCTV, I sat back on the bed.
‘Josh, you know when you moved into Pimlico and I said I didn’t want to move there because it was snooty London and you were moving in with Kate who hates me?’
‘Um, yes.’
‘Well, you know, how’s it … how’s the whole flatshare thing going?’
‘It’s going fine.’
‘Right – GREAT! Right. How’s that other guy you got in to fill the space doing?’
‘Addison? He’s just great … Well, quiet, and undemanding.’
That didn’t sound much like me.
‘Uh huh. So, no one’s moving out or anything, then?’
Josh sighed. ‘Don’t tell me. Not another Turkish Lesbian Women’s Collective?’
That had been Hoxteth, two years ago. I’d been kicked out for not liking chickpeas and buying that symbol of male forced dominance, sanitary protection.
‘No. Worse.’
‘The cat lady?’
‘Christ. No, not worse than her. But still, pretty bad.’
I heard Carol’s voice:
‘Holly! Would you like some tea? Because it’s your turn to make it!’
I ignored her.
‘Josh, this is absolutely desperate. Listen, you know that little boxroom you were going to turn into a study?’
‘The one you described as a coffin?’
‘Yup, yup, that’s the one. Ehm, have you …?’
‘Turned it into a study? Not since you were last here. I’ve leased it out as a bedroom, though.’
‘NOOO!’
He laughed.
‘You bastard! Josh, I know this is a huge favour – and please say no if you don’t want to – but please, please, please can I come and live in your coffin? I mean, boxroom?’
‘You’ve asked me this before, Holl,’ he said with a sigh.
‘I know.’
‘Then you always dash off and the next thing I hear from you you’re on the run from a postgraduate mathematics badminton team.’
‘I know. I’m crazy.’
‘You are crazy. Why didn’t you just move in when I bought the place?’
‘Because you’re rich and Kate makes me miserable.’
‘I am not rich, and Kate can’t help being … Kate. Anyway, if that’s how you feel …’
‘No, no! I’m sorry! Please. Please. Please.’
There was a loud knocking at my door.
‘Tea, please, Holly! It’s in the lease!’
‘It’s the Gestapo!’ I whispered. ‘How soon can you come and get me?’
‘I’ll have to check with Kate and Addison.’
‘Josh!’ I screeched, near to tears. ‘Please.’
‘OK,’ he relented. ‘I’ll pick you up at about seven. Have you got much stuff?’
‘Just a coffinful.’
‘And no diving off again, do you hear me?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I mumbled meekly.
I could have snogged Josh, I was so pleased to see him. I wanted to grab hold of his legs round the ankles and sob with gratitude and pour unguents over his feet. Or is that glue?
Carol had not taken the news well, particularly when I retrieved my deposit cheque from the shiny silver box to which only she had a key (I distracted her by upending her Asda coupons all over the kitchen floor then making a dive for the key when she bent over). In fact, she had advanced on me until her face was only a few inches from mine – well, her make-up was. Her face was probably about a foot away.
‘Think you can just do what you like round here?’ she asked menacingly.
‘Yes, I do, actually. That’s why I don’t live with my parents any more.’
‘So, who’s going to take your room? You’ve got to sort that out.’
‘Ah. Yes, well … I’m afraid you’re going to have to sue me for my friends and acquaintances. Here, I’ve written down my forwarding address on this piece of paper –’ I waved it reassuringly. It said: 1 Holly Lane, Hollywood, 020 8555 5555 – ‘and don’t forget to send those bills on to me!’
‘We won’t,’ said Carol grimly. Laura opened and shut her mouth like a fish.
‘Well, I think it’s disgraceful the way you’re leaving Carol in the lurch like this,’ she announced, quivering. ‘All the trouble she’s been to.’
‘And me!’ piped up Farah from somewhere around my ankles. ‘I did the rotas!’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘My best friend’s got cancer. I’m nursing him till he dies.’
Laura backed away, crestfallen.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she muttered.
‘Oh really?’ said Carol. ‘What kind?’
I couldn’t think. ‘Ehm, nose cancer?’
‘You’re sick,’ she said, turning to march out of the room.
‘So are you!’ I yelled after her.
She turned once more, her brutally permed hair a weapon.
‘Well, at least I’m clean and sick.’
Fortunately, Josh’s sporty little spitfire had turned up, and he was honking enthusiastically. Josh did everything enthusiastically.
I tore out of the house.
‘Where the hell am I going to put anything?’ I wailed, after hugging him over-affectionately then examining his two-seater.
‘I’m so sorry, darling. I meant to trade Bessie in for a Volvo but, you know, I just couldn’t find the time.’
‘Ha ha ha. Listen, would you mind sitting on my duvet?’
He gave me a look.
‘Well, it’s not like real sex, is it?’
It took us an hour and a half to crawl back into town. Even though it was only April, Josh insisted on having the roof off, so I had to hang on to everything I owned, like an earthquake refugee.
‘Freedom!’ I yelled into the air. ‘I am never going to move into a crappy flat again.’
‘Except for the one you’re about to move into.’
‘Josh, it could be a shed at the bottom of the garden, I don’t care! I’m FREEE!’
‘OK, steady on,’ said Josh, obviously worried I was about to start leaning dangerously far over the bonnet and singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’.
There are two schools of thought concerning the children of parents who divorce nastily just as you’re approaching puberty. One school says, Well, life is like that – chin up, and maybe the seething atmosphere at home will spur you into staying late at the library and moving on to better and brilliant things in an attempt to pull yourself out of the flotsam. Lots of famous people have divorced parents. They over-achieve for attention. That wasn’t exactly my school.
The other school says you should instantly become über-truculent and demanding, and put everything you do your entire life down to your bad upbringing. I tended to this school, it being rather easier and low maintenance, plus it tended to mean better Christmas presents, if dodgier exam results. It had worked reasonably well during my teens, but when your friends no longer have to see you every day in class and are too busy off doing horrid careers and stuff – well, so, now I was twenty-eight, and it was definitely becoming less fun by the day, especially when everyone I used to know had suddenly become fascinated by MORTGAGES, for fuck’s sake. I just didn’t get it. Boys and pop music – fascinating. Mortgages are what you get when you look up the dictionary definition of ‘not fascinating’. Hence my precipitative flat-hopping.
To make matters even worse, I was starting to realize that my anti-establishment tendencies were beginning to marginalize me – not as a free spirit, as I’d always thought, but along with the old hippies and socialist workers and people who talked about smashing the state but couldn’t actually get it together to wash their trousers – ever. It was extremely depressing. I mean, nobody likes washing their trousers, but I didn’t want it to define my entire existence. To make matters worse, my father, who took up bringing home blonde women full time after he left my mum, had recently brought home one my age. Who also had a mortgage. And a sports car. Sigh.
Josh had a mortgage, but he was also a complete sweetie pie who could be endlessly relied upon in a crisis, as I knew and had shamefully abused in the past.
We finally pulled up in front of his dilapidated Victorian pile in Pimlico.
‘I see you’ve still not got the builders in.’
‘No, I couldn’t afford them,’ said Josh, hopping out of the car without opening the door and pulling up two bin-liners of my stuff. ‘Until now,’ he smiled sweetly in my direction.
‘Ah yes, about that …’ I followed him in, clutching my socks and pants bag, my cheese plant and Frank Sinatra the bear. One of the reasons that I’d wound up in Harlesden in the first place was that being a freelance florist and general under-achieving free spirit didn’t exactly pay very much, and Pimlico was basically posh these days.
He told me, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The going rate for coffins wasn’t so bad after all.
The flat was quiet inside. It was big and tatty and comfortable, and I’d always liked it. Josh had bought right at the top of the market and paid a stupid amount of money for it – apart from being infested with dry rot and woodworm and all sorts of other nasty moving things, it needed a new roof – but it was a good homey home. The kitchen was large, with nasty old units, a rickety table and four chairs in the middle, cracked floor tiles, and a huge window at the back which opened on to a rusty excuse for a fire escape. I pottered about in my tiny new room, mostly leaning against cupboards to get them to shut and stuffing things under the bed.
‘Umm, sorry about the mess,’ hummed Joshua when I went back into the kitchen for a cup of tea. ‘It’s not usually … Well, in fact, it is.’
‘Great!’ I said.
He smiled weakly at me. I leaned across the table.
‘Josh, thank you. I’m sorry I forced you into this. I promise I’ll be a good tenant. You’ll see. I promise.’
He grinned back at me.
‘Good. And I could do with the company, to be honest – Kate works all the time and Addison is, well …’
‘Yikes!’ I pounced immediately. ‘Tell me the gossip about Kate.’
‘Oh, she’s a complete bitch, as ever,’ said Kate, striding into the kitchen and dumping a Marks and Spencer’s bag, an enormous briefcase, a Nicole Farhi raincoat and an expensive leather handbag on to one of the rickety chairs.
‘Hello, Holly. Josh left me a message on my voicemail. Which I got about ten minutes ago. But never mind, eh? Welcome anyway.’
I went to give her a hug or something, but she was already en route to the bottle opener. Josh touched her lightly on the arm.
‘How was your day, Skates?’
