31 Falkner Street (12)

I hated the walk of shame from Paddy’s house, number 29, to my house, number 31. But short of moving my entire wardrobe, all my shower stuff, and computer over to Paddy’s house I would need to carry on looking a tit in the mornings and showering in my own house.
‘Look at the state of you, you auld whore!’ Les wheezed from his doorstep, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking.
‘Fuck off, Les.’

Picking my way across bodies in various stages of unconsciousness, dodging the ones who were still fairly lively and dancing about, I made my way to the stairs. It was 6.30am, I was sick of David and Laura bringing the whole world home after their pilled nights out. In fact, I thought, it looked to be more like ket than ecstacy judging the state of some of their blank stares. Oh, I was so sick of these people monging around on the couches and the floor and eating all the food in the kitchen, and leaving burn marks on the coffee table my granddad had made. It was made ten times worse by the fact that they all looked at me like I shouldn’t be there, and then ignored me. The cheek of it! In my own house! I went into the kitchen to get the jacket potato and prawns I had made last night for my lunch in work. It was gone. I spun around on my toes and glared at the ten or so people crammed into the tiny living room/kitchen. Who was the culprit? I saw the remains of the potato in the ashtray.

Fuming, I stomped up the stairs to my bedroom. There was no point saying anything to them, they wouldn’t understand me whilst they were bopping away, or mute in their K-holes. I would have David and Laura for this. I used to laugh at housemate rows when my friends told me, outraged, about the washing dishes duty which had been neglected by their co-habitant. Now, in that situation, my rage was magnified. In my bedroom, I found three people in my bed under the covers. Two boys and a girl. The girl was topless, and one of the lads was wearing my vest. They didn’t seem embarrassed by my having walked in. I felt as if one of them was about to tell me to get out. I got there first.

‘Get the FUCK out of my bed now!’ I ran downstairs, across the living room – not caring about who’s head or foot or drugs I may have trampled on – straight into David’s room. There was about 5 people in there. He was in bed with two girls. My god, what was going on in this house? It was like living in a porn film!
‘Whatarethreepeopledoinginmy bed! Whyishewearingmyvest! Whyisshetopless! Get them out and wash my duvet NOW!’
‘Chill out’ David whined, not bothering to wake up properly. ‘There was no room downstairs. You don’t even sleep in there mostly.’
‘I won’t chill out! Have they had sex in my bed? Eh?’
One of the girls in David’s bed stopped snoring and sat up suddenly.
‘Eugh, can’t believe I’m not gonna go in to school today.’
‘Argh! David, you are disgusting, fucking sort yourself out and sort the house out! I’m getting a lock for my room TODAY.’

By this point, the topless girl from upstairs was strutting around the house, still topless. She didn’t half love herself. Even with her green hair and numerous tattoos. She looked at me in disdain. It took all I had not to thump her. I muttered ‘slag’ under my breath and stomped upstairs to my now empty room. Forget the vest. That lad was a bit hefty and it’d be all stretched and stink of come down sweat. I grabbed my shower stuff and stomped back to Paddy’s house. A trickle of cold water from the shower head in a freezing cold house with spots of damp covering the shower curtain and tile grout would be miles better than in this fun house. Now I was going to be late for work.

Laura had a lock on her bedroom, and David had a lock on his. They both locked their bedrooms whenever they were out, which I found very insulting. David actually kept most of his food in his bedroom, bread, tins of stuff, sweets, cereal. And the fuse box. Once the switch tripped when David had come home from a night out. Me and Laura hadn’t stayed at the house that night. He had gone to sleep then got up and gone to uni or work the next day. He locked his room so when I had rounded Paddy up to ‘put the tripped switch back’, we couldn’t. And all the food in the freezer was ruined. I supposed that it was partly the fault of me and Laura, as he had become stricter about locking his bedroom after we had snooped on his computer and found all his dodgy porn in his ‘my documents’. Before now, I had been over-ruled in respect of getting my own lock as the boiler was in my room, on which was a button which would turn the heating on and off. They wanted to be able to turn the heating on whenever, but now they could jog on. The gas bill would be much lower. They could just snuggle up to their raver friends for their body warmth.

So Anna put a lock on for me. I took great pleasure in turning the heating off and then staying at Paddy’s overnight. But when I got home the next day for my shower, I found that the gas fire in the living room had been left on for hours and hours – the worst offender for burning money – with my ipod on top of it, now partially melted.