Lodger, chapter one

The Lodger

Chapter 1

The phone was ringing.
Shit!
I knew it was early. I always wake up early and I wasn't awake. Ipso
facto. I pulled open my eyes and looked across at the luminous hands of
my Westclox. Seven forty-five.
Shit!
I slipped out from under the warmth of my duvet and hurried down the
stairs naked. I hated missing a call. I work with my mind and a missed
call was just the sort of thing that could distract me, could niggle
all day. 1471 didn't always work. Not always. Especially on foreign and
business numbers. I didn't want to waste hours wondering who it was,
who it might have been. I was good at wasting hours, very good. I
didn't need much of an excuse.
The phone was bouncing on a wooden chair in the hall. It was very
loud. It was a replica of a 1929 Siemens' Neophone. It was cerise and
had an aluminium dial and was made out of Bakelite. Nice if you like
that kind of thing. I did and I didn't. I was ambivalent.
I picked up the receiver.
"Hello," I said.
"Has it gone?" said a voice on the line.
"Excuse me?"
"The room?"
"Um...." I said. "No."
"Great!" said the voice. Very cheery. "Fantastic! Marvellous!"
Too bloody cheery. It was after all very early in the morning. Already
I was imagining pre-dawn showers and sunrise hoovering, knocks on my
door and cups of tea by my bedside with smiles and pat phrases telling
me I was missing the best part of the day, early to bed and early to
rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise. And all that crap.
"You're the first," I said.
"Early bird catches the worm," said the voice.
"Yes," I said. I was beginning to realise how cold it was. I had
goosebumps on my arms, legs, and was starting to suffer from cryogesis
of the balls. I was hopping from foot to foot.
"Where are you?" said the voice.
"City centre," I said. "Curzon street."
"Nice," said the voice. "Very handy. I can be there in five
minutes."
"Five minutes!"
"Yes. Or maybe sooner. What a stroke of luck. Curzon street."
I looked down at my naked state. And then I looked at myself in the
stick-on frameless mirror in the hall. Short hair they tell you is easy
to keep. It's a lie. Tufts were sticking up in every direction. I was
only a colour wash away from Bart Simpson.
"Look..." I began to say but was interrupted.
"One question," the voice said.
"Yes?"
"How big is the garden?"
"The garden?" I said.
"Yes. How big is it? How many metres? Square?"
"Um....."
"Yes?" said the voice.
"Well it's not a garden as such."
"Not a garden. What is it then? As such."
"Well it doesn't have grass," I said. "It's concrete and gravel. There
are Italian conifers and rock plants. There's a barbecue area and a
kind of wooden structure with an awning. You can sit there when it's
hot."
In fact, I was proud of the garden. I had done it myself with a little
help from a Ground Force fact sheet. I had hired machinery, removed
turf, compacted soil, erected posts. Me. By myself. I had finished it
just as summer had finished the year before.
"No grass you say."
"No," I said.
"I don't think Clarence would like that."
"Clarence?"
"My goat."
"You have a goat?" I said.
"Yes. Clarence. He's my goat."
"Oh."
"You didn't say no pets."
"No."
"Usually they say, No Pets. I checked carefully. The one above yours
he most definitely said no animals. And below as well. But you,
nothing."
"A goat isn't really a pet, is it?" I said.
"She's very good. You won't know she's there. And she is, she's my
pet."
I was now very cold.
I closed my eyes. I imagined a scene. It was summer. Nicholas, my four
year old nephew, was round. There was the smell of sausages grilling,
the sound of cans fizzing open. We were laughing, joking. I had turned
the music up. Hannah Jones' trademark scream signalled the start of
another Almighty hit. And in the corner, straggly and stinking was a
goat.
"Look," I said, "no offence but I don't want any animals. I work from
home. I don't want any distractions. I like peace and quiet."
"She doesn't bark you know."
"Right," I said.
"She doesn't roar like a lion, screech like a parrot. She sleeps on my
bed and I never even know that she's there."
Sleeps on his bed. A goat in the bedroom.
I'm not fussy, not really. But I did have carpets to think of. I did
have floorboards in the lounge. I didn't want hoof marks. Do goats have
hooves? It wasn't something I ever wanted to find out.
"I'm sorry," I said. "But..."
"I get the picture," said the voice. "You don't want a goat. You
should have put it in your advert. NO RUMINANTS. Thank you."
The line went dead.
It was an inauspicious start to finding a lodger, a lodger I didn't
want, a lodger I needed. Financially. Economically. Getting a lodger
was something I had thought long and hard about. I was happy as I was,
alone, by myself. It suited me. Down to the ground. But I needed the
money.
Over the previous week I had convinced myself that I could find a low
maintenance lodger, someone who was quiet, who would pay their rent on
time, who wouldn't get under my feet, in my hair. I had convinced
myself that I could find the lodger equivalent of a Madam Tussaud's
waxwork, someone who had all the physical attributes of a human being,
but none of the mess.
With this in mind I had bit the bullet and filled in the boxes in the
classified ad section of the local paper. I had cut it out and sent it
off with a cheque. And this was the result, a wake up call from a man
with a goat. Already I had a feeling that things were going to get
worse. Things generally did.
I was just about to go upstairs and climb back into the warmth of my
bed when there was a sound outside the front door and the post landed
on the mat.
"Cooee," said a voice.
I looked towards the door, towards the voice. The flap of the
letterbox was open. Through the flap I could see a pair of blue eyes
staring at me and thoughts of goats and lodgers disappeared. I had been
right. Things had just got worse. I should have known then that it was
going to be a busy morning. I should have had the sense then to run up
the stairs, pull the covers over my head and not come out until the
summer. I didn't.
"Cooee!" said the voice again.
Unlike the voice on the phone, this was a voice I recognised. It
wasn't a voice that was easily mistakable. It was an inharmonious mix
of Leo Sayer practising scales and a seventeenth century castrati
mid-op. More than anything, it wasn't a voice I wanted to be hearing,
not this early, not ever.
I wanted a simple life. Easy. I wanted to be Greta Garbo. I wanted to
be alone.
"Cooee!" said the voice a third time, louder this time.
"Morning Simon," I said. The voice belonged to Simon. Simon was the
postman.
"Cold, isn't it?" said Simon through the letterbox. "And the cold
isn't the only clue telling me I'm not on Rhodes. You see, I'm not
looking at the Colossus, am I? Not looking at the statue of Apollo. Not
huge. If you catch my drift."
I looked down again. I was still naked. Completely. My balls had
practically disappeared. They were stressing, quite strongly, that they
would never have need of the underpant equivalent of an uplift bra.
They could lift and separate well enough by themselves.
"Piss off, Simon," I said. "Go and push your epistles into boxes where
they're wanted."
It wasn't the first time Simon had seen me like this. Naked. We had
had sex once. He had never forgotten, I was trying to. I liked the idea
of having a door between us. A door without an oblong hole would have
been better. I felt I was an unwilling member of an impromptu buckshee
peepshow.
"Got a special delivery for you," said Simon. "It doesn't fit in your
hole. Too wide. Want me to take it back to the office?"
"No," I said. I sighed. Male I could resist, mail I couldn't. "I'm
coming."
I rattled the chain from its catch and flung open the door. Even
colder air hit my body and I folded my arms. Simon was before me. He
had big blue eyes and short blond hair. Some people would go for that.
Not me. Not more than once. Blondes weren't my type.
"Well," I said, "where is it?"
"Is that all the thanks I get?" said Simon. He had a pout on his face.
"Do I look like the newest employee of Parcelforce? Should have come in
a van this should. But for you, I'd do anything. I'll take it, I said
and Heidi the postmistress said, what you? and I said, yes me, no
problem."
"Simon," I said. "I'm cold. Hurry up."
"Hark at you. Where's your horse Miss goddam Godiver. And how about
me? Out in all weathers I am. Snow, sleet, hail...."
I had had enough. I placed a hand on each of Simon's slender shoulders
and pulled him to me, battered leather postbag and all. His lips were
still moving as I started to kiss him. His eyes widened for a second
and then closed and he sank against me. From experience I knew this was
the best way to shut his type up. His type being silly young queens.
Fifties Hollywood action always stopped them cold. When I felt his
hands on the cheeks of my bum, pulling them apart, I decided it was
time to stop. I pushed him away. He wiped his lips with the back of his
left hand and looked down.
"Still cold."
"Yes," I said. "Never again. I told you."
"Honza, you're a bastard."
"I know," I said. I was. I am. I'm a bastard. Because nowadays I don't
want love, I don't want commitment, I don't even want a post-coital
cigarette. Fuck and go, that's me.
"I should go," said Simon.
"Right," I said. I nodded. "It's probably for the best."
Simon started to turn away.
"Simon?"
He glanced back.
"Yes?" he said, his eyes expectant.
"My letter."
"Oh yes."
He opened the flap of his bag and pulled out a just larger than A4
envelope, handed it to me and shuffled disconsolately off. But I didn't
care about him, I only cared about the package in my hands. I
recognised it immediately. I didn't need to look at the handwriting to
guess the sender, I didn't need to check the postmark.
Rejection. Another rejection.
"Morning Honza!"
"Morning Honza!"
I looked up and realised I was still standing in the doorway, naked,
looking at the envelope. Martin, my next door neighbour's son, and his
best mate Steve were walking past. They were wearing their school
uniforms. They were smiling at me. I smiled back and waved.
They waved.
Martin glanced down towards my abdomen and grinned.
"Cold morning, isn't it?" said Martin.
"But it has potential," said Steve.
"Piss off Martin," I said. "Piss off Steve." And I closed the
door.
I went through into the downstairs room, flung the envelope onto the
laminated breakfast bar and crossed from the warm rugs of the
living-room floor to the cold tiles of the kitchen. I had just flicked
on the kettle, put a spoonful of instant coffee in a cup when the phone
started to ring again.
I cursed and made my way back into the hall.
I picked up the receiver.
"I was just calling about the room advertised in the
paper......"
The phone went once more before I had finished my toast and once while
I was in the shower. I was already beginning to wonder if getting a
lodger was such a good idea. I loved my privacy, loved being alone and
being able to do what I wanted when I wanted. And then I remembered the
bills. I remembered the gas bill and the electricity bill and the visa
bill all held neatly in place by a Tom of Finland fridge magnet on my
industrial metallic blue fridge.
I had no choice. I was gripped by my uplifted balls.

I didn't get much work done that day. In fact I didn't write more than
ten lines. The first, and I tried to tell myself, major reason was
because of the phone. It never stopped ringing. And it was always
enquiries about the room. Was it south facing? Would it suit someone
over seventy? Would it suit a shift-worker, a drummer, a born-again
Christian?
Ninety per cent of the time I knew instantly that I was speaking to
someone who I hadn't a cat in hell's chance of getting on with. Even
the short conversations I had were painful, full of silences, awkward
moments. I can do bullshit. But usually I bullshit for only one thing.
Sex. Everyday bullshit I wasn't good at. And the thought that I would
have to do it every day with a stranger in my house depressed me,
filled me with foreboding.
The second, and I hated to admit, real reason I didn't get any work
done was because of the rejection, the rejection of my novel that the
envelope I had received that morning contained.
Rejection.
I didn't like rejection. It didn't fill me with joy. Not exactly. And
it wasn't conducive to inspiration. When someone has just implied you
are crap it made it difficult to carry on, to think of stunning
sentences, apt adjectives.
So I sat in my workroom upstairs in front of my keyboard gazing out of
the window at backs of houses doing nothing. I watched as a neighbour
hung out white sheets in the wind, disappearing every now and again in
an abundance of material. I noticed and then checked by my watch that
every fifteen minutes the ancient man who lived two doors down would
nip out into his back garden, hold out his hand palm up, look up at the
sky and then go back inside.
I was fascinated by any distraction.
And the only real distraction was the constant ringing of the
phone.
So, all in all, I didn't work much.
By twelve o'clock the phone had rung twenty times. I was counting. By
twelve o'clock I was wishing that I didn't have such a classic phone. I
was wishing that I had one of those sleek modern Binatone phones I had
seen with a handset which you could carry to any part of the house. But
I had always held out from getting one. I didn't like the idea of being
always available. The entrance, the hallway was a public space. The
rest of the house was mine. Private. A sanctuary. That's how I liked
it.
But constantly going downstairs was driving me mad. And every call had
been for the room. Every call had been in answer to my advert. So the
twenty-first, I was surprised to hear, was my agent. It wasn't a
pleasant surprise. Not really.
My agent wasn't my favourite person. It wasn't that she didn't get me
work, it was just that she got me work I didn't like. I was
pigeonholed. It felt more like I was, as the Americans would say,
corn-holed.
Fucked.
"Been trying to get through for ages," said the voice on the line. It
was breathy and hurried as usual. She spoke like a correspondent from
war-torn Sarajevo phoning in a story while under enemy attack.
"Have you?" I said. "I'm getting a lodger. The line's been
busy."
"A lodger?" she said. I could hear her mind working. "Might make a
nice article," she said.
I didn't say anything.
"Yes," she said. She fired out ideas. "Gay man gets lodger. Sexual
favours for rent. The history of gay lodgers. Living with the other
side. Sleeping with the enemy."
"It's just a lodger," I said. "Easy. Full stop."
"But..."
"No," I said. "No lodger articles. Not one."
"OK," she said. "Right," she said, taking the rejection in her stride.
"I may have another piece for you."
"Oh," I said.
"For Attitude."
"Oh," I said.
"On the attraction of gay men to straight and vice versa."
"Oh," I said. "Kind of Real Men are from Mars, Gays are from Uranus?"
I was joking.
"Yes," she said. "Exactly. I thought of you straight away."
"Oh," I said.
"You're good at that kind of thing."
"Yes," I said.
"You want it?" she said. "The article?"
"Yes," I said. I didn't. I spent a great deal of my life doing what I
didn't want to do.
"You don't sound very keen."
"I am," I lied. "But haven't you got anything else?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know," I said. "How about some travel writing? I've always
fancied the Amazon."
"Gay man goes native," she said, missing the point. "I'll think about
it. Might be nice. I'll fax you this then, the gay/straight thing. The
pink divide."
"Yes," I said. I said it tersely, finally.
There was a pause on the end of the line. There wasn't the expected
good-bye.
"Honza?" she said. Her voice was quieter. It was no longer that of a
war correspondent but that of a shocked witness to a devastating
famine.
"Yes?" I said.
"This lodger thing, perhaps it's for the best. It's time you lived
with someone else. It's time you got over Joshua. It wasn't your
fault."
"I know," I said. I put the phone down. I started up the stairs and
was on the fifth step when the ringing started again.
It was about the room.
Was it big enough for a family of three?
The bloody room.
Bloody agents.
Bloody rejection.
By five o'clock I decided enough was enough. I had a headache and I
had arranged three interviews for the next day with the people who
sounded the most normal, down to earth, not mad. One was coming at ten,
one at ten thirty and one at eleven.
I unplugged the phone.
I filled the bath, shook in some Radox and leaving the door open I
slipped in the soundtrack from Queer as Folk 2.
Some people relax to classical, Mozart, Verdi. Some people relax to
New Age, Enya, Enigma.
I relax best to pop. Pop was the way to live your life. Shit comes
shit goes. But the beat goes on.