body.
“Are you pregnant?”
“Don't be ridiculous” she said and continued her descent.
Returning to my seat, I calmed myself by going into my mind gallery. I saw 'Christina's World' by Andrew Wyeth and the cover of 'What to look for in the Winter', a Ladybird book. But it didn't help. Not yet, please, not yet. Plates had shifted.
She slid a conciliatory plate of chocolate cake towards me.
“Here” she said. I balled my shaking hands into fists under the table.
“So what is it Nancy?”
She gave a deep sigh. “I just wanted to see you”. But she'd barely looked at me.
“When can I see you properly?” I said.
“I'll call you, don't worry”.
“Nancy, please, you're scaring me”.
She moved the cake to one side and found my trembling hands, covering them with hers.
“Minette”. She frowned. “I love you, but this is becoming quite a strain you know”.
“I'm seeing two properties tomorrow” I said. “It'll be alright”.
“Oh yes”, conjuring up a tiny puff of enthusiasm. “Good luck” she added.
That evening I texted 'Am I still your boy? x'. There was no reply.
Chapter 15
Mixed feelings about the gefilte fish pong that percolated through the alarmingly sloping floor in the flat in Belfry Road. It seemed everyone had lived or knew someone who had lived in Belfry Road. People tended to pass through, partly due to the prevalence of Hasidic Jews (The Charedi) who had no need for pubs and restaurants and so Stamford Hill remained ungentrified, blighted by desolate tower blocks, an inner city backwater. As a consequence, it was cheap by Zone 2 standards, despite being only a stone's throw from swinging Stoke Newington.
A washing machine stood self-consciously in the tiny living room – nowhere else for it to go. Nancy wouldn't like this. Wrinkling my nose at the estate agent and Clive, I shook my head.
The first thing that hit us as we entered Flat 6, The Limes, was the stench, an eye watering concoction of dog piss and something more elusive, like burnt rubber and cheese.
“Oh Christ”
.
Clive squinted, the estate agent looked to his shiny shoes.
It was, as they say, bijou, just a living room that doubled as a bedroom, a galley kitchen and a miniscule bathroom opposite the front door. The living room, almost entirely taken up by a double bed, which we had to sidle around like penguins. A fitted cupboard occupied the length of one wall and the other three protruded floor to ceiling metal brackets, for now absent shelves, giving the room an unnerving iron maiden feel. However, there was a high ceiling, tall skirting boards and half glazed Victorian doors, which opened onto a modest balcony overlooking what appeared to be an orchard.
“How do I put an offer in?”
Clive and the estate agent exchanged glances.
“Perhaps you’d better think about it?” Clive said. “Sleep on it”.
“No, I like it” I said.
On a train, returning from Crawley, where I'd had an appointment with Evelyn, a mortgage broker. Max, an ex-girlfriend, had put me in touch with her by way of restitution I guessed. Max had thrown me out after falling for her therapist (we'd been Minimax for a year). She'd long since put the therapist relationship down to experience and now, I heard, wanted me back. Having been crazy in love with her, I found it fascinating that now, on reflection, I felt nothing other than a sense that some celestial scales were rebalancing. She'd cast me out and was helping me find a home, the rooms within me where she'd once resided occupied by another.
Evelyn had fabricated more fitting earnings for someone of my age and as she fed the application into the fax machine fixed me over her half-moons. “Just promise me you can make the repayments”.
“That won't be a problem” I lied.
The cables strung between posts by the side of the track appeared to
“Are you pregnant?”
“Don't be ridiculous” she said and continued her descent.
Returning to my seat, I calmed myself by going into my mind gallery. I saw 'Christina's World' by Andrew Wyeth and the cover of 'What to look for in the Winter', a Ladybird book. But it didn't help. Not yet, please, not yet. Plates had shifted.
She slid a conciliatory plate of chocolate cake towards me.
“Here” she said. I balled my shaking hands into fists under the table.
“So what is it Nancy?”
She gave a deep sigh. “I just wanted to see you”. But she'd barely looked at me.
“When can I see you properly?” I said.
“I'll call you, don't worry”.
“Nancy, please, you're scaring me”.
She moved the cake to one side and found my trembling hands, covering them with hers.
“Minette”. She frowned. “I love you, but this is becoming quite a strain you know”.
“I'm seeing two properties tomorrow” I said. “It'll be alright”.
“Oh yes”, conjuring up a tiny puff of enthusiasm. “Good luck” she added.
That evening I texted 'Am I still your boy? x'. There was no reply.
Chapter 15
Mixed feelings about the gefilte fish pong that percolated through the alarmingly sloping floor in the flat in Belfry Road. It seemed everyone had lived or knew someone who had lived in Belfry Road. People tended to pass through, partly due to the prevalence of Hasidic Jews (The Charedi) who had no need for pubs and restaurants and so Stamford Hill remained ungentrified, blighted by desolate tower blocks, an inner city backwater. As a consequence, it was cheap by Zone 2 standards, despite being only a stone's throw from swinging Stoke Newington.
A washing machine stood self-consciously in the tiny living room – nowhere else for it to go. Nancy wouldn't like this. Wrinkling my nose at the estate agent and Clive, I shook my head.
The first thing that hit us as we entered Flat 6, The Limes, was the stench, an eye watering concoction of dog piss and something more elusive, like burnt rubber and cheese.
“Oh Christ”
.
Clive squinted, the estate agent looked to his shiny shoes.
It was, as they say, bijou, just a living room that doubled as a bedroom, a galley kitchen and a miniscule bathroom opposite the front door. The living room, almost entirely taken up by a double bed, which we had to sidle around like penguins. A fitted cupboard occupied the length of one wall and the other three protruded floor to ceiling metal brackets, for now absent shelves, giving the room an unnerving iron maiden feel. However, there was a high ceiling, tall skirting boards and half glazed Victorian doors, which opened onto a modest balcony overlooking what appeared to be an orchard.
“How do I put an offer in?”
Clive and the estate agent exchanged glances.
“Perhaps you’d better think about it?” Clive said. “Sleep on it”.
“No, I like it” I said.
On a train, returning from Crawley, where I'd had an appointment with Evelyn, a mortgage broker. Max, an ex-girlfriend, had put me in touch with her by way of restitution I guessed. Max had thrown me out after falling for her therapist (we'd been Minimax for a year). She'd long since put the therapist relationship down to experience and now, I heard, wanted me back. Having been crazy in love with her, I found it fascinating that now, on reflection, I felt nothing other than a sense that some celestial scales were rebalancing. She'd cast me out and was helping me find a home, the rooms within me where she'd once resided occupied by another.
Evelyn had fabricated more fitting earnings for someone of my age and as she fed the application into the fax machine fixed me over her half-moons. “Just promise me you can make the repayments”.
“That won't be a problem” I lied.
The cables strung between posts by the side of the track appeared to
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