Chapter 3
JACKIE
‘As you can see, the flat is quite spacious,’ the agent told Jackie on Sunday.
‘And you have central heating throughout. I have to tell you that there are several people after it, so if you want it you need to register your interest now. The landlord will then vet all the offers and make a decision.’
Flipping hell, the flat was a dive, the rent extortionate, and she had to join a queue to see if the landlord would rent it to her! What had happened to the rental market in the last five years?
She’d been lucky to get a viewing; most of the flats she’d looked at over the past few weeks had been taken as soon as they were advertised.
The few she had been graced a viewing for had been appalling – tiny, dark and expensive.
What was she going to do? She only had two weeks left to find somewhere to live or she might have to take up her daughter Pam’s offer of the spare bedroom.
And that wouldn’t work out well at all, for either of them.
‘Mrs Worthington?’ The landlord looked at her questioningly.
She had no choice really. She could rent it for six months – the lowest term contract she could take – while she looked around for something better, she decided. So she nodded reluctantly. ‘Yes, I’m interested.’
She stopped off on the way home to buy a big bar of chocolate to cheer herself up.
Back in the flat, sat in front of the soaps, scoffing the chocolate and sipping a glass of pink gin and soda, she told herself that it would be okay.
She could manage in the grotty flat; it was only temporary. She’d soon find something better.
Her mind went back to the day six weeks ago that she’d received the letter from the landlord telling her he was selling the flat she lived in, so she had two months to find somewhere else to live.
Two months! She’d been living here for five years, ever since she and Malcolm had split up.
The three-bedroomed house they’d rented was too big for her by herself – she felt lost in it – so she had let it go and rented a flat instead.
Although it seemed strange at first to live by herself, and in a flat as opposed to a house, she’d gradually got used to it and now she felt very settled here.
She’d been in a right tizz when she’d received that letter from her landlord.
She didn’t want to move and start all over again, build a new home for herself.
As soon as she told Pam about it she had offered her their spare room.
‘You can have it as long as you need, Mum,’ she’d said.
Much as she loved her family, Jackie didn’t want to live with them.
She’d be on call as a babysitter all the time, and besides she liked to live her own life.
Her little flat was her haven; she had it just how she wanted it.
She could go away for a few days, come back and everything was still exactly where she had left it.
Not like when she’d lived with Malcolm. He’d been a right slob.
And selfish. What was his was his, and what was hers was his too.
He was always taking her things, eating the last biscuit and putting the empty packet back, drinking milk out of the bottle.
Yuck! It would be like that at Pam’s; the kids were everywhere.
She loved them, but she didn’t want them mooching in her bedroom, bouncing on her bed, eating all her chocolates.
And she liked her privacy. She loved the freedom of strolling around with no clothes on.
It was something she’d started doing since she had her own place and it made her feel calm, free, at one with nature.
She couldn’t do that at Pam’s, could she?
Even if she retreated to her bedroom to disrobe, one of the kids were sure to barge in. No, it wouldn’t work out at all.
She’d tried desperately to find another flat, signed up to all the local agencies, asked to view every flat or apartment on their lists.
She’d find somewhere, she told herself. However, each flat she’d viewed – even the ones with damp, mould, grubby carpets, yellowed walls, poky dark rooms, noisy neighbours – had been gobbled up.
Hopefully she’d get this one. Grotty as it was, it was a roof over her head.
She was warming up her microwave beef hotpot when the text came in telling her that the flat had gone to someone else.
Great. It looked like she had no choice. Unless she found a flat in less than two weeks it was move in with Pam or be homeless.