Moving On

Flat

Flat

IT WASN’T INSPIRING.

A smell of onions hung in the air of the small living room whose sole item of furniture was a battered brown couch. It was set into a bay window, which let in plenty of light at least. A kitchenette ran along the opposite wall, a counter in front of it.

A windowless shower room had dark spots high up on the walls and half a toilet roll on the floor.

The two tiny bedrooms held nothing but a wastepaper basket in one, with a balled-up tissue in it. The wall between the bedrooms was paper-thin.

‘Technically,’ their landlord said, ‘it’s an unfurnished flat, but your brother and his friend left the couch behind, so you’re in luck.’

‘Fantastic,’ Claire said. She’d told Ellen that Martin and Pat O’Connor had found the couch on a skip and hauled it back to the flat. Ellen wondered if there were things living in it.

‘There’s a launderette and a corner shop on the next street, and a big outdoor market on nearby Portobello Road. You’ll get everything you need there, from furniture to kitchen things. A lot of it is secondhand, so you won’t have to spend too much. You’re late for it today, but you can go tomorrow.’

He told them he’d lived in nearby Hammersmith for the past thirty years. He looked in his fifties to Ellen, with thinning brown hair and a pale complexion, and an air of weariness about him. The fingers of his right hand were stained yellow. Even on this mild day he wore a coat.

‘Down to business,’ he said. He gave them a rent book and took their first month’s payment, along with the same sum as a security deposit. Bring cash, Martin had said. He only deals in cash. Given the minuscule size of the flat, the rent seemed astronomical to Ellen. They’d better find work fast.

The landlord told them about the Notting Hill Carnival, held every August bank holiday. ‘Two days of Caribbean music and dancing, parades and floats, loads of different stalls, gets huge crowds. You’ll love it. Just out of college, are you?’

‘That’s right,’ Claire said. ‘Art college. Dress design. We’re working on a collection for London Fashion Week.’

She was so very good at not telling the truth. After he’d gone, leaving them his phone number – ‘only in case of emergencies’ – and promising to see them next month, they gave their new home a more thorough investigation.

The bay window overlooked a rather pretty street. The flat was on the top floor of a three-storey terraced house, situated roughly in the centre of a long sweep of houses, all painted different pastel shades. There were six doorbells by the main front door. They’d already discovered that the bell for their flat – number 6 – didn’t work.

A drawer in the kitchenette held three forks and two knives, a bent teaspoon, a can opener, a corkscrew and a bottle opener. There was a single saucepan and a frying pan in another drawer. No sign of a kettle, toaster or bread bin, but on a shelf sat half a dozen intact pint glasses, with various pub names etched on them, and a pair of Tottenham Hotspur mugs, one missing its handle.

‘Easily known lads lived here,’ Claire said. ‘At least we have a cooker.’ She opened the oven door. ‘That’ll be fine with a good scrub.’

‘The shower works,’ Ellen said. ‘We just need a new curtain.’

‘I love the bay window.’

‘Me too – and it’ll be easy to heat a room this small when the weather gets bad.’

‘We can stock up tomorrow at the market.’

There was a pause.

‘We’re in London,’ Claire said. ‘We’re living in London. We’re young and free and single. We can do exactly what we like.’

Despite her weariness after fifteen hours of travel and little sleep, Ellen felt duty bound to find another positive. ‘We have a roof over our heads,’ she said, ‘and the location is good.’

‘Come on,’ Claire said, ‘we need to eat. Everything else can wait.’

On the way downstairs they met a trio coming up, two galloping little boys of about four and six, and a woman in a brightly patterned dress and matching turban calling after them to slow down. She smiled an apologetic hello at Ellen and Claire as she passed them. The little boys stared briefly at them before resuming their headlong rush upstairs.

They followed Martin’s directions to a street with lots of pubs. The grub is great in pubs here, he’d told them, and not too dear. So many skin shades, Ellen thought as they walked. So many forms of dress, so many different languages and accents in the snatches of conversations they heard. She wondered if the entire city of London was as colourful as Notting Hill.

She thought of Sherlock Holmes and Oliver Twist and Mrs Dalloway and Mary Poppins and Paddington Bear, all walking the London streets of her books. She thought of Dickens and Chaucer and Austen and Trollope, literary giants who had trod the same cobbles that she and Claire would tread.

In London, she would heal. In London, she would forget him.

They found a pub called The Laughing Lion, busy and noisy and smelling of food. They ordered fish and chips and two large glasses of red wine. They raised their drinks.

‘Here’s to our London adventures,’ Claire said, smothering a yawn.

‘And the fantastic jobs we’re going to get tomorrow.’

‘And our many, many love affairs.’

No more love affairs , Ellen thought. Not for a long time.

When they got back to the flat there was a plastic box by their door with a note on top. Welcome to our building , the note said, from Jada, Ace and Delroy in number 5 . The box held squares of a deliciously soft, crumbly coconut cake that they washed down with tap water in wine glasses.

‘I think I’m going to like it here,’ Claire said.