Home is a large, slightly shabby Victorian semi in Withington, south Manchester. Solid red brick with crumbling stained glass, high ceilings, big rooms and a wonderful garden. Withington houses a mix of people; families, students, workers from Christie’s hospital. The area has an old-fashioned swimming pool, a library, a health-food shop and its very own fleapit style cinema.
Maddie and I share the house with Ray and his little boy, Tom. It’s a strictly platonic arrangement. We rent the attic flat out to a lodger.
Tom’s a year younger than Maddie, a fact he’s never allowed to forget. He’s developed the resilience of a second child. The four of us get along pretty well, though Ray and I have our moments, a bit like the kids. Just like the kids. Resentment and squabbling, usually over the chores. Ray sulks, I bully, he flies off the handle and flounces off to do whatever hasn’t been done (it’s always a one-way nag) and peace is restored. Life is humdrum, domestic. We take turns babysitting but neither of us paints the town red when unleashed. We just shuffle along to the local for a couple of pints with old friends. Every few months Ray meets a new woman and takes to wearing aftershave and trimming his moustache. But it never seems to amount to much and he appears more or less content with his lot. He potters around, building furniture in the cellar, which is a labour of love rather than an economic proposition, and spends hours hunched over his computer. Ray’s doing a part-time computing course at Salford Tech. He hopes it’ll help him earn a decent income. To date, all it’s generated is a lot of indecent language.
I made tea for Tom and Maddie and let them eat it picnic-style in the garden, then slung some vegetables into a pan with half a jar of Nazir’s Vindaloo Sauce for Ray and I to eat later. Chris arrived in the gap before bedtime. We sat in the kitchen, tea in hand.
‘How’s the new lodger?’ she asked, raising her eyes heavenwards.
‘Don’t ask.’
‘That bad?’
‘I think so. No sign of improvement. He’s away till Thursday. But then…we’re going to have to do something. We can’t go on like this. It’s getting so I dread coming into the kitchen in case he’s brewing up. It’s your fault,’ I rounded on Chris, ‘if you hadn’t moved out, we wouldn’t have ended up with him.’
Chris giggled. ‘I’ve got the stuff you wanted.’ She foraged in a battered briefcase and drew out a large manila envelope. Inside were lists of hostels.
