The House Guest

Three months of coming here two or three times a week, and I still hadn’t caught a glimpse. To begin with I’d walked around with a picture, showing it to anyone who’d take the time to look. But no one recognised her, or would admit to it, and so I’d resorted to circling the market over and over, hoping for a moment of connection.

Sometimes it would come, that jolt of recognition. Working my way through the stalls, I spotted a woman I hadn’t seen before, talking to a man selling mirrored pots. She was heavier, with dyed black hair and a piercing through one nostril. But there was something familiar about the way she tilted her head as she laughed.

I stood, frozen to the spot, holding my breath. It had been fifteen years. Who knew how she might have changed?

The woman handed over a tray of noodles, bent over to look more closely at something on the stall, straightened up. I remembered to breathe. I held my body still as she turned towards me. And then I felt my chest deflate, my shoulders sag. Of course it wasn’t my sister. The mouth was all wrong. She was much older. What had I been thinking?

The sun was setting over the canal as I walked slowly to the bus stop, the shafts of light illuminating a rotting kebab abandoned by the water’s edge and green scum floating on its surface. I felt weak, defeated. I caught the 29 and slumped in my seat, closing my eyes as if to mark the end of their shift. It was ridiculous. What did I expect? That I’d suddenly bump into her after all these years?

I rested my head against the window and pictured the pure light of Della’s white living room, the calm I had felt in her home. That sense of being a part of something in the group, however strange.

When I opened my eyes, we were crawling past Manor House. I remembered the grotty kitchen I’d be returning to that evening and counted the hours until I’d have to be back at the café in the morning. It was nearly eight. By the time I got home and heated up some soup it would be nine. Then I’d have to do another job search and look on the missing persons forums before I fell into bed. And speak to my parents. It was a Thursday, and they always called the landline even though I told them to use my mobile – they knew Liam would pick up and I wouldn’t be able to avoid them.

I had all that to come when I got home, and it felt relentless. Impossible. To hold down a job so that I could afford to live in London and, at the same time, look for something better paid, all the while continuing my search. To hold all the responsibility for my family’s happiness. I resented them for it. I couldn’t help it.

‘They do what? They sit around and chant mantras? You’re making it up!’

Liam had found me in the kitchen stirring my tomato soup and wanted to know where I’d been. I hadn’t told him about my search, so I found it hard to account for all the hours I spent out of the house. Usually I’d make up lies about extra shifts or friends from work, but this evening I was distracting him with tales of Tuesday’s meeting. Only I was already regretting having said anything.

‘Can I come next time?’ he asked, laughing.

‘No, you can’t. It’s all women. And anyway, it’s top secret.’ I smiled. I was trying to make light of it, but actually I probably was breaking the rules by mentioning it at all. I sat down at the table with my bowl and a plate of toast and tried to change the subject.

‘So what’s happening with your deleting stuff app?’

‘Oh, nothing much. I’m more interested in this secret meeting of yours. So who goes then? Why’s it all women? Sounds a bit sexist.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Well you would say that, wouldn’t you? It’s not only women who are oppressed, you know.’ Liam grinned at me. He’d taken to teasing me since he found me reading We Should All Be Feminists one evening in the living room. I’d picked it up at the library because I’d loved Americanah, by the same author, and it had clearly been instrumental in shaping Liam’s opinion of me. Sometimes I went along with it, allowed myself to be baited. But tonight I wasn’t in the mood.

‘It’s all women who are sort of in the same boat, you know?’ I was spooning up my soup furiously. ‘We’re all about the same age. All trying to find our feet a bit.’ I shrugged, casting around for details I could pass on that wouldn’t give anything away.

‘There’s this one girl, Jane. She’s recently gone through a break-up. She’s quite small and blonde … They all are, really. Fair hair, twenty-something …’ I saw Liam’s eyes dart towards me with interest and realised I’d said too much. ‘Anyway, I’d better get on. I’ve got stuff to do before bed.’

‘Oh yeah, your mum called. Again,’ Liam said as I dumped my dishes on the pile in the sink.

‘Thanks. Sorry she always rings the landline, I’ll have another word about that,’ I said, but I could see Liam wasn’t listening. He was deep in thought.

I was heading towards the door with a glass of water in my hand when he looked up. The strip lighting threw an odd glow on his glasses, casting a shadow, so I couldn’t see his eyes.

‘They sound like a cult. The Janes,’ he said, and I forced a laugh.

At the time, I didn’t want to hear it.

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