No Place Like Home

Frances liked to watch the faces of her lodgers when the post arrived.

This was her beautiful townhouse. Her exclusive address. Her tall windows. The house had protected her when her ex-husband took what even her creditors could not. Now it was filled with other people's smells and other people's things. Each key in the front door knotted her stomach.

Arriving back from a meeting with her bank manager she found the northerner who smelled of freshly valeted cars lounging topless on her sofa. Frances was sure he masturbated in the shower.

Later that week she suppressed a smile as he opened his bank statement to find two used tampons neatly pressed between the pages like dried flowers.

Another morning the Australian student who made hiccups during sex opened a package and screamed, thousands of ants crawling across the hall like drops of black mercury from a shattered thermometer.

Yesterday a stiff dead squirrel paid back the quiet young athlete for the Irish accent that made Francis squirm.

She heard them whisper together, suspecting her, but every month Francis watched the money arrive in her account.

I may need them, she thought, but I will never let them rest.