The House Mate Read online

  Mrs C x

  #vegetables #growyourown #mrsclean

  78,899 likes

  kelly.winkler What an inspiration you are. I’ll be following suit once I get home from work.

  wonderstuff I planted spuds first time this year. Can’t wait to see them in a few months. #thegreatoutdoors.

  lucybest65 Doesn’t anyone else think it’s sad that this woman is all alone in her garden with only her plants to talk to?

  F16kb3 Why are you always giving her a hard time? Just let the woman be.

  lucybest65 I’m just pointing out that it’s not normal.

  bornfree It’s perfectly normal to talk to your plants.

  16

  Now

  I had finished college early and had come back to an empty house. I sat at the kitchen table, taking a well-earned rest from cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. I had surprised myself when I began the task willingly, as opposed to through compulsion. I got stuck in and settled into a flow and eventually found myself drifting off and thinking about other things. Things that weren’t the past; the stuff that haunted my thoughts most days and drove my compulsive behaviours.

  Eventually I picked up my phone again and I automatically navigated my way to Mrs Clean’s account, where I looked at her most recent post. It was an image of a perfect patch of artificial grass with a small neat path next to it that I presumed led back to the house. Just to the right was a shot of the pop-up greenhouse she had been gifted. It was fairly extravagant and almost the size of a full greenhouse. I pressed the tag of the company who had gifted it to her, and it took me through to their profile page. On their personal info was their website. I hit the link and found myself navigating my way to their pop-up greenhouses. There was quite a range, but I soon found the one that Mrs Clean had been gifted, which was almost a hundred pounds; a luxury for many. A memory drifted through of growing seedlings on my windowsills as a child. The look of pure joy on my mother’s face when I showed her the first sprouts of life that were bursting through the soil. As an only child, I never had to fight for her attention.

  I had been pushing these sorts of images away, but just recently, something had begun to shift, I had begun to allow myself to ponder over a few memories. In the same way I had begun to assess myself and my feelings whenever Will was around.

  I scrolled through the comments on the post and I saw another comment from lucybest65. There she was, moaning again about something that Mrs Clean was doing. I didn’t understand why people followed an influencer, only to criticise them constantly.

  Knowing that we could be kindred spirits was one of the reasons I looked forward to seeing Mrs Clean’s posts. I felt a flutter of excitement whenever I saw she had posted something new, and this was something I had not felt for so long, but Lucy’s comments were marring the whole experience.

  I thought once more about leaving a comment, something nice. Maybe she would notice it and comment back, but I didn’t bother. I thought again about us as friends. Perhaps if I privately messaged her, told her how inspired I was by her work, she might message me back and we could strike up a rapport. But she had over one million followers. Why would she possibly answer my message? I stood up and went back to my work. I stooped down and began placing all the pans back into the clean, freshly wiped cupboard. They had been filthy, covered in crumbs and grease with pans and pots falling over one another. Once I had them all back in, there was so much more room. I stood back to admire my work.

  ‘You did a good job there.’ I swung round with force, my heart suddenly beating in my mouth as my body so easily defaulted into flight-or-fight mode.

  Steve was leaning against the door frame.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ Panic rose in my throat as I thought back to how I had spent the last few hours, where I had presumed I was alone.

  ‘Not long.’ He stretched and yawned. He was wearing a white vest and it rose up a little, revealing a little flurry of hair around his navel. I averted my eyes immediately. ‘I just woke up.’

  So he had been in the house for some time. I paid what some might consider to be an extortionate amount of rent every month to live here, and I couldn’t even feel relaxed in my own surroundings.

  ‘Fancy a cuppa?’ Steve walked over to the kettle, stopped and looked down at me crouched by the pan cupboard. ‘Crouching tiger, hidden dragon.’ He put his hands out and stood statue still. Then he broke into a laugh; it was the first time I had seen him make a joke with me when the others weren’t around. He had a short, hollow laugh. I stood up and headed over to the table to retrieve my phone.

  ‘Regi, I—’ Steve began to speak, but the panic was raging through my body.

  ‘Enjoy your tea,’ I cut him off as I left the room.

  Upstairs, I threw my phone on the bed and locked and unlocked the door, then ended on a lock. I paced the room for a few minutes, knowing I needed to confront Karen, but thinking about the way she looked at me the night of the party when Steve sought me out in the summerhouse, I wasn’t so sure there would be a good time. I was drunk that night, but one of the last things I remember, even through the darkness of the garden, was her penetrating stare.

  I stripped my bed and remade it with the clean sheets in a pile by my drawers. Still, the strain in my chest wouldn’t shift, so I opened my phone and navigated my way to Instagram. It was a relief to see that Mrs Clean had posted a story since I had looked a moment ago downstairs. The calm washed over me.

  It was a video of her ragdoll cat. She was stroking it with a brush that she wore on her hand like a mitt. The cat was purring loudly. But underneath that I could hear her breath, small and shallow, just out of sync with the cat.

  To hear her breath made me feel her realness and humanness even more. But I couldn’t just reach through the screen and touch her or talk to her. The injustice of this app was infuriating.

  We could be friends, I was sure of it.

  I was thrust away from my thoughts and scrolling by a knock on my bedroom door. After my series of unlocking, I found Karen on the other side, unable to conceal her annoyance.

  ‘Hi.’ The tension was fierce in her throat. I stood back to let her in, but she remained in the doorway. ‘I just wanted to check everything was okay, you know,’ Karen said, ‘because I just asked Steve who was in the house and he said you. And well, after the party, I felt things were a little weird.’

  I shook my head in bewilderment.

  ‘I didn’t think things were weird, but what is weird is that Steve comes and goes in this house as though he owns it. I pay a lot of money to live here and I feel… some of the time, uncomfortable. He seems to just show up, turn up out of nowhere, like today. I presumed the house I pay top London prices to live in was empty. Then suddenly, Steve is behind me in the kitchen. I would like to feel safe and secure in this house. I chose to live with you and Sophia and Mini. Females. Not males. Not Steve.’

  Karen was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot and staring straight at me. There was a wildness in her eyes.

  ‘Fine.’ She crossed her arms. I imagined this was not something she was fine about at all. ‘It’s probably something else anyway.’

  I shook my head, not understanding.

  ‘I mean, he’s always there when you are. So maybe it’s you and not him!’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘He’s been acting weird, You obviously have a little crush on him, which is fine.’ Karen threw her hands up in the air dramatically. ‘It always happens to me. I get a boyfriend and someone else manages to get their claws into them. Steve is mine. Just so you know and so there isn’t any confusion here.’ She circled her finger in front of her, turned on her heel and clomped off down the hall. I shook my head in disbelief. To think that I would fancy Steve? He reminded me too much of someone I was trying to forget.

  Later that evening, we were all sat eating together. It was a takeaway curry for Meat-Free Monday, one of the quirky things the girls had established to distinguish between
days of the week: Taco Tuesday, Whatever Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday and Fajita Fridays. It was all new to me yet slightly endearing how they all liked to come together each evening and how they also included me. However, this evening as we sat, I could sense Karen’s anger and, from the odd looks that Mini was throwing my way, I presumed others could sense it too.

  We were all clearing away the takeaway and stacking our plates into the dishwasher, when we all turned to hear a loud vibration coming from the kitchen table.

  ‘Erm, I think that’s your phone, Regi,’ Mini said. I looked to the tabletop where I could see my phone creeping towards the edge with each vibration. I strode over, glanced at the screen and shoved the phone in my pocket where it continued to vibrate for several more uncomfortable seconds. I had set it to silent but didn’t realise it was on a vibrate setting as well. I took in a deep breath through my nose and blew it out through my mouth as subtly as I could. I supposed I could block the number. But it wouldn’t make any difference. He would find me.

  ‘I don’t think I have ever seen you answer a call,’ Karen said, and I know she was only saying what the others were thinking. I had, of course, answered calls, just not very many.

  ‘Maybe, Regi prefers texts,’ Mini said as she stacked her plate in at an awkward angle and put her cutlery in the wrong way.

  ‘Or Instagram,’ Sophia said, and even though she hadn’t meant to be malicious, my fists clenched as I felt a surge of heat across my cheeks.

  I closed the dishwasher with too much force as Sophia edged over to me. ‘It is where you’ve been getting all your cleaning-hack ideas from, isn’t it?’

  Mini looked over from the other side of the kitchen. ‘I told Regi about all the cleanstagrammers. I said she should do some tap-to-tidy posts on her own Instagram site.’

  ‘Well, you certainly have the bug.’ Sophia looked around the kitchen, which was now clutter-free and organised. ‘And the house is a lot tidier. I found horseradish in the fridge the other day – I didn’t know we had horseradish.’ Sophia laughed.

  ‘Well, I think Regi should get out more,’ came the sharp tone of Karen’s voice and both Mini and Sophia shot her a look then looked at one another.

  ‘Well, that’s just rude. What do you mean by that, Karen?’ Sophia looked at me, bewildered. Karen ignored Sophia and carried on putting things away too loudly. Sophia put a hand on my shoulder. ‘I think you’re doing a great job around here. I’m just sorry we’re not as keen to go all out as you are. You must think us terribly messy.’

  ‘Have you ever thought about online dating, Regi?’ Karen said offhandedly.

  ‘Never,’ I retorted.

  ‘Well, I think it would do you the world of good. You like being on your phone a lot, clearly you have bags of time and you’re single.’ Karen put way too much emphasis on the word single.

  ‘It’s not a bad idea,’ Mini said. ‘Dating is so different now, I mean to when you did it last. Maybe.’

  I had never dated. I had met and fallen in the love when I was young. Maybe too young. Until then it was the odd snog and unsuccessful episode in bed with someone I neither really liked nor fancied, but I felt as though I should have been going along with it because that’s what girls my age did.

  Sophia shrugged. ‘Yeah, but you’ve got to want to do it in the first place. You can’t just put yourself out there if you’re not really fussed.’

  ‘Well, it’s the only way to meet people nowadays, isn’t it?’ Karen said, her voice a little too high. ‘I mean you do want to meet someone, don’t you, Regi? Unless, you know, you have someone, a secret boyfriend you’re not telling us about.’

  ‘No secret boyfriend,’ I said flatly, narrowing my eyes at Karen. I felt a flicker of rage. I wondered how much longer I would tolerate her mouth. Pretty soon I would need to do something about it.

  ‘You should go for it, Regi. You really are very pretty – you should definitely do it,’ Mini said sweetly.

  ‘Yes, and do come home and tell us your dating stories,’ Sophia said.

  ‘I can get you set up on the app – it’s dead simple,’ Mini said. ‘If you can master Instagram, you will definitely be able to master a dating app. It can become quite addictive.’

  I was intrigued.

  ‘I just say go for it, Regi. I don’t think it’s healthy just sitting around the house when you’re not at uni. I know you’ve been doing the cleaning, and that’s great, but you’re not our mother,’ Karen said with a catch in her voice.

  I raised an eyebrow at this comment and Sophia stepped in.

  ‘What she means is’ – Sophia gave Karen the eyes – ‘is that you’re fabulous and gorgeous, and you should be out there finding someone like-minded, having some fun.’

  I suddenly remembered what it felt like to receive a compliment like that. The thought of someone saying that to me filled me with uncertainty. But Sophia was right about finding someone like-minded. The girls were good for everyday company, and Sophia was beginning to feel more like a friend to me than the other two, but occasionally I considered what it would be like to meet someone who was my age and shared similar interests.

  ‘I’m sure you can find someone with similar traits to you, you know if it’s the OCD stuff that’s bothering you. I’m sure there’re loads of blokes who have compulsions,’ Karen said matter-of-factly.

  ‘My God, who’s rattled your cage today, Karen?’ Sophia said firmly, and Karen looked visibly shocked at the outburst.

  ‘Er, no one,’ she said eventually. ‘I just hate seeing Regi moping about the place, becoming obsessed with cleanstagrammers.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not obsessed,’ I said sharply.

  ‘So why is that the fifth time today I’ve seen you pick up your phone and check out what’s-her-face’s profile?’

  ‘It just automatically falls on that one. I don’t follow enough people yet,’ I said, not understanding why I felt the need to justify myself.

  ‘Oh, just get her set up on Tinder already, Mini,’ Karen called from the hallway as she walked out of the kitchen and stomped upstairs. The sound of her bedroom door slamming made all of our bodies jerk.

  ‘What the hell has got into her?’ Sophia sat down at the table.

  ‘She thinks I’m trying to steal Steve,’ I said with one hand in the air in disbelief.

  ‘Oh my God, really?’ Mini scoffed. Sophia’s mouth opened to say something, but Mini carried on. ‘She’s paranoid. Granted, it’s happened twice before with two separate boyfriends. She must be desperate to match you up with someone if she doesn’t want you to steal Steve.’ Mini stifled a giggle. Sophia gave a weak smile.

  ‘Hey, I’m happy to get the app and for you to show me how it works, but I’m not promising anything,’ I said.

  Mini squealed and clapped her hands together. ‘Really? Oh, brilliant. Oh, Regi, this is so fab. I really think you are going to find your true love.’

  I smiled at her enthusiasm, neglecting to tell her that I had stopped believing in true love a long time ago.

  Despite my reservations about finding companionship via the internet, I watched as Mini eagerly installed the app on my phone, and before I knew it, I was posing awkwardly on the sofa for my profile shot. My phone was new. It had a handful of numbers in the contact list, one or two apps and no photos of me from my past. I did not need the constant reminders of seeing the old me, the one who didn’t carry any of the burdens I carried today.

  It was only when she had finished and my account was complete that I realised my face was now out there online, and I had no idea who could be looking at it.

  17

  Now

  The next morning I awoke to the sound of the house coming to life. The pipes creaked as someone ran the shower, I heard the clink-clank of crockery as it hit the countertops in the kitchen; someone clomped down the stairs and along the corridor. It was probably Karen. She was still harbouring some anger, and whilst she was generally moody with all of us, she seemed to be directing most of
her anger towards me.

  My phone rang. It was him. These calls were coming through more often. It wouldn’t be long until he turned up here. Would I be ready for him? Or would I run away like I had been doing for too long?

  I dressed lightly in denim shorts and a white T-shirt. I stripped my bed, unlocked and locked my window six times before I left the room and walked down the stairs as Karen was coming back up the stairs. I looked at her boots; she was, indeed, the clomper.

  ‘Morning,’ I said confidently. Karen grunted something back, but I was already halfway down the stairs and I was going to be late for my seminar if I didn’t hurry. I grabbed a muesli bar, an apple and a bottle of water from my cupboard in the kitchen and stepped out of the house, thoughts of the morning’s missed call on my phone still playing on my mind as I looked at the ground and tried to walk within the cracks of the pavement.

  I walked along the avenue lined with trees on either side and wished more than anything that I had given myself a spare few minutes to grab my favourite coffee for the journey. I found a seat on the train easily and sat down and opened my muesli bar and water. I put the bar to my mouth and that was when I caught a glimpse of a black baseball cap through the gap in the chair in front of me. I edged to the right to try to get a better look and dropped my bar. I bent to pick it up. Once I was sat back up again, I looked through the gap and could now see a black beanie hat. No baseball cap in sight. My mouth was dry and I no longer felt hungry.