Chapter 8
In the last wee while, waking alone and being alone had bummed me out.
Before I lived with Nicol, I’d stayed at home with my parents.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I never felt lonely with them or when I moved in with Nicol, but even in those times there’d be the sound of the toilet refilling from someone else having flushed it, the dent in a couch pillow from another’s behind, the dirty pan in the sink from a meal I could smell the lingering scent of in the air.
During that time, if anyone told me they lived alone I’d have to fight the urge to tell them how sorry I was, how difficult it must be not to have someone to come home to, how cold they must get without the heat of another body in bed beside them, how mad it must drive them to not have a person to chat with for a minute or two when they come home from work.
If I’d been thinking about it, I’d also have been terrified, as I am now, about them being responsible for all of their expenses alone.
In this economy. In this housing system.
It’s no surprise, with all of that as my worldview, that singleness at this age, which is not old at all really, took on a tragic quality.
I had come to believe being in the flat on my own was pathetic.
That was until I woke up to the sound of Gavin groaning in my bedroom as the alarm on my phone chirped it’s time to get up. This was tragic.
‘Morning,’ I shout from my prone position.
I kick off the throw and sit up. My neck stiff, I crick it this way and that, rolling my shoulders and assessing how much damage a night on the couch has done to my body.
All the while there are no words from Gavin, no sounds of movement, until they ask, ‘Why am I in your bed?’
‘Because you got in it.’ My sleep was one of those where I’ve been dead, no dreams, fully out for the count since I put my phone down. My thoughts are fuzzy from having to be brought back from the afterlife.
‘Oh God,’ is all Gavin manages – heartwarming that this is their response.
Well done me for not shagging them; my body would cringe to dust if they’d been inside me and then felt this way.
Putting my phone on selfie mode, I check how I look.
The skin around my mouth and chin is pink and raw from where Gavin’s tash and stubble were rubbing against it last night.
I’ve slept in my makeup, which will be dreadful for my skin in the long term but for now is making me look more put-together than I usually do upon waking.
Wiping away a stray bit of mascara gunk from the corner of my eye, I hear Gavin unwrap themself from the duvet; their feet clatter into the basin I left on the floor for them to vomit into.
‘Oh God,’ they say again, before taking tentative footsteps to the bathroom.
I watch them in the hallway working out the lay of the land.
Then they flick the switch for the bathroom light on and off, on and off, until it turns on.
‘Oh God,’ they say into the bathroom as they walk inside.
There’s the clunk of the lock and then, a split second afterwards, the sound of Gavin being sick.
Shortly after that the extractor fan kicks in.
Even with it whirring, Gavin’s retching is pretty clear.
To cover the sound, for my sake more than theirs, I get up from the sofa and start doing chores.
I strip the bed of the warm, boozy, flowery, sweat-scented sheets.
The basin that Gavin overturned with their foot is returned to its rightful place in the kitchen sink, where I rinse it out to the dulcet tones of Malcolm on his podcast, The Property Pros, where he interviews property developers about their businesses.
As I fill the kettle, Malcolm takes this particular interview down a strange path of discussing the importance of sheds. ‘It’s something I always say, a home isn’t a home until it has a shed.’
‘What about flats?’ the interviewee asks.
‘In my experience, any good flat has some communal outdoor space and that should definitely include a shed – otherwise it’s subpar.’
Feeling the shadow of Gavin at the doorway, I pause it here.
Turning around, I’m met with a sorry sight.
The rims of their eyes are red, one side of their face is deeply creased from how they’ve slept on my pillow and their curls are flat and tangled.
‘You alright?’ I ask with the answer right in front of my face.
‘That depends. Is my memory of last night accurate?’
‘It was a very full evening. You’ll have to elaborate.’
Gavin closes their eyes, sighs. ‘All the kissing?’
‘Oh, that? Yes. That happened. Look, I’m getting the impression we’re both on the same wavelength.’ I mean, we’re not, I absolutely would ride Gavin this second despite the state of them, but my pride, or whatever shred of it Nicol has left me with, isn’t going to allow them to pie me off first.
‘We are?’ Gavin leans onto the door frame.
‘With us working together and all, I think we both agree it’s for the best that doesn’t happen again.’
‘Sure.’ There’s a lightness in their words from me relieving them of the burden of having to let me down. ‘That makes sense, to keep it professional.’
I make my cup of tea, Gavin lingers. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’
They hold onto their stomach as if it will provide them with the correct answer. After a few seconds, a decision is made. ‘I don’t think I could handle it. Thank you.’
Still, they stay, watching me put two slices of bread into the toaster and then take a few steps to the fridge to get the butter out.
Gavin looks at their watch. ‘Am I OK to have a shower here? I don’t think I’ve got the time to walk to mine, wash and get to work for nine.
’ The toast pops, which distracts me. Gavin keeps talking.
‘When your alarm went off I didn’t realise it would be so late.
You leave it quite last minute to get ready for work. ’
I pause my knife over a butterless piece of the toast. ‘I’m sorry. Should you collapse in a drunken stupor here again, I’ll be sure to set the alarm half an hour earlier. Although it is set to the perfect time for me because I’m going to be late in. I have to be here for the electrician, remember?’
Over my scraping they apologise. ‘Oh yeah. Sorry. That was my squareness showing.’
‘What?’ I bite into the toast. I’ve no desire to have to wash a plate, so I don’t use one. Crumbs sprinkle the top of my bare feet.
‘You know, how you’re a triangle and I’m a square and Brian’s a squiggle.’
Oh good, this shape thing is actually going to define me at this place. ‘Of course you can take a shower. And not just because it stops this weird categorisation of folk by shapes. There’s a clean towel on the stand you can use.’
On the radiator is the outfit I’m wearing today.
I chucked it on there yesterday morning after catching a whiff of how mildewy I smelt, a desire at the time to be fresh should Gavin ever get close enough to smell me.
That’s obviously no longer an issue. Chewing, I go over and touch the skirt and top to make sure they’re dry.
‘You shouldn’t do that. Drying laundry on the radiator causes damp.’
‘Here’s an interesting story, Gavin. I used to dry it outside in the back but someone kept stealing my knickers. When I reported it to my letting agent’s, they told me there was nothing they could do.’
I expect Gavin to defend themself. Instead, as they head to the bathroom, they say, ‘I can see why that would be annoying.’
Finishing my toast, I wipe butter from the corners of my mouth, trying to place the tapping sound I can hear is.
Like the light, there’s a knack required to get the lock in the bathroom to behave; I wonder if the noise is Gavin seeking assistance with it.
‘Everything alright?’ I shout into the hallway.
The water is running in the bathroom so it’s not Gavin.
I stand still and wait for the tapping to come again, and it does. It’s the front door.
The only explanation for this is that the electrician the police are sending to check the flat’s wiring is early.
Except it’s not the only explanation. It’s Amara at the door.
Muscle memory nearly has me taking her into an embrace, kissing her cheek, being delighted at this impromptu arrival.
Thankfully, the thud of remembering who we are to one another now comes before I touch her, allows me to reset my expression to the one I would give any other cold caller.
‘Why are you here?’
Amara’s eyes widen. This is not the welcome she expected.
Which might sound crazy, given what she did, but I spent one sad Saturday night not too long ago getting pissed and texting and voice-noting to let her know she could have Nicol and his strangely narrow penis, but as the Spice Girls taught us as children, friendship never ends and so we should try to salvage our decades-long sisterhood.
The sober me of today is mortified I said these things, not because I was talking nonsense but because I meant it then and, truth be told, still believe it now.
Which I know is daft. I must push past the formative teachings of girl power, because what Amara did to me is unforgivable, a betrayal so huge it can never be surmounted.
This is not like when she got off with Gordon Grant one Saturday night when we were underage drinking in Harleys bar and I snogged him the next, knowing she still fancied him.
While that was a cunt move on my part, Gordon Grant was inconsequential in the grand scheme of our lives. Nicol was my everything.
‘Do you have five minutes?’ Amara’s forgotten that her familiarity with me, with this flat, does not make her walking inside without an invite permissible.
But I’m too slow to react as she steps inside, distracted by my heart thumping the way it used to when I was younger and around a boy I had a crush on.
‘What could you possibly need me for? Is there something else I hold dear you forgot to steal or destroy on your way out before?’
‘Don’t be like that. People can’t be stolen. Well, it is about that, I guess.’ She’s fidgeting with her fingers as she talks. ‘There’s something I wanted to say to you.’
‘Is it “sorry”?’ Would that help me? Likely not, but it wouldn’t hurt.
‘Do you think I made a mistake?’ Amara’s always been an overthinker, the sort of person who needs time to consider every purchase, no matter how small, who runs through every possible outcome before she commits to an action.
That made her leaving with Nicol extra brutal.
I knew how much she’d have thought about the pain she was going to inflict on me, and she chose to do it regardless.
Before I respond, I learn Gavin does have the knack with the bathroom lock as they open it up, steam from the bathroom surrounding them like a pop star appearing in dry ice.
Their damp hair gleams, their skin glistens.
A towel is wrapped around their waist, showing their taut stomach and the smattering of hair that covers it.
They look bloody marvellous. I can tell Amara thinks so too; her mouth is agape until she says, ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here. ’
It will shock her that, even when wet and unadorned, Gavin is noticeably better looking than Nicol.
That’s not to say Nicol is unattractive.
He’s tall and slim despite doing no exercise, which counts for a lot once you hit your thirties.
He’s taken a long time to curate an image of a man who has no aesthetic, but the beanie hats and wispy facial hair are all carefully thought through to make his average face appear as alluring as possible, and it works – Amara and I are proof of that.
Amara will be extra surprised because she believes Nicol is the best I could ever get – she explicitly told me so in her reply to the Spice Girls chat.
I know this must really hurt because you could never do better.
Although, now I think about it, that doesn’t sound like something Amara would say.
She had the capacity to be bitchy and mean, but in a fun way, never cruel.
Maybe… maybe she didn’t write it, and Nicol – who absolutely has it in him to be horrible, in the way only the people who believe themselves to be truly righteous do – did.
Gavin pulls the top of their towel tighter around their waist, showing no shame to be seen in a state of undress.
Not that they should, looking like that.
‘Hi. I’m Gavin. Nice to meet you.’ One hand bundles the top of the towel, the other is offered to Amara, who refuses.
Which is needlessly rude even for the weird circumstances we all find ourselves in, but I understand.
Nicol would be pissed if he knew she had seen and touched Gavin while all they wore was a towel.
In the past, I distanced myself from people for similar reasons.
‘You’re familiar,’ she tells them.
Gavin does not know that to mention to Amara they work for the letting agency – which will surely be where they’ve seen one another before – is shameful and will ruin my moment of glory. Worse still, they could tell Amara I work there. I push her towards the door.
‘We’re getting ready so you’ll have to go.’ Then I channel another bit of ‘Wannabe’, near the end where Mel B repeats the word ‘slam’ a lot. Although slamming a door in my ex-best friend’s face is probably not what the Spice Girls envisioned.