Formerly published in The Sunday Post.
‘He’ll
do,’ I thought. ‘I’ll take him.’
I’d
heard all sorts of lodger horror stories from friends. My friend, Emma, divorced, and lured by the
prospect of a lucrative side-line was driven to pasting notices all over her
house to keep the lodgers under control.
When filling the kettle, think
green, said one.
‘Just
imagine - they fill the kettle to make one tiny cup of coffee,’ she
complained. I tutted at such wanton
waste, determined that wouldn’t happen to me.
I’d make a contract. That was the
sensible thing to do, and so I wrote one.
The terms included being sure to shut the garden gate. I also insisted on having privacy when
entertaining.
Brad
arrived with his three thousand DVDs, a pine shelf and two furry monkeys. I hovered in the doorway of his room as he
poked around the cupboards and inspected the drawer space. Then I thrust the contract under his
nose. Brad raised his eyebrows and I
fidgeted.
‘How
often do you have people to dinner?’ he asked, looking not-quite-so-friendly.
‘Well,
it sort of varies…’
‘I’d
find it claustrophobic being cooped up in that little room.’
‘But
that’s why the rent’s so cheap.
House-shares are much more expensive,’ I insisted.
It
was not an auspicious start. All the
same, he was the best of a bad bunch. He
was neither a woman-hater nor a dog-hater.
Pedantic perhaps, but I reckoned I’d cope with that.
‘If
you expect me to keep to my room, I’ll need a chair.’
And
so I picked up a chair for him in a local second-hand shop. How I begrudged that fifteen quid! Brad said it was rather small and more like a
child’s chair. Of course, he was right
but his comfort wasn’t my top priority.
By this time I was pretty fed up with the intrusion on my life.
Brad
moved around so silently, in his soft-soled shoes, disturbing nothing. I prefer to hear people coming and
going. There was a spookiness about the
way I’d suddenly feel his presence behind me.
‘He’s
such a creep,’ I confided to Emma one day on the phone.
‘You’ll
have to have it out with him,’ she said wisely.
‘Remember, it’s your house and he’ll have to toe the line.’
But
how could I tell him he got on my nerves simply because he crept around
everywhere? Said out loud it sounded
like nit-picking.
A
few days after Brad’s arrival, Jerry came to dinner. The wine was chilled, the tablecloth pristine
white. I opened the glass patio doors
wide onto the garden. Brad was sitting
there on a deckchair, pretending he could do the Telegraph cryptic
crossword. He was wearing a pair of the
longest shorts I’d ever seen. I
shuddered, but I wasn’t worried. We both
knew where we stood.
Surely
even an insensitive clod like Brad would not remain there playing gooseberry
while I was entertaining Jerry.
Jerry
arrived, looking as sultry, dark and gorgeous as ever. I glared at the back of Brad’s head with its
nailbrush hairdo and little-boy’s neck and almost burst with the intensity of
my hatred. Jerry looked up from spooning
his asparagus soup, and asked about Brad.
‘He’s
here because his marriage broke up and he needs time to look around for a new
pad for himself.’
‘Poor
chap,’ Jerry muttered tenderly.
‘Poor
chap,’ I repeated through clenched teeth.
Jerry
offered Brad a glass of red wine, which he accepted with a broad smile. He then hovered until Jerry left around
eleven.
I
phoned Emma next day. ‘Do you know what
that numbskull did last night?’ I fumed.
‘No. What?’
Emma was agog. She was horrified
when I told her.
I
was cool towards Brad after that and sensing it, he withdrew into himself. For a couple of weeks all he did was go to
work, come home and sit out on the patio.
‘How
Jerry getting on?’ he asked casually one evening.
‘OK.’
‘Haven’t
seen him around lately.’
I
shrugged my shoulders. It was true. Jerry hadn’t phoned but I tried not to get
uptight about trivialities. He was only
a man, after all. If he was busy and
needed some space, then he must have it.
Occasionally
I joined Brad on the patio. He’d put
down his paper or novel and pour me a drink.
It was cosy. I still considered
him to be arrogant and a creep, but he did have a softer side. Once, when I told him about the break-up with
my boyfriend last year, he said, ‘So you’re feeling it too, then…’
He
brought home bones for the dog and once, some flowers for me. My friends started making remarks.
‘Oh,
there’s nothing to it,’ I said airily.
There wasn’t. I mean, how could
there possibly be?
Jerry
still hadn’t rung. I quietly tormented
myself.
My social life improved but
Brad’s didn’t and he made no effort to deal with this. One day, as I was going to a party, I asked
him if he’d like to come along. He
accepted and I introduced him to a businesswoman I knew, Melanie. Melanie’s big blue eyes lit up. I was pleased they got on so well.
The next day I asked him if
he’d made arrangements to see her again.
‘I’d like to, but I
couldn’t,’ he explained. ‘I’m always the
same when I meet someone attractive. I
can’t seem to work up the courage.’
And so I fixed it. The conversation went something like this…
‘Melanie, if Brad asked you
out, would you go?’
‘Brad, Melanie would love to
go out with you but she’s waiting for you to ask her. She’s in tomorrow evening if you want to
phone.’
Yes, I fixed it for the two
of them, I really did. Then, out of the
blue, Jerry phoned and took me to an Indian restaurant. His conversation was fast and lively, but I
didn’t enjoy it as much as I expected.
Brad wasn’t seeing Melanie that night and I’d left him with his novel,
on the patio. He looked so lonely…
Gradually, Brad got back
into circulation. One day, to my
surprise, he invited me to a party. It
was a fifties night. I went to Mum’s and
rummaged in the back of her wardrobe. I
dug out the perfect dress with a red top and full white skirt. Four-inch stilettoes and a purple fringe
completed the look.
I
caught my breath when I saw Brad’s get-up.
His crop was slicked down with gel and he wore a black T-shirt, pink
shirt and skinny black jeans. He looked
amazing.
When
we stopped at the petrol station, the attendant’s eyes almost popped out of his
face as I teetered to the cashpoint and Brad put air in the tyres. We both
laughed at the effect our gear had on the unsuspecting public. And I loved every single minute of it.
There
was only one thing that marred a perfect evening…
On
being introduced to Brad’s friends, everyone gave me a strange look and
remarked: ‘So you’re the landlady!’
‘What
have you been saying to your mates about me/’ I asked Brad later. He looked uncomfortable, but then, who was I
to judge him.
‘I
told all my friends you were a creep,’ I confided bravely.
‘I
told mine you were a dragon,’ he replied.
I
began to regret my successful matchmaking as I thought about Brad and
Melanie. After all, we had more in
common that I first thought. There was a
certain something about our time together.
When
Jerry rang, my response was lukewarm. It
was Friday and Brad was shortly due home from work.
‘I
quite understand if you’ve got something better on the back burner,’ snapped
Jerry, annoyed because I wasn’t immediately available after three weeks of
silence.
‘That’s
how it goes,’ I said cheerfully, replacing the receiver. I put Brad’s favourite DVD on the player and
began to think things over.
I
worried about Brad, this arrogant guy who loved loud clothes and furry
monkeys. He was the same man who like
opera, but was impatient with Shakespeare and couldn’t do the cryptic
crossword.
He
asked me how I was and really wanted to know.
He
was going out with Melanie.
I
could stand it no longer. When he
arrived home, I asked him outright.
‘Are
you seeing Melanie again?’ I blurted.
‘I’m
comfortable with you,’ Brad said simply, ‘and I’d rather stay here.’
That’s all very well, of course, but
now I must prepare a new contract. It’s
essential to start how you mean to go on.
Know where you stand, that sort of thing. It’s only sensible. No more Jerry-types for
me. Brad’s going to know exactly what’s
expected…
© Janet
Cameron. First published in The
Sunday Post 15
September, 1991 under the title My Uncertain Heart.
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