Kelsey swung her head to peer at her friend, not at all convinced.
Swans, hopeful of some bread, appeared from every direction, gliding slowly across the water’s surface casting widening ripples as they sailed, honking loudly for their breakfast, blissfully oblivious to Kelsey’s spiralling panic.
Chapter Sixteen
‘I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me’
(Much Ado About Nothing)
Mirren Imrie, Stratford’s newest resident, settled in to a quieter kind of life. The days were growing shorter and the window of time she spent out of pyjamas and in the fresh air was decreasing with each day. At first she’d been full of energy, sending out speculative CVs and queries to magazines and papers across the country with ideas for articles, and she’d subsisted on the hope and excitement that at any moment her cell might ring.
She’d helped Kelsey as much as she could too, handing out the hastily designed and printed leaflets for pumpkin patch photo shoots on Stratford’s chilly, windy high street for two whole days and there had been a brief flurry of bookings that was now keeping Kelsey occupied at the studio.
Somewhere in between refreshing her emails in the bedsit and watching her phone, Mirren realised no work was coming her way and out of sheer embarrassment at finding herself idle after years of non-stop striving, Mirren let herself morph into a kind of proxy housekeeper to Kelsey, having nothing else to contribute.
She took over launderette duties and learned how to cook up one-pot hob recipes so at least Kelsey had something delicious waiting for her when she came home in the dark afternoons, and at night they drank wine and streamed box sets on Mirren’s laptop, trying not to look at the evening’s sauce-streaked dishes in the sink only two feet away from the little bed which Mirren suspected was somehow shrinking a little more each night.
By the time the rather lacklustre Halloween afternoon rolled around, and after a series of little imperceptible shifts, of niggling inconveniences piling up, of never having enough space to store anything or to spread out and really work on her writing – especially now that the rooftop terrace at St.Ninian’s was cold and slippery and out of bounds – Mirren was feeling the strain of bedsit-sharing.
Kelsey had come home, buzzing with excitement after a busy day.
‘Sorry I’m late, is it ruined?’ she said.
Mirren stirred the pot of congealed goulash on the hob. ‘Well, it was definitely more appetising an hour ago.’
‘Sorry, I just had such a good day, I was fully booked all morning and all of the customers wanted real prints as well as the digital file emailed to them, so I had to run to the chemist’s three times! There were twins in today, only nine months old. Their parents had dressed them in little Halloween onesies. Oh my God they were so cute, wobbling all over the place. One of them fell asleep and we had to prop him up against one of the pumpkins. Here, I’ve got the pictures on my tablet.’
Mirren served up the meal and took a few cursory glances at the pictures. ‘Adorable,’ she agreed, reaching for the wine in the fridge and knocking Kelsey’s knee with the door. ‘Sorry.’ She threw her hands up and Kelsey saw how exaggerated the movement was.
‘I’ll get out your way.’ Kelsey held her coat and satchel up in the air attempting to squeeze between the bed and Mirren bustling at the little kitchen work surface. As she made her way through the door to the little loo to wash her hands, Kelsey knocked Mirren’s dresses that were hanging over the doorframe, and they all fell off their hangers, again.
They both spent a few moments silently rehanging them. ‘We’ve got to find somewhere else to put these,’ Kelsey said gently.
‘But where? There’s no wardrobe.’
‘I know, this place is daft.’ Kelsey attempted a laugh, but noticed the area under Mirren’s eyes was a burning red and she was close to tears. ‘I never really minded just keeping my stuff folded in my open suitcase under the bed. We could go to IKEA one day and buy loads of storage bits?’
Mirren turned back to serving dinner. ‘That reminds me, I put away all your jumpers, but some of your tops are still damp, they’re hanging inside the shower cubicle.’
Kelsey glanced at the limp laundry inside the Perspex box. ‘Right, great. Thank you.’
‘Something wrong?’ Mirren’s voice was pitchy.
‘Nope. Why would there be?’ Kelsey said with a shrug, hoping to defuse whatever this was. They never fought and she didn’t want to start now. She made a show of dumping her satchel and coat on the floor at the end of the bed to show how easy she was with all the clutter, and for a moment they both looked down at their feet and the piles of CVs and envelopes neatly stacked on the white carpet.
‘They’ll be gone tomorrow, I promise,’ Mirren said in a small voice.
Kelsey only smiled. ‘Let’s eat. I’m starving.’
And so another little moment of tension passed. There was no point talking it through. The bedsit was just too small but there was no other solution, right at that moment. Not until Mirren found a job and she could go wherever her new employer was. Kelsey settled on the bed with her food, saying twice how delicious it was, and tried not to think uncharitable thoughts. Not when Mirren had no one else to turn to.
The wine helped and Kelsey chatted breezily about how with a bit of luck she could buy herself a decent photo printer of her own, maybe after Christmas, if the Osprey parties paid off. She certainly wouldn’t miss bolting down the high street to the big chemist’s to use their expensive, clunking machines.
After dinner, neither of them were willing to be the one to decide what they watched and the tension was rising again when Kelsey’s phone rang. She took her mobile outside the bedsit door, feeling every inch like that one undergraduate in halls who was always on the phone to her boyfriend but glad of the respite from the stuffy humidity of the room.
‘Trick or treat?’ Jonathan’s voice was a dopamine hit and Kelsey felt the tension in her shoulders melt a little.
‘I’ll take the treat please,’ she said wistfully. ‘Shouldn’t you be at the matinee?’
