Eva Woods - The Thirty List

As I stood on the doorstep of a house on a tree-lined street in Hampstead, a dog started barking inside. I smiled. There really was one. I caught sight of myself in the shiny door knocker and sighed. My hair was frizzy with rain and I wore a fraying mac, jeans and holey Converse. When I worked in an office, tights were the bane of my life, like having cling film applied to your most delicate areas, always wrinkling round your ankles or laddering if anyone breathed in a ten-mile radius. So since going freelance—this was how I was choosing to describe my current circumstances to myself—I mostly worked in jeans … OK, pyjamas. The door had panels of stained glass, and I saw someone approach, turned different colours by the light. I stuck on my best ‘not a crazy person’ smile. The man who opened the door was holding a phone in one hand, and with the other had a barking Westie by the collar. ‘Shut up, Max!’ He, the man, not the dog, wore jeans and a soft blue-grey jumper. He had greying curly hair and a cross expression. ‘What is it? I don’t plan to vote in the council elections. Not until you do something about the disgraceful state of your recycling policy.’

‘No— It’s— I saw your ad. The room. I was in the area and …’

He stared at me for a few moments while the dog tried to climb up me.

‘I’m not mad,’ I said quickly.

‘That’s good to know.’

‘I suppose a mad person might say that.’ I laughed nervously.

He looked me up and down. Sighed. ‘You better come in.’

Sometimes, when you walk into a place, you know you were meant to be there. It just smells right or something. Dan hated this method I had of choosing houses. What do you mean it didn’t feel right? It’s got outdoor decking and a dedicated parking space!

‘It’s amazing,’ I said. The inner doors all had stained-glass panels, filling the hallway with a kaleidoscope of colour. The floor was old-fashioned parquet, a little scuffed, and the place smelled of coffee and daffodils, of which there was a large handful crammed into a jam jar. I could tell instantly it was a middle-class home because:

The man still looked cross. ‘Come into the kitchen. I’m in the middle of something, so I wish you’d waited, but never mind.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I said so, didn’t I? Do you want coffee?’

‘Oh, thank you, I don’t drink it.’ I may as well have said I didn’t believe in changing my socks.

‘You don’t?’

‘I don’t like the taste. I like the smell and I love coffee cake and those sweets you get in Roses. Isn’t that weird? I mean, hardly anyone likes those.’

He studied me. The phone in his hand chirped and he looked at it, frowned. ‘Tea, then?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘How do you take it?’

‘Milk, quite strong, but sort of milky if that makes sense.’

Once I sat down, the dog scampered across the kitchen and hurled himself onto my knee, where he crouched with his chin on my shoulder, panting. ‘Oof! Hello.’

‘He goes mad for new people. Sorry.’

‘It’s OK. I wish I had that effect on men.’ Oh, shut up, shut up, Rachel . Another side effect of working alone—you forget that there are supposed to be ‘inside head’ thoughts as well as ‘outside head’ sayings.

Patrick peered at the kettle. ‘So, Rachel—that’s you, I assume? What made you want the room?’

‘Honestly? I need somewhere to live at short notice. I also work from home at the moment, so I can’t really be in a big flat share.’ Or the sex slave of a rich city banker, come to think of it. All the sex-slaving would probably cut right into my freelancing time.

He was still frowning. ‘And where have you been living?’

‘Out in Surrey. I owned a place.’

‘Don’t you want to buy again, then?’

Things that suck about divorce, number fifteen: having to explain it to strangers. ‘My husband and I are splitting up. He’s keeping the house for now, so I have to move out.’ I cuddled the dog. ‘I’m in bit of a bind. But—’

‘You’re not mad.’

‘No.’

‘You’re getting divorced.’

‘Yes.’

He leaned against the counter and I saw he had no wedding ring on. ‘Join the club.’

‘Oh.’

‘Not much fun, is it?’

‘It sucks. In fact, I’m keeping a list. Things that suck about divorce.’

‘How many things are on it?’

‘Several hundred and counting.’

‘How about this one?’ The kettle had boiled, but he kept staring out the window. The phone beeped again, but he ignored it. ‘Having to find a lodger so they can dog-sit and look after the house, because you spend too much time at your job, and that’s why your wife left you in the first place, because with all the time she was on her own she had to find new hobbies, like, for example, having an affair with the next-door neighbour?’

I followed his gaze to the house just visible over the fence and nodded slowly. ‘I’ll put that one in after having to move out of the house you bought in the suburbs because your husband doesn’t want you there any more, but not being able to rent anywhere in London because you’re broke, so your only option is to move into massive house shares, or live with mad cat ladies or sex pests, or … answer weird ads that don’t list any rent.’ I paused. There were posh Waitrose biscuits on the table, so I crammed one into my mouth to shut myself up.

Patrick Gillan was watching me curiously. ‘Look, I have a demanding job, so I need someone here during the day, to be with the dog and take deliveries and maybe do some light au pairing, but I can’t afford a full-time housekeeper. I was just … thinking outside the box. I thought someone might do it in exchange for free rent. It was sort of a mad late-night idea, to be honest. I’m kind of at my wit’s end here.’

Free rent. FREE RENT. Suddenly, I was ripping up the calculations I’d done on the napkin and feeling a large weight lift from my chest. I wouldn’t be totally broke. I wouldn’t have to bring my own sandwiches when we went to Pizza Express and divide up the cost of each dough ball. He was still looking at me. ‘Why are you here, Rachel? I mean really?’

I was a little high on all this unexpected honesty, among the lies you get told when looking for a place to live, about south-facing lawns and nearness to transport and exactly how many cats there are in a given household. ‘Really? When I got married, we moved to Surrey and my husband, I mean, my ex—’ it was hard to say the word ‘—got me a job at the local council where he worked. Graphic design. But then he asked me to move out, and coincidentally, the next day, I was made redundant.’

He was still looking at me. ‘Kettle’s boiled,’ I pointed out. The biscuit was lodged in my dry mouth.

He shook himself and got a cup. ‘So you’re at home all day?’

‘Most days.’ I held my breath. This had been a problem with many of the rooms I’d looked at, landlords muttering about extra bills and so on. ‘I’m going to look for a job, obviously, but also try to build up my freelance work. I used to do a bit on the side.’

‘And you like dogs?’

‘Love them.’ I stroked Max’s head. ‘I was about to get one, but then—well. Everything happened.’

‘And would you mind sort of housekeeping a little, answering the phone, getting parcels, maybe sticking dinner on?’