Day 10: List three future dreams
Esmé staggered into the lounge, dressed in her pyjamas and a towelling housecoat, carrying a glass of water and a packet of paracetamol.
‘Morning, nice of you to join the land of the living,’ laughed Russ from the sofa with little Toby tucked under his arm, watching cartoons. ‘A little hung-over, are we?’
‘Please don’t be cheery on my account, I want to die.’
‘Serves you right. Was it ‘Dancing Queen’ you were singing as you staggered up the path?’
Esmé flopped into the armchair and swallowed two tablets.
‘Really?’
‘Seriously, as loud as you could.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You did. Ask Asa.’
‘He’ll be just as bad as this,’ said Esmé, taking some comfort.
‘He’s not. He’s up and out… it’s eleven thirty.’
Is this some sort of joke? Had she been downing shots and he just had water?
‘We drank enough to kill a buffalo, he can’t be OK.’
‘You don’t know Asa, he can take his booze.’
Esmé watched the two on the sofa, snuggled together and chuckling over the cartoon. As the excitement grew, Toby’s tiny slippered feet jiggled to and fro.
‘How old is he?’
‘Three.’
‘They’re funny at that age, aren’t they?’
‘This little fella is, though he was running around at six this morning so I came down here.’
‘We watched cartoons,’ gabbled the child, his bright face looking up into Russ’s.
How cute.
‘I’m off then but…’ said Kane, bursting into the lounge. He halted on seeing Esmé. ‘You look dead rough.’
‘Talking to me now, are we?’ she smarted.
Kane ignored her, and spoke to Russ.
‘I’m off then. You all sorted, know what to do?’
‘Yes, I know what to do, thanks.’
‘Toby, I’m off.’
Toby scrambled from his seat and ran like a puppy to give Kane a cuddle.
‘Catch you later, bye,’ said Kane, before disappearing. Toby returned to his spot beneath Russ’s arm.
The front door slammed. Esmé watched as Russ’s brow furrowed and his mouth twitched as if talking to himself.
‘Don’t let him put on you,’ said Esmé, after a moment of heavy silence.
‘Sorry?’
‘Kane, don’t let him put on you, he’s a sod for making others do his dirty work… just tell him no.’
‘Ah that, no, he’s fine.’ Russ jumped up with sudden exuberance. ‘Come on, Toby, let’s go to the park and play football.’
‘Yay!’ cried the child, following him.
Esmé watched the two disappear, so cute, and yet, so sad.
Esmé stared at the plasma screen as a mouse chased a cat with a frying pan.
How different life would be if she had a child to consider last weekend. Could she just have upped and offed? Would Andrew have made a decent father? Possibly, though given his latest actions and irresponsibilities, no.
‘Morning, how are we?’ asked Dam, charging into the room, trainers in hand.
‘Dying.’
‘Thought you would be, good night though?’
‘I think so.’
Dam sat on the edge of the sofa and pulled on his trainers.
‘Sorry if I woke you.’
‘No worries, it was funny. Asa said you got cautioned for being in the graveyard. That’s hilarious.’
Esmé cringed.
‘Off out?’
‘Yeah, to a family meal, it’s a must on Saturdays… though I’ve plenty of studying I could be doing.’
‘What, you’re studying as well as lecturing?
He nodded.
‘Studying what?’
‘Physics.’
‘Oh right. More physics,’ Esmé said, as if she understood the subject.
‘You don’t have to pretend to be interested, no one ever is.’ Dam stood and straightened his trouser legs.
‘Even so, I’d like to take an interest in my housemates,’ said Esmé.
Dam smiled.
‘And your plans for today?’ he asked.
Esmé realised she had no plans.
‘To get showered and dressed once I feel slightly better.’
‘Bye, Esmé,’ said Dam, shaking his head.
‘Bye.’
In an instant he’d gone and the front door slammed.
Asa was right. She had no plans, not for today, or tomorrow or… well, ever.
Esmé felt an irritation deep in her stomach.
Did he actually tell me, ‘You’ve hardly lived, your head is full of daydreams and you’re afraid of everything, even your own shadow’? Cheeky git, well she’d show him!
*
By mid-afternoon, her head had ceased to bang like a drum. Having consumed a plate of pasta to line her stomach, Esmé sat reading in the lounge when there was a hammering on the front door.
Who the hell was that?
She hadn’t heard any of the guys return home but waited to see if one of them answered but they didn’t and the hammering continued.
Esmé peeled herself from the armchair to peer through the lounge window and see the noisy visitor. A young woman in a green coat, her black hair swept into a messy bun and her face bare apart from a smudge of pink lipstick. She turned round as Esmé peered. Her frown didn’t ease to a smile on seeing she was being watched, and she hammered on the door again.
I’ll be polite and calm, she’ll be fine.
Esmé dashed to open the door. As the latch left the cradle the woman pushed it hard and stormed inside.
‘Excuse me…’
‘Where is he?’ she demanded, striding back and forth at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Toby!’
‘Toby’s at the park with Russ.’
‘Are you joking me?’ she snapped, her delicate features twisted into a knot.
‘Yes, they went a couple of hours ago.’
‘What a frigging joke this is!’
‘Sorry, but I’m not sure what time they’re coming back… do you want to walk up to the park? I believe it’s only in the next street.’
‘Do you live here?’ She began to pace.
‘Yes and…’
‘Has he been upset?’
‘Not when I’ve seen him. He’s watched cartoons while snuggling on the sofa, played football in the back garden and, from the dishes in the sink, ate a bowl of scrambled eggs – I haven’t seen him crying.’
The woman relaxed and stood still, suddenly extending her hand.
‘I’m Rita… you are?’
‘Esmé.’
‘I see.’ The pause seemed to last for an eternity before she continued. ‘I’ll take myself off up the park then, sorry to disturb your Saturday afternoon.’
‘No worries, see you.’ Esmé closed the door. This could well be the downside to living with others, their dramas entered your world, and with so many individuals under one roof maybe there’d be one every day.
*
An hour later Russ returned, swinging a bag of shopping and no Toby.
‘Rita called by… did she find you?’
Russ stared.
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘I told her that you’d gone to the park and that Toby hadn’t been upset – sorry if I’ve said the wrong thing but she seemed to calm down once she knew.’
‘Yeah, she’s like that is Rita. Thanks. He was late going back, she panicked,’ said Russ, as he disappeared into the morning room.
Another of life’s complications that he had obviously learnt to live with. How difficult it must be having a lifelong connection to an ex-partner?
Esmé spent the remainder of the day around the house, cleaning her room, doing laundry ready for work on Monday and steadying her delicate stomach.
She heard the front door unlock, footsteps and then the morning room door open and close.
‘So?’
That sounded like Kane.
‘I told you,’ answered Russ.
Are they arguing? Never had Esmé heard a cross word between the two and yet, like in her mum’s kitchen last weekend, this sounded like another disagreement.
‘What’s the harm?’
‘Kane!’
She heard the morning room door open and then the lounge door opened revealing Kane.
‘Hi, Esmé, you OK?’
‘Me? Yeah.’
‘Good good, at home all day, are we?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Nothing, just asking… aren’t I allowed to ask?’
‘You weren’t speaking to me earlier and now this… what’s up, Kane?’
‘Nothing, just being polite.’
Esmé stared.
This wasn’t like Kane. Why did he keep flitting in and out of the house? What was going on?
‘Right, I’ll be seeing you then.’ Kane disappeared and re-entered the morning room.
‘Fine.’
‘Kane, it’s not fair.’
‘It’s fine, I tell you.’
Esmé put down her magazine and listened.
Kane’s footsteps traipsed through the hallway and the front door slammed. She jumped up to peer through the lounge window at his retreating figure.
How come he’d got a key if he wasn’t paying any rent money?
She jumped as Russ joined her in the lounge.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked, as she blushed having been caught at the window.
‘Kane has a key?’ she asked, ignoring his question.
‘For emergencies, yeah, we all thought it best given you were living here.’
Esmé returned to the couch as Russ settled into the armchair with his coffee mug.
‘Have Dam’s family got a key?’
‘No.’
‘Your family?’
‘No.’
Esmé pulled a face.
‘Just my family… do you think I need looking after?’
Russ slurped his drink.
‘Being female, we thought it best, that’s all.’
She returned to her magazine. Her gaze flickering between the page and the frowning male in the armchair. The silence lingered for near on thirty minutes until the front door slammed.
‘Hello, anyone home?’ called Jonah, in a jubilant tone.
‘In here,’ called Russ, emerging from his trance. Esmé sat up and fluffed her hair. Russ looked away when their glances met.
Jonah burst into the lounge with an energy unseen in number seven today, carrying a small cardboard box.
He was wearing a beige army coat and a pair of expensive leather boots, which made quite an outfit.
Esmé’s stomach flipped.
Seriously, when would this teenage obsession go away?
‘You’ll never guess what I’ve bought?’
‘I’m not in the mood for games,’ moaned Russ, staring at the box.
‘A pet.’
‘Seriously?’ said Esmé, who jumped up to take a look.
‘A Chilean Rose!’
‘A what?’ asked Esmé, peering closely as Jonah lifted the lid to reveal a tarantula. ‘Oh my life!’ Esmé darted backwards to stand on the couch cushions pointing at the box.
‘Not your thing then?’ asked Jonah, laughing.
Esmé wanted to cry. She was in a room with a spider. A living breathing spider. And Jonah was laughing.
‘Russ, please make him close the lid!’ wailed Esmé.
*
‘Then what did he do?’ asked Grace, handing Esmé a fresh cuppa in her cosy kitchen.
‘He just laughed. The very thought gives me goose bumps.’
‘He’ll get rid of it – the others will make him.’
‘Do you think so?’
Grace brought an old biscuit tin with her to the table and settled opposite.
‘I’m certain, the tattoo guy will see to that… he’s more…’ Esmé waited for Grace’s character reference but it had faded, unlike her fear of the hairy tarantula.
Esmé sipped her sweet tea, dunking her ginger nut biscuits as Grace looked on.
‘Don’t fret…’
‘What if it gets out of the tank?’
‘Tank?’
‘He’s taken delivery of a huge glass tank for his room. Apparently, they live in there amongst a load of green foliage and some kind of humidity making machine to make it tropical.’
‘Seems like hard work to me, he’ll get bored with it soon, believe me. I’ve seen it so many times.’
Esmé shook her head.
‘I don’t think so, he said he’d wanted one since childhood and now, moving into his first proper adult home… tadah! He bought one.’
‘Surely someone else will protest.’
‘Jonah moaned that he’s expected to put up with our interests and belongings so why shouldn’t he be allowed to buy what he wants?’
‘And he wants a pet?’
‘Yep.’
‘I’ve never really had pets.’
‘I had loads as a child, gerbils, guinea pigs, rabbits… but nothing exotic.’
‘I can imagine cats and dogs being good company.’
‘We always wanted a dog but my dad said no.’
‘A far nicer pet than a spider. Argh, I wouldn’t be best pleased either, but have faith, the lads won’t ignore your reaction.’
‘Well it’s hard to ignore, I jumped up and down on the new couch, screaming,’ laughed Esmé. ‘He was trying to tell me how he’d called her Rose, I simply screamed at him.’
The terror that had risen within had been monumental, every nerve of her body wanted that spider dead. How was she to live under the same roof?
‘My idea of a Chilean rose is chilled in the fridge before drinking,’ said Esmé, finally raising a smile.
Feeling calm and safer, Esmé switched topics and relayed the details of last night’s graveyard delivery.
‘This morning they all knew about it, so Asa must have filled them in before I woke up.’
‘A lesson learnt there, nothing is kept quiet between the men then,’ laughed Grace.
‘If you tell one, you might as well tell them all! The police issued us with a caution but nothing else… boy, what next?’
‘Nothing, life will settle down for you and then you can breathe,’ suggested Grace, as she collected the empty tea cups. ‘Time for another?’
‘I will, if I’m not holding you up from doing anything.’
‘The dusting can wait, believe me… there’s no rush left in me to do anything else these days.’
As Grace pottered around her kitchen making fresh tea, Esmé told her about little Toby, his cute slippers and an irate Rita.
‘Such a pity, but at least young families aren’t hidden nowadays – they were in my time. Girls were sent away to their aunts in the country and then came home without their babies. We all knew about it but nothing was ever said… taboo, if you get my drift? But still such a struggle to raise a little one outside a relationship.’
The afternoon slipped slowly past, by the time Esmé had drunk all her offered tea, the kitchen was losing the light and the dark night was drawing in.
‘We’ll have to nip out for a walk next time, visit the local park on a fine day,’ suggested Esmé, knowing her own grandmother had enjoyed such visits when she’d been alive. Nanny Peel had enjoyed the spring colours and the blue sky on a fresh day.
‘That sounds lovely, now take care and don’t you worry your head about that spider.’
‘I’ll try not to,’ said Esmé, knowing all too well she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight if the new lodger remained in the house.