Just a week after walking out of Figaro and making my decision to give London a go, I find myself moving in with Jools.
The house is on a quiet street in Tooting—or at least, quiet for London. It’s just off the high street, bookended by the hospital at one end, and a pub at the other. I happen to know from previous visits that the pub excels in the three essential criteria of any decent public house: quality quizzes, live music, and a cracking Sunday roast. Jools and her housemate Sal, who’s a midwife, go there for food if they can’t be bothered to cook.
I’ve had a knot in my chest for the past few days, wondering if I’m doing the right thing, moving to London; if I should have taken some time out to think before jumping straight back into another job. If staying with Tash and working in that gift shop and writing a novel might actually have been a better way to go.
It would have been a lot less stressful, for a start.
Earlier this week, I called the Supernova recruiter and explained my situation, and I’ve been invited for an interview, a week from Friday. Not that I have the faintest clue how to persuade them I’m a talented writer—other than my makeshift portfolio, I don’t have an awful lot going for me. Hardly any real-world writing experience. A degree I dropped out of, six months before graduation. I mean, this is Supernova—solar systems apart from anywhere else I’ve worked.
At the house, Jools shows me up to the double room Cara’s vacated. It’s identical to Jools’s, only this one looks over the street at the front—plus it lacks the stylish artwork and hip furnishings, of course. The space is bare except for a bed and chest of drawers, but it feels pleasingly blank-canvas. Somewhere I can make my own. It’s roomy and high-ceilinged, with a bright wash of April daylight spilling in through a large bay window. I’m weird about light, can’t stand gloomy rooms.
I look out over the street, my ears adjusting to the background hum of buses and cars and reversing vehicles. So different to Tash’s place and its canyon-grade silence. Here there’s always something moving, someone nearby. I find it comforting, but it still feels a little like culture shock.
Jools loops her arms over my shoulders from behind. She’s freshly showered after her shift, the familiar scent of her body lotion comforting as cashmere. “Welcome home,” she whispers, and I feel the tightness in my chest loosen slightly.
It’s going to be okay. Jools is here. You have an interview for your dream job. This is a clean slate, a fresh start. Time to make the most of it.
—
Sal and Reuben, Jools’s housemates, are out, so Jools and I head to the pub to celebrate my first night.
“This is definitely the best place you’ve ever lived, Jools,” I remark, as we settle down in a corner—white wine for Jools, sparkling elderflower for me. The pub’s busy, and the air is laced with that strangely comforting scent of hops and frying food. It’s a proper pub, albeit with a slightly gastro vibe, reminding me a bit of The Smugglers.
“Oh God, by amile. Remember Camden?”
I smile at my friend, her hair still damp from the shower. She never blow-dries it—she doesn’t even own a hair dryer—and in about thirty minutes’ time it will have magically lifted into thick, glossy waves. She’s completely makeup free, the day scrubbed clean from her face. Jools is a natural beauty, the type of girl who wakes up with whipped-butter skin, her molasses-brown eyes newly brightened by sleep.
It would be easy to resent her for this. But Jools is the best person I know. Always has been.
“You mean the garage,” I say. It actuallywasa converted garage, and not a very good one at that.
“And that landlord in Bethnal Green.”
“Yeah, Mr. Don’t-Mind-Me.” Her landlord would let himself in unannounced with alarming frequency, until Jools reported him, whereupon she was instantly evicted.
“I’m sure I heard someone say he was arrested recently,” Jools says.
I shudder, think of Nate. “Oh, don’t.”
Jools sips her wine. “Yeah, I’ll definitely look back fondly on this place.”
“How’s the saving going?”
“Slowly. Be another couple of years at least. Hey—I forgot to tell you,” she says, setting down her glass. “When Cara said she wasleaving, Reuben arranged for a friend-of-a-friend to come over and see the room. Without telling us, of course. But he forgot to let him know you’d got it. So this poor guy turned up on the doorstep with abasket of muffins, to view the room.” She clutches a hand to her chest. “Can you imagine?”
“Oh God. What did you do?”
“Well, Reuben was out, and me and Sal were mortified, obviously. And bless him—he tried to give us the muffins, but we felt tooawfulabout it. So now I’ve just got this image of him walking off down our front path with his little muffin basket swinging from his hand...”
“Now I feel guilty.”
Jools shakes her head. “Please. It was Reuben’s fault. You know what he’s like.”
“He doesn’t mind me moving in, then?”
“Reuben? Of course not. Actually, if he didn’t have a girlfriend, I’m pretty sure you’d be his type.”
I laugh. “Why’s that?”
