Day Five

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Day 5

She’s gone!

Damn you Hall and Oates! I can’t get that song out of my head now. What happened? The flat felt bigger (it would feel that even more bigger if she’d taken all of her stuff). But she’s gone. If I ever meet Hall and/or Oates I’ll throttle them! I walked around the room, into the bedroom, the bedroom still smells of her, various scents and products that made her essence.

It’d finally sunk in. And what is more, not only had she left me, but she’d left me with all of the bills. Most importantly the rent: £570!!!

Ok, it was time for me to take a minute and make a few calculations:

I earned about £1400 after tax

Rent £570

Water/Gas/Elec £80

TV £12

Cable £30

Tax £90

Mobile £30

Total=£812

That left me with just under £600 for debt payment (which will be lowered anyway), travelling, food, savings… hmmm… maybe I needed to move.

This led me to several renting sites that more or less end that thought right there, as the cheapest I could find (Alone, none of this sharing ‘Who stole my cheese?’ crap!) is £430. Factor in Deposits/Fees/Moving Costs/Van Hire etc… Fuck it! I’ll just tighten my belt and stay here. Yes, it might be difficult, but the stress of moving might kill me before I put up the first shelf. I’ll save some money (if I can) and put that towards a move later?

I held my breath (if only I had some Jack to give me some courage) and I called. Linda seemed shocked at my decision until I gave her the ‘face the facts’ talk. Which is this:

If we both move to smaller places we will not be able to keep two thirds of the furniture that we have in this place (worth in excess of around two grand). Now, if I move quite frankly I’m going to be able to take maybe two or three things and then the rest will have to be either sold or dumped. Who would want to buy the couch that seems to be continuously covered in cat hair or the bed that’s broken due to… well… it’s just broken. The huge wardrobe (filled to the brim with her stuff) is actually too big to move out of the apartment and if taken apart will probably never be able to put it back together. Plus… the amount of stuff she has left here, clothes, personal items, stuff from university, school, her childhood, would she be able to store them at hers? No! Ok, if I move I wouldn’t either and in all honesty I wouldn’t want to. Then there’s the cat, Duchess. Linda had taken her in as a favour to a friend who was moving, despite the fact that I utterly hate cats. In time I got used to her, but she was still a pain in my ass who seemed to want to scent mark every single piece of furniture meowing wildly as she did. I’m pretty sure that the tenancy agreement states that we can’t have pets, but as we were never actually given one we always said we could just play ignorant and say she’s simply a housecat. This is one of the few things that is good about her as it means that there’s no surprise dead birds to come home to! If I move, who’s to say that I’d be able to keep her? What would I do then? Cat hostel is the only option really unless we found someone who wanted her and at her age it was doubtful. But… and I tried to make this bit sound like it made sense and it does. If you leave them here then when we finally both get settled properly if she wants she can strip the place bare and take what she wants.

This seems to get through, finally. What I didn’t quite understand, is what she was actually complaining about. As she’d be paying almost £400 less in rent this would mean at the end of every month she’d have £400 in her pocket! Whereas I’d be lucky to finish a month with £100 and that’s with me living off pasta seven days a week. I can see money being a big issue later on, but I have to stick by my guns. I have to keep some kind of status quo while the world crumbles around me, even if it means that I won’t be any better off, mentally I think I’ll be fine. I have to be.

It’s odd now though. I walked around the flat and she’s still here in everything, it’s like I can sense what she would say if she saw the pile of papers I had on the table ready for a few hours of writing. But now it doesn’t matter, it’s all my stuff, my mess, I’ll clean it when I feel like and to what degree I feel like. I ran myself a bath and didn’t have to argue with anyone about the cost. No, it’s my water, my heating, MY BATH! Everything’s always much better after a bath. Well, it would be if she hadn’t taken all the Goddamn bubblebath! I mocked some up, using a few shampoo and bodywash samples and then I just lay there for near two hours listening to Bill Hicks rant about early 90s America. Funny how relevant it all still is. Different Bush, same shitty politics!

Today was a better day.