played out this moment endlessly in my mind, complete with trumpet fanfare and fireworks, but now that it was real, it felt strangely normal to see him. I checked, and he felt the same way. How could it be so prosaic? I plumped for an answer that felt good: ‘I think we’re back where we belong, Chief, so why should it be exciting to come home?’
He tightened his grip on my shoulders. ‘That’s right, Bun.’
I was in our bedroom, unpacking my accordion. ‘Listen to this!’ I launched into a halting rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’.
‘That’s great, Bun! Can we have sex now?’
‘Don’t you want to hear “Over the Waves”? I can almost do it without stopping.’
‘I’ve got vodka in the freezer!’ He ran off to get me a shot, then proffered it across my heaving bellows. I stopped playing, unstrapped myself and drank up. It felt good to be held again. Oh, yes! I thought. Sex is nice, isn’t it? Why did I always forget?
‘Oh, my Bun,’ sighed Jack afterwards, drifting into a sleepy miasma. ‘It’s so great to have you back. I can’t wait to show you off to everyone tomorrow.’
I lay beside him in the dark, wide awake. Fuck. I was here. I’d made it all happen. The car engine had stopped, but this time the melancholy of arrival was tinged with wicked relief, as if I’d avoided cleaning up after a wild party by running away at dawn. Now I couldn’t look after Mum.
The next morning I began to meet my new housemates. Let’s start at the front of the house and work our way back.
Main bedroom
In the bed
Name: Kyle
Age: 25
Appearance: pulled-up knee socks with shorts
Philosophy: evangelical Christian
Source: Texas
Occupation: art student
Manner: silent but creepy
Liked:
picking up short women and throwing them on to soft surfaces.
lube samples.
painting dark splodges evocative of unbearable suffering.
tinned pears.
sniggering about boobs after dark
On the floor
Name: Mike
Age: 42
Appearance: short, fat and hairy
Philosophy: evangelical Christian (same church)
Source: Texas (same town)
Occupation: sound engineer for touring production of Les Misérables
Manner: jovial
Liked:
curry.
snoring.
large boobs
Back bedroom (back half of the double parlour. In auditory terms, the same room)
Name: Jack
Age: 25
Appearance: tall, handsome, etc.
Philosophy: BA/it rains for a reason
Source: Wales and America
Occupation: copywriter/misanthropic poet
Manner: plodding, well-intentioned
Liked:
dogs
British punk music 1978–83.
anal sex (aspirationally).
vodka (liberally).
cigarettes (nostalgically).
me (emphatically)
Bathroom
Well-established conurbations of four billion-plus, devastated by surprise attack of UK origin
Hallway
Name: Tova
Age: 24
Appearance: travelling girl
Philosophy: I want therefore I get
Source: Canada
Occupation: boat-hand/self-promoter
Manner: upfront and annoying
Liked:
sex.
travelling.
talking about sex and travelling.
rice.
yoga.
shouting in Spanish to her boyfriend, (who emerged, cockroach-style, as soon as she’d secured the ‘room’)
Name: Chico
Age: 34
Appearance: small, brown, hardened
Philosophy: Tova wants, therefore I get it for her
Source: Chile
Occupation: boat-hand and burger-flipper
Manner: benign or confused, maybe both
Liked:
sex.
travelling.
rice.
yoga.
his sister (they’d recently ended a long-term, live-in relationship)
Kitchen
Name: The miserable boy who lives in the kitchen
Age: c. 20
Appearance: lank
Philosophy: why?
Source: America
Occupation: lying on the couch reading academic books about torture, death, prostitution
Manner: limp
Liked:
fraternizing with the landlord’s arch enemy, which led to him being punched in the face, thrown out of the kitchen and chased up the street by the landlord, who was driving a truck
Utility nook
Name: Richard
Age: 28
Appearance: fuzz-headed loon with too many teeth
Philosophy: whatever, dude!
Source: Oregon
Occupation: skateboarder, thief
Manner: insane
Liked:
skateboarding
TV
pizza.
a sixteen-year-old girl whom he had to return – drunk, unconscious and splattered with her own vomit – to her grandmother.
yelling inanities
Our