above the front door: ‘The Grand Hotel’. A flake of red paint peeled off the front door as I banged the knocker, not a good sign, and I heard footsteps thudding down the stairs.
This thin guy opened it, shirtless, early twenties, smoking and toting a Spanish guitar. ‘Hey! I’m Louis, come on up,’ he said, taking me up the uncarpeted stairs to the first floor.
On the landing, the energy-saving light was losing the battle against the dark.
With a flourish, Louis showed me into what he described grandly as ‘a place to call your own’, which was thoroughly deodorised by cigarette smoke. Strung across the room was a pink sheet hanging from curtain wire, which, with a candle behind it, cast a rosy glow.
‘See that partition? Behind there it’s all mine. This here is your end,’ he said, hoisting his jeans from his hips to his waist and pointing to an alcove fitted with a single bed and an orange Anglepoise lamp. ‘Want to take a look? Get an idea of the potential?’
He pulled back the ‘partition’. Most of his end was taken up with a king-size mattress. Beer cans doubled up as tables – handy for his phone charger and that sort of thing.
‘You can do what you like with your own space,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Knock yourself out. Feel free.’
The one thing that kept me standing there was the fact that I could afford it.
‘And this way to the ensuite,’ Louis announced, quite the joker. He threw open the bathroom door.
I looked around, which took all of two seconds. ‘It’s not quite what I was looking for,’ I told him. ‘Basically, we’d be sharing a room.’
‘It’s cheap though, isn’t it?’ he pointed out, to tempt me. ‘See, what it is, my girlfriend’s just left me and I need someone to share the rent.’ He played a plaintive chord on his guitar.
We had more in common than I thought.
‘Not keen on the partition, am I right?’
‘Right.’ I stood there thinking: this is what it’s like to have no options. I’d never experienced it before; never want to again. ‘No offence, but I’ll keep looking.’
‘No worries,’ he said philosophically, and he stood cheerfully on the gloomy landing and strummed an accompaniment on his guitar as I descended the stairs.
I caught the bus home.
The evening stretched ahead, long and empty, and I opened the window, breathing in the cool night air to calm myself – fresh air costs nothing. Through the green netting I saw two buses idling at the terminus, their destination, Victoria, all lit up. Behind them the Heath was dark and humped with bushes. A drunk meandered along the pavement, shouting hoarsely into the night.
I was anxious, restless with adrenaline and at a loose end. I wanted to move time on, to fast-forward to happier days when all would be well again. I wanted the hard stuff to be over. I wanted to leave the flat now and move somewhere safe. I wanted it all done with and finished.
In this restless frame of mind, I wandered into the bedroom and opened Mark’s end of the wardrobe for the first time in months.
His clothes queued calmly on the brass rail in tasteful, ice-cream colours of cream and beige. His Paul Smith suits, shirts, moleskin trousers, khaki cargo pants, all radiating the faint smell of his aftershave. My throat tightened and my heart softened. Mark’s stuff. I’d loved those clothes when he’d loved them. I’d loved them when he loved me.
I took a shirt out of the wardrobe and held it up – it was creased around the tails, where he’d tucked it in. I sniffed it and then put it around my shoulders and tied the arms around my neck, as if he was hugging me from behind. The sleeves were cool and soft. I could smell his deodorant on them.
Angry at my self-indulgent sentimentality, I dashed into the kitchen, tearing a bin bag off a roll. I unhooked his clothes, setting the coat hangers jangling, and stuffed them into it like the rubbish that they were. I put my coat on, slung the bag over my shoulder and headed to the Oxfam Clothing Bank near the Forum in Kentish Town. Shifting the heavy bag to the other shoulder, I passed the school, still lit up. On the top floor, a man in a high-vis jacket was operating a floor-polisher with one hand. I slowed down by the rug shop – the Orientalist has a life-sized model of a camel outside. It’s been there for years and nobody has stolen it or vandalised it or even put a traffic cone on its head, which tells you something.
My destination, the recycling bins, were surrounded by interesting stuff – a folded buggy, a clothes airer, and some lengths of pine which, reconstituted, could be a bookcase. Refusing to be diverted I opened the lid and, with a grunt, hoisted the bin bag up to stuff it in and hesitated on the brink.
Just do it.
Listened to the thwump of its soft landing.
I flexed my shoulders and caught my breath. Then I looked inside the bin, suffering from sudden separation anxiety, but the bin bag was lost in the dark. Too late.
I had reached what publishers call a plateau. I couldn’t write. My worries took up all the space. Time was going by and I still had no story.
Little did I know I was about to experience a turning point. Publishers like these – the more the better.
It was sunny, one of those autumn days when the sun is still warm on the skin but the shadows are chilly, and I thought the fresh air might stimulate my brain. I was walking on the Heath, distracted from my reflections by a parakeet screeching overhead like a haunted door in the kind of horror film that goes straight to DVD.
Parakeets are everywhere now, flying around with their long pointy tails and screaming hysterically, but really, it’s all show because they have little to scream about. Parakeets in London have no natural predators. Is it because they’re green and look too vegetarian for raptors? I walked past the boating pond. The ducks were fighting over a M&S prawn sandwich. You know that research that concluded ducks prefer kale? Not in London, they don’t. London birds prefer fast food. But only the gulls eat chilli.
My phone rang and it was Kitty, asking how the writing was coming along.
I watched the ducks moving their squabbles into the reeds. ‘I’m still at the planning stage,’ I said.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘keep at it. The reason I rang is, I got a call. Someone’s looking for you.’
‘Who?’
‘He didn’t give his name. He said he was your hero and you’d know who he was.’
I felt as if I’d been Tasered.
And then I felt a sudden rush of euphoria.
Thank you, God! ‘Did he leave a number?’
‘He did. Shall I text it to you?’
‘Yes
