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And we all do weird things for comfort, don’t we? Some people eat entire tubs of Phish Food ice cream. Some people have kinky sex with complete strangers. So it’s pretty harmless, surely, that I occasionally like to zone out with an imaginary shopping trip, or afternoon tea, or night out dancing, in the company of the delightful Miss Hepburn?
My phone pings with another text from Nora: Please Libby for love of all that is holy don’t tell me you’re just going to string beads and watch back-to-back Audrey Hepburn films in your PJs all night. If u wanted to do that u could have stayed living in old bedroom with your mother.
Damn and blast her.
No intention of anything of sort, I text Nora back. Am planning productive evening of unpacking, sorting out, and then might spend five mins on Amazon looking up best cookbook to buy for delicious stew-making.
Which is met with total silence, either because she’s been called away to a life-threatening medical emergency or because she just doesn’t believe me.
Anyway, I need to hop back on the tube now and make my way to Colliers Wood, because it’s time for me to pick up the keys to my brand-new, grown-up, very own home.
*
The shops in the little parade beneath my new flat are an eclectic mix, with one unifying theme.
BOGDAN’S TV REPAIRZ
BOGDAN’S DIY SUPPLIEZ
BOGDAN’S CHICKEN ’N’ RIBZ
And finally, just in case you started to worry that Bogdan didn’t get quite enough of a good deal on the letter Z from his sign-making people:
BOGDAN’S PIZZA PIZZAZZ!
My particular flat, somewhat unfortunately, is right above this final one. But still, this might have its advantages, because I won’t even have to change out of those pyjamas Nora is being so negative about if I get a sudden craving for pizza, with pizzazz or otherwise, at ten o’clock at night.
And it’s at Pizza Pizzazz that I’m due to collect the keys, where Bogdan the landlord has left them for me.
The keys are handed over to me by a very large, rather frighteningly silent woman (who does not possess, if truth be told, the smallest hint of pizzazz), and I let myself in at the little door outside the pizza parlour before climbing the stairs all the way to the third … no, hang on, I forgot, fourth floor, where there are three doors arranged around a little landing. Which is odd, because I only remember there being two doors. Anyway, mine, Flat F, is on the side closest to the street.
I try to control the little chill of excitement I get as I turn the key in the lock, and …
OK, it’s … well, it’s quite a bit smaller than I remember.
I told you I’d seen rappers’ downstairs loos that were bigger, didn’t I?
I think, actually, that I’ve also seen public conveniences that are bigger.
I step inside, trying to estimate how big it really is (eight feet by ten?) and offset this against how big I remember it (fifteen feet by ten?).
How can it have shrunk by seventy square feet since I first saw it? And – by the looks of things – lost a window and … an entire shower room … at the same time?
Though it’s the very last thing I want to do, I’m going to have to phone the landlord.
He picks up after a couple of rings.
‘Is Bogdan.’
‘Bogdan, hi! It’s Libby Lomax …’
‘You are happy with flat?’
‘Well, that’s the thing, Bogdan, I—’
‘You are liking renovations?’
‘Renovations?’ It’s only now that I notice the smell of fresh paint and the faint hint of sawdust. ‘Um, Bogdan, have you … put up a partition wall, or something?’
‘Well observed, Libby. Am turning one flat into two.’
As I stare around the place now, it’s quite clear that this is exactly what he’s done. Turned one small flat into two tiny ones, taking one of my two windows and my only bathroom with it.
‘You are liking? Is perfect, yes? Is more compact, is more cosy, is more easy to be keeping clean …’
‘But Bogdan—’
‘And you can be recommending next-door flat to friend, perhaps? I am thinking girl friend,’ he adds, for clarity, breathing hotly into his end of the phone. ‘As you will be needing to share bathroom.’
‘Bogdan.’ I try to sound as stern as possible, so he’ll know I’m Not Messing Around. ‘What have you done with the bathroom?’
‘Is only across hallway. Have put it all in new. Is what girls like, yes? New bathroom suite for pampering? For shaving the legs, for taking the bubble bath, for putting on the body lotion …’
I make a mental note to ask Olly to check this bathroom out for hidden cameras before I so much as brush my teeth in there.
‘But the thing is, Bogdan, I’m paying rent for a flat twice the size of this one.’
‘But you are getting brand-new bathroom suite.’
‘A brand-new shared bathroom suite! Across the hallway from a flat you’ve cut in two!’
‘Is chic studio,’ he counters. ‘Is minimalist lifestyle.’
‘But I don’t want a studio!’ I ignore the fact that this place, with its wonky partition wall and its general aroma of sawdust, isn’t even in the region of chic. ‘I wanted a proper flat, Bogdan! With a bedroom and a bathroom.’
‘In Moldova,’ Bogdan tells me, sternly, ‘whole families, with ten children, are living in less than half space than you are getting now.’
Which – if it’s true – makes me feel like the worst kind of spoilt brat.
On the other hand, he would say that, wouldn’t he? He’s the one trying to fob me off with a divvied-up flat.
I mean, look at this place. I’m never going to be able to do any of those things I planned here. Those cosy stew parties, for example: how am I (or how is Olly) going to cook when the kitchen space has been reduced to a tiny corner with a single wall-hung cabinet, a two-ring hob and a mini-fridge? And where are my friends going to fit when they pop round for the evening with bottles of red wine? I may not have hundreds of friends, but right now I’m worried that even letting Nora bring Mark with her is going to be an issue. And it’s even worse than this! I’d almost forgotten about the furniture Olly is bringing round any minute now. Yes, I was very careful about choosing only small pieces, but obviously there was nothing in the props storeroom that was actually doll-sized. The lovely leather armchair I picked out will fit in OK, but only if I abandon any hope of also fitting in the little gate-legged table. And I’d chosen this really nice walnut-wood coffee table, and a small but incredibly useful chest of drawers, and Olly is bringing me an old futon from his own flat …
Where the hell is it all going to go?
‘Bogdan. Look …’
The buzzer goes.
That’ll be Olly. With all my furniture.
I can’t leave him to wait, because he’ll probably be pulled up on a yellow line on the main road, with traffic wardens circling like vultures.
‘I have to go. My friend Olly’s just arrived with my furniture.’
‘Dolly?’ Bogdan asks, excitedly. ‘She is good girlfriend of yours …?
‘Olly. Short for Oliver. A boy friend. Well, not like a boyfriend, but …’ Actually, there’s no harm in Bogdan thinking I have a boyfriend. The buzzer goes again. ‘I’ll call to discuss this again tomorrow,’ I say, in the firmest tone of voice I can summon.
‘I will be looking forward to it, Libby. You can be telling me what you are thinking of new bathroom suite.’
I press the entry-phone buzzer to let Olly up, and open my front door just as he turns the landing onto the fourth floor.
‘Lib.’ He takes the last three steps in one and envelops me in an enormous hug. ‘I haven’t been able to get hold of you all afternoon. Are you OK?’
‘Well, the flat’s half the size I thought it was going to be,’ I say, into his chest, ‘and the landlord seems to have a college dorm fetish, but I suppose it could be …’
‘I meant what happened on location today. The fire thing.’ He pulls back and looks down at me, wincing, as if he hardly dares peek under the straw sunhat I’m still wearing. ‘I wasn’t sure how much to believe of what the crew were saying, but have you actually burnt off all your hair?’
‘No, no, only half. Do you promise not to laugh?’
‘Of course.’
I wouldn’t do this for many people – in fact, Olly and Nora are pretty much the only ones I can think of – but, with a bit of a flourish, I take off my sunhat.
Olly presses his lips together, hard, but he can’t disguise the fact they’re curling upwards.
‘You promised,’ I remind him, ‘not to laugh.’
‘I’m not laughing. I’m absolutely not. Honestly, Lib, it’s not even that bad …’
‘Liar.’ I open the front door further so he can come in. ‘Anyway, believe it or not, losing half my hair – oh, and my job, by the way – is only the second worst thing that’s happened to me today … Ta-da!’
With another flourish, I display my chopped-in-half flatlet.
‘You lost your job?’ Olly says. He’s staring at me, and not at the flatlet.
I nod.
‘But … that sucks.’
I nod, again.
‘Well, do you want me to speak to Vanessa for you? Threaten to put the catering truck on strike if you’re not reinstated as … hang on, what was the part you were meant to be playing today?’
‘Extra-terrestrial Spaceship Technician.’
‘… reinstated as Extra-terrestrial Spaceship Technician? I’m serious, Libby, I’ll do it. And Vanessa would have to listen to me, because if there aren’t any bacon sandwiches ready at six in the morning the next time that crew is on location, she’ll have a riot on her hands.’
‘That’s really nice of you, Ol, but I don’t want that.’ I don’t add the obvious – that wild horses couldn’t drag me back to work on The Time Guardians after my toe-curling humiliation this morning – but there’s no need to, because I can see that Olly gets it without me having to say anything. ‘I’ll be fine. Job-wise, I mean. I’ve pre-paid the first month’s rent to Bogdan, and I’ll find something new in time to cover next month’s.’
‘Sorry – Bogdan?’
‘Oh, yeah, he’s my new landlord. In fact, that reminds me, Olly, you don’t happen to know what a secret camera in a bathroom might be hidden behind, by any chance?’
‘What?’
‘It’s just that Bogdan seems to have a bit of a thing about girls taking showers and putting on body lotion …’
‘OK, that’s it.’ Looking more than just a little alarmed, now, Olly picks up my jacket from where I’ve hung it on the back of the door, and holds it out for me to put on. ‘You’re coming back to my flat tonight.’
‘No, Olly, seriously, it’s fine. He thinks I’ve got a boyfriend now, anyway.’
‘Who?’
‘Bogdan.’
‘No, I mean, who does he think your boyfriend is?’
‘Oh, well, you, of course. So apologies, Ol, but you’ve just accidentally got stuck with me as an unwanted girlfriend!’ This is getting dangerously close to Mistaken Thing territory, I realise, so I add, hastily, ‘But don’t worry, you can dump me as soon as I’m sure there really aren’t any hidden cameras in the bathroom. Or anywhere else, for that matter.’
Olly turns round for a moment to hang my coat back up on the door, which takes him a lot longer than you’d think, because he keeps fumbling with the loop on the inside of the collar and almost dropping it on the floor.
‘Well, anyway,’ he says, as he eventually succeeds in getting the coat hung and turns back to me, ‘I’m a little bit worried about getting all your furniture in here. The place is quite a bit smaller than I thought it would be.’
‘Yes, that’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. Bogdan’s put that bloody wall up and made one flat into two!’
Olly gazes around the flat for the first time – well, gazes is a bit inaccurate, given that it only takes about three-quarters of a second to look at the place in its tiny entirety – and lets out a whistle.
‘You know, I really don’t think the furniture is going to fit.’
‘Look, can’t we start bringing it up before I start panicking about that?’
‘Lib, there’s no way we can get all that heavy stuff up here by ourselves. Which is why I asked Jesse to meet me here … ah, hang on. That could be a text from him right now.’ He fishes in his jacket pocket, takes out his phone, and nods. ‘Yep. That’s him, on his way from the tube. Look, I’ll go down and meet him, and you can crack …’ He produces, from the paper carrier I’ve only just noticed he brought with him, a bottle of champagne. ‘… this open!’
‘Oh, Olly, you shouldn’t have.’
‘Well, you don’t move into a new flat every day. Not even a chopped-in-half one with a pervert for a landlord.’
I laugh. I can’t help it.
‘My wine glasses are all in the boxes you picked up from Mum’s yesterday, though.’
‘Ah, well, that’s precisely why I brought a few of those boxes in already and left them at the bottom of the stairs. I’ll get Jesse to start bringing them up while I get the van open.’
‘No, no, don’t worry. I’ll come down and get them.’
We tramp all the way down the four flights of stairs together, then he heads off to his van, parked just round the corner apparently, and I start lugging one of my cardboard boxes up to my flat … then go back down to get another … then another …
