The Flatshare: A Novel

‘It’s the perfect venue for you, Katherin,’ Martin gushes, spreading the photos out on the table.

I smile encouragingly. Though initially I thought the whole enormous-venue thing was ridiculous, I’m starting to come around to it. Twenty different YouTube videos have been made by various Internet celebrities sporting outfits they claimed to have crocheted themselves from Katherin’s instructions. After a tense unscheduled meeting with the MD in which the head of PR did a quite convincing job of pretending to know what this book was, let alone have budget allocated for it, the whole Butterfingers office is now up to speed and abuzz with excitement. Everyone seems to have forgotten that last week they didn’t give a crap about crochet; yesterday I heard the sales director declare she’d ‘always suspected this book would be a winner’.

Katherin is perplexed by all of this, particularly the Tasha Chai-Latte thing. At first she reacted as literally everyone does when they see some random person making tons of money on YouTube (‘I could do that!’ she announced. I told her to start by investing in a smartphone. Baby steps.) Now she’s just irritated at Martin having taken control of her Twitter account (‘She can’t be trusted with this! We need to maintain control!’ Martin was yelling at Ruby this morning).

‘So, what is a proper book launch?’ Katherin asks. ‘I mean, normally I just potter around drinking the wine and chatting to any old lady who bothers to turn up. But how do you do it when there are all these people?’ She gestures to the photo of a gigantic Islington hall.

‘Ah, now, Katherin,’ Martin says, ‘I’m glad you asked. Tiffy and I are going to take you along to one of our other big book launches in two weeks’ time. Just so you can see how these things are done.’

‘Are there free drinks?’ Katherin asks, perking up.

‘Oh, absolutely, tons of free drinks,’ Martin says, having previously told me that there won’t be any at all.

I glance at my watch as Martin returns to the task of selling the enormous venue to Katherin. Katherin is very worried about the people at the back not being able to see. I, on the other hand, am very worried about getting to Leon’s hospice on time.

It’s the evening of our visit. Leon will be there, which means tonight, after five and a half months of living together, he and I will finally meet.

I’m oddly nervous. I changed my clothes three times this morning, which is unusual – normally I can’t imagine the day looking any other way once I’ve got an outfit on. Now I’m not sure I’ve got it right. I’ve toned down the lemon-yellow pouf dress with a denim jacket, leggings, and my lily boots, but I’m still dressed in something a sixteen-year-old girl would wear to prom. There’s just something fundamentally try-hard about tulle.

‘Don’t you think we should be heading over now?’ I say, interrupting Martin mid bullshit. I want to get to the hospice in time to find Leon and say thanks before we start. I’d rather he didn’t walk in Justin-style, just as Katherin’s sticking pins into me.

Martin glares at me, turning his head so Katherin won’t see quite how vicious a look he is shooting in my direction. She of course spots it anyway, and cheers up at the sight, chuckling into her coffee cup. She was grumpy with me when I got here because I’d (clearly) ignored her instruction to wear ‘neutral clothing’ again. My excuse that wearing beige sucks the life out of me did not fly. ‘We all have to make sacrifices for our art, Tiffy!’ she said, waggling a finger. I did point out that this isn’t actually my art, it’s hers, but she looked so wounded I gave up and said I’d compromise by taking out the poufy underskirt.

It’s good to see our mutual dislike of Martin has united us again.

*

I’m not sure why I think I know what a hospice will look like – I’ve never been to one before. This one ticks a few of my boxes, even so: lino floors in halls, medical equipment spouting wires and tubes, poor quality art in wonky frames on the walls. But there’s a friendlier atmosphere than I expected. Everyone seems to know each other: doctors make sardonic comments as they cross paths in the corridor, patients chuckle wheezily to their ward-mates, and at one point I hear a nurse arguing quite passionately with an elderly Yorkshireman about which flavour of rice pudding is best on tonight’s dinner menu.

The receptionist leads us down the bewildering maze of corridors to a sort of living area. There’s a rickety plastic table where we’re to set up, plus lots of uncomfortable-looking seating and a television like the one in my parents’ house – it’s blocky and enormous at the back, like they’re stashing all the extra shopping channels in there.

We dump the bags of wool and crochet hooks. A few of the more mobile patients drift into the room. Evidently word of our crochet show has spread, probably via the nurses and doctors, who seem to be running in totally random directions at all times, like pinballs. It’s fifteen minutes until we start, though – plenty of time for me to track Leon down and say hello.

‘Excuse me,’ I say to a nurse whose pinball path has briefly crossed the living area, ‘is Leon here yet?’

‘Leon?’ she asks, looking at me distractedly. ‘Yeah. He’s here. You need him?’

‘Oh, no, don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It’s not, you know, medical. I was just going to say hi and thanks for letting us do this.’ I wave an arm in the direction of Martin and Katherin, who are untangling wool with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

The nurse perks up and focuses on me properly. ‘Are you Tiffy?’

‘Umm. Yes?’

‘Oh! Hi. Wow, hello. If you want to see him, he’ll be in Dorsal Ward, I think – follow the signs.’

‘Thanks so much,’ I say as she scurries off again.

Dorsal Ward. OK. I check the sign fixed to the wall: left, apparently. Then right. Then left, left, right, left, right, right – bloody hell. This place goes on for ever.

‘Excuse me,’ I ask, snagging a passing person in scrubs, ‘am I on track to get to Dorsal Ward?’

‘Sure are,’ he says, without slowing. Hmm. I’m not sure how much he engaged with that question. I guess if you work here you get really sick of visitors asking for directions. I stare at the next sign: Dorsal Ward has now disappeared altogether.

The guy in scrubs pops up beside me, having backtracked down the corridor again. I jump.

‘Sorry, you’re not Tiffy, are you?’ he says.

‘Yes? Hi?’

‘Really! Damn.’ He looks me up and down quite blatantly, and then realises what he’s doing and pulls a face. ‘God, sorry, it’s just none of us quite believed it. Leon will be on Kelp Ward – take the next left.’

‘Believed what?’ I call after him, but he’s already gone, leaving a set of double doors swinging behind him.

This is . . . weird.

As I turn back I spot a male nurse with light-brown skin and dark hair, whose navy-blue scrubs look threadbare even from here – I’ve noticed how worn Leon’s scrubs are when they’re drying on the clothes horse. We make eye contact for a split second, but then he turns his head, checking the pager on his hip, and jogs off down the opposite corridor. He’s tall. It might have been him? We were too far apart to tell for sure. I walk more quickly to follow him, get slightly out of breath, then feel a bit stalkerish, and slow down again. Crap. I think I missed the turning to Kelp Ward.

I take stock in the middle of the corridor. Without the tulle skirt my dress has deflated, clinging to the fabric of my leggings; I’m hot and flustered, and, let’s be honest, completely lost.

The sign says next left for the Leisure Room, which is where I started. I sigh, checking the time. Only five minutes until our show should begin – I’d better get back in there. I’ll track Leon down afterwards, hopefully without encountering any more slightly freaky strangers who know my name.

There’s a sizeable crowd when I head back into the room; Katherin spots me with relief and kicks off the show right away. I dutifully follow her instructions, and, while Katherin enthusiastically extols the virtues of the closed stitch, I scan the room. The patients are a mix of elderly ladies and gentlemen, about two thirds of whom are in wheelchairs, and a few middle-aged ladies who look quite poorly but much more interested in what Katherin’s saying than anybody else is. There are three kids, too. One is a little girl whose hair is just growing back after chemo, I’m guessing. Her eyes are enormous and I notice them because she’s not staring at Katherin like everybody else is, she’s watching me, and beaming.

I give her a little wave. Katherin slaps my hand.

‘You’re a dreadful mannequin today!’ she scolds, and I’m brought back to the moment on the cruise ship in February, the last time Katherin was manhandling me into various uncomfortable positions in the name of crochet. For an instant, I can recall Justin’s expression exactly as it was when our eyes locked – not the way it looks in my memory, faded and changed with time, but as it actually was. A shiver goes through me.

Katherin casts me a curious look, and I snap out of the memory with an effort, managing a reassuring smile. As I look up I see a tall, dark-haired man in scrubs push through a door into one of the other wards, and my heart jumps. But it’s not Leon. I’m almost glad. I’m unsettled, off-kilter – it’s somehow not the moment I want to meet him.

‘Arms up, Tiffy!’ Katherin trills in my ear, and, with a shake of my head, I go back to doing as I’m told.