The Flatshare: A Novel

Definitely don’t get drunk. Am telling myself this on repeat, but still can’t stop sipping my drink. It’s a whisky on the rocks. Horrible. Or it would be if Babs hadn’t said it was on the house, which instantly made it much more appetising.

We’re at a rickety wooden table with a sea view and a teapot with a big fat candle stuck in it. Tiffy is delighted with teapot candle holder. Cue animated conversation with waiting staff about interior design (or ‘interiors’, as they call it).

Tiffy has her foot up and resting on a cushion, as per Socha’s orders. The other foot is now up too – she’s basically horizontal at the table, hair thrown back and blazing against the sunset over the sea. She’s like a Renaissance painting. Whisky has painted the colour back in her cheeks and brought a slight flush to the skin of her chest, which I can’t stop looking at whenever her attention is elsewhere.

Have barely thought about anything but her all day, even before all the drowning started. Mr Prior’s search for Johnny White has shifted into the background – last week that project was what Kay would call my ‘fixation’. Now it feels like something I want because I’ve shared it with Tiffy.

She’s telling me about her parents. Every so often she tips her head back, throws her hair further over the back of her chair, half closes her eyes.

Tiffy: Aromatherapy is the only one that’s stuck. Mum did candle-making for a while, but there’s no money in that, and after a while she just sort of snapped and declared that she was buying the ones from Poundland again and nobody was allowed to tell her they told her so. Then she went through a really weird phase where she got into seances.

That snaps me out of staring at her.

Me: Seances?

Tiffy: Yeah, you know, when you sit around a table and try to talk to dead people?

Waiter appears at Tiffy’s foot’s chair. Looks at it, mildly puzzled, but doesn’t comment. You get the impression they’re used to all sorts here, including bedraggled people with their feet up as they eat.

Waiter: Would you like a pudding?

Tiffy: Oh, no, I’m stuffed, thanks.

Waiter: Babs says it’s on the house.

Tiffy, without pause: Sticky toffee pudding, please.

Me: Same here.

Tiffy: All this free stuff. It’s like a dream come true. I should drown more often.

Me: Please don’t.

She lifts her head to look at me properly, her eyes a little sleepy, and holds my gaze for a few seconds longer than is strictly necessary.

Clear throat. Swallow. Flounder for subject.

Me: Your mum did seances?

Tiffy: Oh, yeah. So for a couple of years while I was at secondary school I’d come home to find all the curtains drawn and a bunch of people saying, ‘Please make yourself known’, and ‘Knock once for yes, twice for no’. I reckon at least sixty per cent of the visitations were actually just me getting home and chucking my bag in the cupboard under the stairs.

Me: So what was after seances?

Tiffy thinks about it. Sticky toffee pudding arrives; it’s enormous and drenched in toffee sauce. Tiffy makes an excited noise which makes my stomach clench. Ridiculous. Can’t be getting turned on by a woman moaning about pudding. Must pull self together. Sip more whisky.

Tiffy, mouth full of pudding: She made curtains for a bit. But the upfront costs were massive, so that turned into making doilies. And then it was aromatherapy.

Me: Is that why we have so many scented candles?

Tiffy smiles.

Tiffy: Yeah – the ones in the bathroom are all carefully chosen with scents that help you relax.

Me: They have the opposite effect on me. Have to move them every time I want to shower.

Tiffy gives me a cheeky look over her spoon.

Tiffy: Some people are beyond aromatherapeutic help. You know, my mum chose my perfume too. It ‘reflects and enhances my personality’, apparently.

I think of that first day when I walked into the flat and smelled her perfume – cut flowers and spice markets – and how odd it felt, having someone else’s scent in my flat. It’s never strange now. Would be odd to come home to anything else.

Me: What’s that then?

Tiffy, promptly: Top note rose, then musk, then clove. Which means, according to my mum . . .

Crinkles her nose a little in thought.

Tiffy: ‘Hope, fire, strength.’

Looks amused.

Tiffy: That’s me, apparently.

Me: Sounds about right.

She rolls her eyes at that, having none of it.

Tiffy: ‘Skint, mouthy, stubborn’ would be better – probably what she meant anyway.

Me, definitely tipsy now: What would I be, then?

Tiffy tilts her head. She looks right at me again, with an intensity that makes me half want to look away, half want to lean across the table and kiss her over the candle teapot.

Tiffy: Well there’s hope in there, definitely. Your brother’s relying on it.

That catches me by surprise. There are so few people who really know about Richie; even fewer who’ll bring him up unprompted. She’s watching me, testing for my reaction, like she’ll pull away if it hurts. I smile. Feels good to talk about him like this. Like it’s normal.

Me: So I get rose smell in my aftershave?

Tiffy makes a face.

Tiffy: There’s probably a whole different set of smells if you’re a man. I am only versed in the art of perfumery for women, I’m afraid.

I want to push her for the other words – want to hear what she thinks of me – but it’s conceited to ask. So we sit in silence instead, candle flame darting back and forth between us in its teapot, and I sip more whisky.