Free Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach

in the garden. She could do whatever she liked – stay up all night, stay in bed all day watching YouTube stuff on her computer, let the flat sink into deeper squalor with nobody to tut at her, read celebrity gossip, have her old mate Josie around whom Neville found annoying …
    It was two o’clock. Amy had been sitting there for a long time. Stiffly she rose to her feet. The thought of washing seemed too laborious so she lay down on the bed fully-clothed and pulled the duvet over herself. She could fart in bed, too; just another of the many advantages of living alone.
    The next morning she could bear it no longer. Her eyes were sore from crying. She splashed water on her face and tried to pull herself together. At nine o’clock she finally plucked up courage and dialled the number of Neville’s sister.
    After some pleasant chit-chat she asked: ‘Er, is Neville around?’
    ‘Didn’t you know?’ said his sister. ‘They’re in Tenerife.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Just for a week.’ There was a silence. ‘Oh heck, have I put my foot in it?’
    ‘No, no, of course not.’
    ‘I thought you knew.’
    Her name was Alice. She and Neville had met while mucking out the pigsty at the City Farm. It turned out that they were saving up for the deposit on a flat.

6
Buffy
    ‘Still pouring with rain.’ Frieda stood at the window.
    ‘Absolutely bucketing,’ said Iris.
    Buffy was still in his apron, though breakfast was long since over. He stood beside his guests, gazing into the street. Rain lashed down. A hunched figure ran to a car and jumped in, slamming the door. In the Coffee Cup opposite, disconsolate figures could be seen through the steamed-up windows, killing time in their cagoules.
    ‘Looks like it’s settled in for the day,’ he said.
    Frieda and Iris were schoolteachers, both retired. Buffy presumed they were lesbians, they shared a twin-bedded room, though they might have just been saving the pennies. They were both squarely built, however, with no-nonsense haircuts. Their hiking boots waited by the door.
    ‘We’d been planning on tackling Hergest Ridge,’ said Iris.
    ‘Then a pub lunch,’ said Frieda.
    ‘Just our luck,’ said Iris.
    There was a silence.
    ‘You can’t go out in this,’ said Buffy.
    ‘But …’ The word hung in the air. It was half past ten, they should have been out of the house by now.
    ‘Come on,’ said Buffy. ‘I’ll make us some coffee.’
    After some half-hearted protestations they moved to the back room, the sitting room which was vaguely Buffy’s, though he hadn’t quite laid down the boundaries. Where did his life end and theirs begin? He had been sharing his home for a month now with various guests but hadn’t got round to staking out his own territory. This was mainly due to sloth. Bridie had apparently been stricter about her own space but then she had been a professional.
    Besides, he was a gregarious chap. It had been the rainiest May on record, and, on many occasions, guests had been trapped in the house all morning because he hadn’t the heart to kick them out. This had resulted in some surprisingly revealing chats with the random collection of strangers who found their inhibitions loosened by the knowledge that they would never meet again. It reminded Buffy of life on tour, but with a constant change of cast. And if he needed to retreat there was always the kitchen, the warmest room in the house, where he had installed his own TV and a rack full of bargain bottles from Costcutter, his wine merchant of choice.
    Buffy put on the kettle. Voda was talking on the phone in the utility room. ‘Yes, sir, we do have a vacancy then but it’s filling up fast,’ she said. ‘I suggest you make a firm booking.’
    It was a lie, of course, but it often did the trick. The girl was a marvel; he had become pathetically reliant on her. In fact, without Voda the whole business wouldn’t have got off the ground at all. She had cleaned the house from top to bottom and got her