The Flatshare: A Novel

Part 2 – APRIL

‘I think I’m having palpitations.’

‘Nobody has had palpitations since the olden days finished,’ Rachel informs me, taking an unacceptably large sip of the latte the head of Editorial bought me (every so often he feels guilty for Butterfingers not paying me enough, and splashes out £2.20 on a coffee to assuage his conscience).

‘This book. Is. Killing me,’ I say.

‘The saturated fat in your lunch is killing you.’ Rachel prods the banana bread I’m currently munching my way through. ‘Your baking is getting worse. By which I mean better, obviously. Why aren’t you getting fatter?’

‘I am, but I’m just bigger than you, so you don’t notice the difference as much. I stash my new cake weight in bits you won’t spot. Like the upper arm, for instance. Or the cheek. I’m getting rounder cheeks, don’t you think?’

‘Edit, woman!’ Rachel says, slapping a hand on the layouts between us. Our weekly catch-ups about Katherin’s book soon became daily catch-ups as March slipped by; now, faced with the terrifying real­isation that it is April and our print date is only a couple of months away, they have become daily catch-ups and daily lunches. ‘And when are you getting me the photos of the hats and scarves?’ Rachel adds.

Oh, God. The hats and scarves. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about hats and scarves. There is no agency free to take on making them at such short notice, and Katherin really doesn’t have time. Contractually she doesn’t have to make all the samples herself – this is a mistake I will never make again at negotiation stage – so I have no ammunition to make her do it. I tried actual begging, but she told me, not unkindly, that I was embarrassing myself.

I gaze mournfully at my banana bread. ‘There is no solution,’ I say. ‘The end is nigh. The book is going to go to print with no pictures in the hats and scarves chapter.’

‘No it bloody well isn’t,’ Rachel says. ‘For starters, you’ve not got enough words to fill the space. Edit! And then think of something! And do it fast!’

Ugh. Why do I like her again?

*

When I get home I put the kettle on straight away – it’s a cup-of-tea sort of evening. There’s an old note from Leon stuck on the underside of the kettle. They get everywhere, these Post-its.

Leon’s mug is still by the sink, half full of milky coffee. He always drinks it that way, from the same chipped white mug with a cartoon rabbit on the side. Every night that mug will either be on this side of the sink, half drunk, which I guess means he was pushed for time, or washed up on the draining board, which I assume means he managed to get up with the alarm.

The flat is pretty homely now. I had to let Leon reclaim some of the space in the living area – sometime last month he removed half of my cushions and put them in a pile in the hall with a label reading ‘I Am Finally Putting My Foot Down (sorry)’ – but he may have been right that there were a few too many. It was getting quite hard to sit on the sofa.

The bed is still the strangest part of this whole flatsharing thing. For the first month or so I put my own sheets on and took them off again every morning, and I’d lie on the furthest edge of my left-hand side, my pillow pulled away from his. But now I don’t bother alternating the sheets – I only lie on my side anyway. It’s really all quite normal. Of course, I still haven’t actually met my flatmate, which I acknowledge is technically a bit weird, but we’ve started leaving each other notes more and more often now – sometimes I forget we haven’t had these conversations in person.

I chuck my bag down and collapse on the beanbag while the tea brews. If I’m honest with myself, I’m waiting. I’ve been waiting for months now, ever since I saw Justin.

Surely he’s going to get in touch with me. OK, so I never replied to his text – something I still intermittently hate Gerty and Mo for not letting me do – but he gave me that look on the cruise ship. Obviously it’s now been so long that I’ve almost entirely forgotten the look itself, and it’s just a compilation of different expressions I remember on Justin’s face (or, maybe more realistically, remember from all his Facebook photos) . . . but still. At the time it felt very . . . OK, I still don’t know what it felt. Very something.

As more time passes I’ve found myself thinking about how weird it was that Justin was on that very cruise ship on the one day that Katherin and I were doing the How to Crochet Your Own Clothes Fast show. As much as the thought appeals, it can’t have been because he came specially to see me – we were rescheduled at the last minute, so he wouldn’t have known I was going to be there. Plus his text said he was there for work, which is perfectly plausible – he works for an entertainment company that arranges shows for things like cruises and tourist tours of London. (I was always a bit hazy on the details, to be honest. It all seemed very logistical and stressful.)

So if he didn’t come on purpose, then doesn’t it feel a bit like fate?

I grab my tea and wander into the bedroom, at a loose end. I don’t even want to get back together with Justin, do I? This is the longest we’ve ever been broken up, and it does feel different from the other times. Maybe because he left me for a woman he then promptly proposed to. It’s probably that.

In fact, I shouldn’t even care whether he’s going to get in touch with me. What does that say about me, that I’m waiting for a man who most likely cheated on me to give me a call?

‘It says that you’re loyal and trusting,’ Mo says, when I ring him and ask this very question. ‘The exact qualities that mean Justin is likely to try and get in touch again.’

‘You think he will too?’ I realise I’m twitchy, jumpy, hungry for reassurance, which annoys me even more. I start tidying my Gilmore Girls DVDs into the correct order, too jittery to stand still. There’s another note jammed between series one and two; I yank it loose and skim over it. I’d been trying to persuade Leon to try actually using our television, offering him my very high-quality DVD collection as a place to start. He was not convinced.

‘Almost certainly,’ Mo says. ‘That seems to be Justin’s way. But . . . are you sure you want him to?’

‘I’d like him to talk to me. Or at least acknowledge me. I don’t know where his head is at. He seemed so mad at me about the flat, but then that message after I saw him on the cruise ship was really sweet, so . . . I don’t know. I want him to call. Ugh.’ I clench my eyes shut. ‘Why is that?’

‘Maybe you spent a lot of time being told you couldn’t manage without him,’ Mo says gently. ‘That would explain why you want him back, even when you don’t want him.’

I flounder around looking for a change of subject. The latest episode of Sherlock? The new assistant at work? But I find I don’t even have the energy to be diverting.

Mo waits quietly. ‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘I mean, have you thought about dating anyone else?’

‘I could date someone else,’ I protest.

‘Hmm.’ He sighs. ‘How did that look on the cruise ship really make you feel, Tiffy?’

‘I don’t know. It was ages ago now. I guess . . . it was kind of . . . sexy? And nice to be wanted?’

‘You weren’t afraid?’

‘What?’

‘Did you feel afraid? Did the look make you feel smaller?’

I frown. ‘Mo, give it a rest. It was just a look. He definitely wasn’t trying to scare me – besides, I rang you to talk about whether he’ll ever call me, and thanks, you made me feel a bit better about that, so let’s draw the line there.’

For a long while there’s silence at the other end of the phone. I’m a little shaken despite myself.

‘That relationship took its toll on you, Tiffy,’ Mo says gently. ‘He made you miserable.’

I shake my head. I mean, I know me and Justin argued, but we always made up, and things only got more romantic after a fight, so it didn’t really count. It wasn’t like when other couples argued – it was all just part of the beautiful, crazy rollercoaster that was our relationship.

‘It’ll all sink in eventually, Tiff,’ Mo says. ‘When it does, you just get on the phone to me, OK?’

I nod, not really sure what I’m agreeing to. From my vantage point I’ve just spotted the perfect distraction from how I’m feeling right now: the bag of scarves under Leon’s bed. The one I found on my first night here, which convinced me that Leon was probably some kind of serial killer. There’s a note on them which I’m sure wasn’t there when I looked at them before – it says FOR CHARITY SHOP.

‘Thanks, Mo,’ I say into the phone. ‘See you Sunday for coffee.’ I hang up, already looking around for a pen.

Hey,

OK, sorry for snooping under (y)our bed. I get that that’s definitely unacceptable. But these scarves are INCREDIBLE. As in, designer incredible. And I know we’ve never talked about this or anything, but I’m guessing that if you’re letting a random stranger (me) sleep in your bed then you’re doing it because you’re short of cash, not because you’re a really nice man who feels bad about how hard it is to get a cheap flat in London.

So while I am ALL FOR giving old clothes to charity shops (after all, I buy most of my possessions from charity shops – people like me need people like you), I think you should consider selling these scarves. You’d probably get around £200 a pop.

If you feel like giving one 90% off to your lovely flatmate, I won’t object.

Tiffy x

PS Where did you get them all from, by the way? If you don’t mind me asking.