Something detaches me from sleep. What it is, I don’t know. I lie in this semi-scared half-tense world, curled protectively on my side, as if expecting massive hands to shackle around my ankles before dragging me from the bed. There’s a hyper alert energy about the house that leaves a strange roaring deep in my ears.
That’s when I hear it. Them. Shouting downstairs. Despite seven different people with their own personalities co-existing within these walls, this has always been a relatively peaceful house, so the sound of yelling surprises me. And at this time… 01:53. The voices hike up in volume, driving me out of the bed and into my jeans jacket over my T-shirt and shorts. A big yawn accompanies me to the door. I’m exhausted, brain-weary, leg muscles aching from the never-ending marathon that has become my life. The last thing I need is domestic drama.
The landing feels inhospitable in its chilly inkiness, leaving me shivering and pulling my jacket tighter to insulate my own body’s warmth. The residue of a downstairs light blurs against the staircase wall. Does it belong to someone’s room or the kitchen? Even though I don’t know most of the people who live here, I hope that no-one has been taken ill.
My steps quicken down the unsteady stairs, the voices getting louder. I freeze when I turn the corner at the bottom and see the backs of my housemates gathered at the entrance to the kitchen, heads slightly down looking at something on the floor as they criss-cross argue. Well, it’s actually Jed involved in a right royal row with his unrequited love. I must’ve made a sound, I’m not sure, because they all suddenly turn my way like wind-up toys getting ready to perform a macabre collective march. Accusatory expressions maul me. Only Jed’s features are set in a different way – hopeless and helpless. Whatever this is, it isn’t good.
I stand my ground in the space I’ve marked as my territory by the staircase, resisting the urge to wrap a hand on the end of the bannister for the support I suspect I’m going to need.
‘What’s going on?’ My voice is slow as if that will delay matters.
Lovebird speaks, glaring and spitting at me. ‘I want you OUT. Now!’
‘We’ve already had this conversation.’ My swift comeback lacks the confidence I had earlier when us two got into a verbal ding-dong.
Wonderful Jed comes immediately to my defence but he won’t touch my gaze, stirring the dread in my bones. ‘Leave off, Sonia,’ he snaps, reminding me she does have a name other than one that belongs to the bird kingdom. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions—’
She butts in, ‘Are you having a laugh? Let the bitch see what she’s done.’
Jed waves an irate finger at her. ‘Don’t you dare call my mate a name like that.’
‘Mate?’ Sonia lets loose with sarcastic scorn, fists balled. ‘She’s using you, you muppet.’
‘Now you hold on—’
‘Stop.’
Pauline from the attic room stops them with the commanding tone she’s no doubt honed as a primary school teacher. Pretty woman, with a perfectly shaped ’fro who usually keeps herself to herself.
‘I understand where you’re coming from, Jed. This is your friend, but Sonia has got a point.’ The others nod. Whatever this is, I’m on the losing side. ‘Rachel needs to see what’s happened.’
There’s a Red Sea parting of the ways to allow me through. I feel no exhilarating Moses moment as I move forward with trepidation, slow step by slow step, their hot eyes watching me every inch of the way. I see it before I reach the kitchen doorway and can’t help the choked gasp that disturbs the sudden stillness of the night.
It’s a scene of utter destruction. There’s a huge jagged hole in the ceiling where the plaster has come down, exposing the floorboards and insulating foam of the room above. Directly beneath is the debris awash with water that’s turned the kitchen floor into a mini lake. Water weeps down the walls, leaving it looking like fresh dirty-white paint settling in to dry.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. Try again, still baffled what this has to do with me. I turn. Talk. ‘I don’t understand—’
Of course it’s Sonia who decides she’s the one to fill in the blanks. ‘You left the water running in the bath tonight.’
The bath. Tap. Water. My mind skates back. Earlier. The bathroom. Triple damn. I must’ve got distracted by Michael’s call and forgot to turn off the tap. I’m always so super careful. Make a point of giving the tap an extra secure turn that burns my fingers so that it’s tight. I always leave the bathroom with the sensation of the frigid coldness of the metal of the tap imprinted on my palm. There’s no such memory now.
Jed plays knight in shining armour to my dumbstruck damsel in distress. ‘It could happen to any of us—’
‘It happened to her,’ Sonia fiercely cuts in.
‘I mean, we’ve all had those moments,’ Jed continues as if she hasn’t spoken, each word delivered in a jerky upbeat tone, ‘when we’ve forgotten to do something.’
‘But we don’t fill up the bath every night when we think the rest of our housemates have gone to bed.’ It’s Pauline this time, her careful reasoned teacher tone getting everyone’s attention. ‘That’s what you do, isn’t it, Rachel? I saw you do it once when I got back from a night out with my friends.’
There! Out in the cold like the water flooding the kitchen. My secret. One of my demons on the prowl in plain sight for all to see. My face is a hotbed of humiliation. Quickly, I avert my face to the side; I don’t want any of them to see how this is eating me. Tearing me apart.
‘Why do you do it?’ It’s Pauline again, soothing, like she’s asking one of her kids why they smacked another child in the mouth.
‘I tell you why,’ Sonia storms, ‘she’s a bloody weirdo, that’s why. She also hangs a rope from the window of her room at night.’ Now they’re all looking at me, except Jed who won’t look at me at all, like I’m a serial killer in the making.
‘She’s got to go.’
Jed steps back in. ‘Why? She’s never late with the rent.’
Another voice this time, the man in the room next to mine whose name my tilting mind can’t find. ‘If we’re being official about it, she doesn’t have a lease with the letting agency—’
‘Who we all know won’t do the repair—’
‘I’ll pay for it—’
‘What with? The pittance you earn gigging…’
On and on they go, as if I’m no longer there, a ghoul who’s haunted their house for way too long. Five against darling Jed who refuses to back down. The voices of Michael and Joanie join in during Milkgate on my first day at work.
Rachel. Rachel. Rachel. The tormenting calling of my name swamps my ears again.
Voice after voice beats and bangs against the four corners of my drained mind. Relentless, painful, grinding whatever will I have left into dust until I can’t find myself. The same terrible feeling I experienced when I got into debt. When Philip…
‘Shut up.’ They march on. Don’t hear me. ‘Shut. Up.’
Stunned by my screamed yell that echoes around us, I swivel back to them. ‘Don’t worry, I’m going. I’m truly sorry about the wreck in the kitchen.’
Jed reaches towards me. I swerve out of his reach and scramble up the stairs. I hear him and Sonia going at it.
‘You’re the bitch here, Sonia.’
‘Screw you, Jed.’
‘Think you’ve got that the wrong way round because I hear that’s what you’re gagging for me to do to you….’
I shut my door ever so quietly back in my own aching solitude. I don’t need a do-gooder or mirror to tell me I’m the physical embodiment of the wreck of the century. I could lean against the wall and cry but what would be the point? Plus, there’s been enough water letting for one night. I’ve made a decision though. I get to action, shoving my gear into my rucksack.
A gentle tap-tap sounds against the door. ‘Rachel, can I come in, babe?’ His jumbled breathing is audible through the door. Poor Jed. Sounds like his latest gig has bombed.
Should I or shouldn’t I – let him in? He’d provide a shoulder to lean on but that won’t change what we both know – my time here is up. I open the door. For the first time I see how tired my friend looks, the drawn skin that pushes the bones on his face to the foreground.
‘Where you going to go?’ he asks, sounding as dejected, defeated, as I feel.
I shrug. Think about popping on a fake smile to ease the tension but the very life has been sucked out of me. ‘I’ll find somewhere. None of this is your fault. You’ve been the perfect bestie a person could ever want.’
My arms hug him tight. His hard breath stains the side of my neck as he hesitantly asks, ‘So what’s with filling the bath? The bucket of water by the bed?’
I haul back from him as if his skin is the hottest thing on this earth. We stare at each other, friend to friend. Eventually I pivot away and move across to the window. Tease my rope with two fingers as my gaze is captured by the dark new day outside.
I tell him what I’ve never confessed to anyone else. ‘I have a fear of fire. I know it’s crazy but wherever I live I have to be ready in case a fire breaks out. So I have to have a bucket of water next to me when I sleep and the bath filled up so I can refill my bucket if I need to.’
My words run on with the speed of a river flowing. ‘I have a fear of enclosed underground spaces.’ My fingers twist painfully into the rope. ‘I always need to know where the window is as a means of escape so that’s why I hang the rope.’
I say no more. I wait, chest and throat so tight, pulse racing like mad as I wait for him to tell me I’m nuts. That it’s all in my imagination. Or ask what happened to make me harbour these compulsions and fears.
But all he says is, ‘One of my exes had a fear of big toes. Insisted when we were in the sack I keep my socks on.’
I look over at him, eyes squinting. ‘You’re making that up.’
Jed puts his hands in the air. ‘As God is my witness. She saw my hairy big toes one day and raced from the room and threw up.’ There’s a twinkle in his eyes so I can’t be sure if he’s telling the truth or spinning a yarn. I suspect the latter: Jed’s way of trying to put me back together. I’m grateful he doesn’t dig deeper, wanting to know what turned me into such a mess. Just as well: I’d never have told him.
‘The others said you don’t have to go tonight,’ Jed informs me. Not Sonia though, I bet. Probably waiting downstairs with a pitchfork to see me on my way. His voice lightens. ‘We’ll sort this all out tomorrow. Sleep tight.’
After he’s gone, his footsteps padding away into the waking morning, I sit on the bed until I sense the shifting of the energy of the house back to its usual vibe, the others all retreated to their rooms. For the last time, in this room, I do my daily ritual of going to the window. Open up. Haul the rope back and place it in my bag. There will be no tomorrow for me and Jed. Not in this house anyway.
I use my toes to go downstairs. Open and close the front door. Walk away, bag on my back, empty bucket in my hand and I’m soon swallowed by the city’s anonymous nocturnal shade. And walk, and walk. Where I’m going I don’t know. I’ve run out of places to hide.