Now that she was here, this didn’t seem like quite such a brilliant idea. Around her, on all sides stretched a cubist landscape of cardboard boxes. The removal men had thoughtfully set them down in such a way as to make traversing the room an epic expedition, necessitating the use of ropes, crampons and teams of huskies. And the heating had decided not to work. Of course. No doubt the vendor had extracted some vital organ from the boiler the moment they had exchanged contracts. He had taken the art of pettiness to new heights – or was it depths? – arguing over every fitting and fixture, frequently phoning Bella, his manner swinging between smarmy and covertly aggressive. He was sure she would like to buy his wrought-iron wall lights; they were practically new. No, she said, she wouldn’t. The built-in shelves? She had assumed they were, well, built-in. What about the curtain tracks? The stair carpet? It still had plenty of wear in it, he insisted, hanging on in there like a dog unwilling to relinquish a bone. ‘Mmm,’ she agreed non-committally, deciding its durability was a disadvantage unless you wanted to design your decor around a theme of khaki ripple. He was obviously attached to it, she pointed out, clearly he must take it with him.
* * *
Now, sitting on the stairs, trying not to catch her jeans on the exposed gripper strip, she stretched out one foot to flip open the lid of the nearest box. Loo brush, bubble-wrapped mirror, squeaky rubber crocodile. Oh-oh. She checked the label on the side: BTH. Marvellous. That was supposed to be upstairs. In the bth. How much clearer could she have made it? Evidently, she should have written BOX FOR BATHROOM (THAT MEANS UPSTAIRS – THE ROOM WITH THE BATH IN IT). Something else to add to The List: lugging downstairs boxes upstairs and upstairs boxes downstairs.
Her gaze fell on the puckered and peeling paintwork above the skirting board. The only house in the street with psoriasis. The damp. That ought to be top of the list – certainly above getting the sash cords fixed or redecorating the bathroom or Polyfillaing the crack in the study or painting a mural on the end wall of the garden or … In her mind, The List stretched out before her, a rippling paper path, unrolling itself to infinity.
There was a banging on the front door.
‘Why didn’t you use the bell, you old bag?’
‘I did. It obviously doesn’t work, slag-face.’ Viv gave Bella a hug and pushed a gold cardboard box into her hands.
‘Just what I need. A cardboard box. I was running dangerously low on them. How on earth did you guess?’
‘It’s cakes. Emergency rations. My God – are all the rooms as full as this?’ Viv waggled her head in disbelief, sending her precariously pinned carroty hair lurching from side to side.
‘I seem to have more stuff than I thought.’ Bella shrugged.
‘What’s in them all?’
‘I don’t know. Books. Paints. Kitchen things. Families of refugees. You know, stuff.’
Viv opened a nearby box.
‘Old exhibition catalogues?’
‘I’ve been meaning to go through them and weed out the ones I don’t want, but I haven’t got around to it yet.’
‘Is that the Kreuzer family motto: Dulce et decorum est procrastinati …?’
‘Thank you for those few charming words. Make yourself useful, can’t you? Help me look for the kettle. It’s in a box marked KTCH, which stands for kitchen not kitsch before you make any smart-arse comments – it’s probably up in the BTH.’
That first night in her new home, Bella left a light on as she always did – she’d had to dash out to the latenight corner shop to buy light bulbs because the vendor had removed every single one of them. She lay awake, looking at the slit of light under the bedroom door. I ought to be feeling excited, she told herself. New house. New job. New city. I mustn’t be so negative. So what if I’ve only got one week to sort out the house before I start at Scotton Design? So the house needs a few things seeing to? That’s why it was so reasonable. A counter voice cut in: Are you completely clueless? As if you didn’t have enough on your plate without turning your entire life upside down. Now you’ll be living in mouldy chaos for ever and you don’t even know anyone here except for Viv and Nick and you can’t expect to see them all the time. They’ve got each other. They don’t need you.
As her eyelids drooped, she thought of Patrick. If he’d been here with her now, what would he be doing? Snoring, probably, she reminded herself sharply. He’d have liked the house, she decided, yawning and snuggling down under the duvet. That was the bugger about not having a chap around the place. He would have got the damp sorted. And the boxes. No, she thought, he wouldn’t: Patrick would have stepped over the boxes, saying, ‘We really must sort these out.’ But at least he would have rubbed her cold feet to warm them up.
Bella bit her lip. Enough with the self-pity, OK? Consider the plus points: lovely house of her very own, with loads of potential especially now Mr Petty had stripped it of his beloved wall lights and nauseating carpets; near Viv so her phone bill would plummet because they wouldn’t have to have their epic longdistance calls any more; no longer having to hold her breath every time her colleague Val (known as Valitosis) came within exhalation range; interesting new job that should be less stressful. Yes, she comforted herself, less stress, that was the main thing. No more having her face stuffed into someone else’s armpit on the tube. No more spending a fortune on taxis to get home safely late at night. No more dingy flat where she had to have the lights on even in the daytime. No more thoughts of Patrick confronting her every time she opened the front door to a flatful of silence. She made herself do her Pollyanna voice – Golly gosh, wasn’t she just the luckiest girl in the whole wide world, a fresh start. Gee, it sure was exciting. She could hardly wait.