Under the photo she had given a short introduction to herself. From then on every photo was exceptionally shot, accompanied by relevant content. Comparing her account to others, it appeared to me that Mrs Clean had gone into this Instagramming lark with a clear business head. Other accounts had clearly evolved from dodgy grainy photos with busy backgrounds to the polished images they were producing now. Mrs Clean’s were all professional-looking from the outset. Hers was the one I chose to follow.
Filled with inspiration for the house, I wandered back inside to see what I could get started on.
The back door led into the kitchen, and as I arrived inside, I could see the coast was clear. My body was saying, ‘Do it, do it,’ although words from another time told me, ‘Don’t.’ But still, I did it anyway. I closed and locked then unlocked the back door with the key six times.
I heard a shuffle behind me as I locked the door for the final time. I turned around and there was Karen’s boyfriend, Steve. I stopped statue still as Steve’s eyes bore into me. Instantly, my palms felt clammy and I felt my chest go tight. My breath became laboured. I stole a look across the kitchen at the only other exit.
Steve followed my look. ‘My cousin has OCD,’ he said flatly. I ignored his statement. From day one I had felt an eeriness in his presence; the way he launched into conversation without the general formalities of a greeting first.
Steve had his hands in his pockets. He was the opposite of the type I would have gone for in the past. I had always gone for the big-built, tall men with strong hands that I had grown accustomed to being placed firmly on my waist and lifting me up over their shoulders. Hands that had once given me the security I had craved, but now I could only associate them with being wrapped tightly around my wrists, pulling me, dragging me.
I couldn’t figure out what Karen saw in Steve. He was a short man with small hands that he perpetually kept in the pockets of any trousers he wore. Today, he was wearing jogging bottoms, his hands placed causally in the pockets as though he had been standing there for an age, perhaps observing me for longer than I would like to contemplate. His head was shaved very close to his scalp; he wore it this way as a homage to the army, which he was no longer a part of. Was it this resemblance to someone I didn’t wish to remember that made me recoil whenever Steve was around?
Steve looked around the kitchen and not at me. I tried to follow his gaze to see what he was looking at.
‘Karen about?’ He sniffed. His voice was hollow and empty. For a moment, I considered if he cared at all if Karen was about.
It occurred to me that if Steve was here alone, then he had made his own way into the house. He could only have come through the front door, which would have meant using a key. Surely Karen wouldn’t have handed out a key to her boyfriend of three weeks without discussing it with the rest of the house? I thought that a successful house share was about being respectful to your fellow house mates. This was the sort of scenario that I had envisioned would be worthy of a house meeting. My body gave an involuntary shudder as I considered the prospect of Steve having access to the house any time, day or night.
I should by now, at my age, have the emotional energy to approach Karen and raise the issue with her, but for some reason I could not imagine myself doing that. Instead, I began to imagine how things would be from here on in, having to sneak around my own home, always in fear of the prospect of bumping into Steve. The thoughts began tumbling through my mind before I could stop them and rapid ruminating led to catastrophising, as I imagined a drunken Steve arriving here after the pub and trying to find his way into my bedroom.
‘I haven’t seen her today,’ I said breathlessly, and then finally, after what had felt like an age, I edged forward and began to make my way past Steve. We were both stood close to the pantry and the bins, leaving little space to manoeuvre, so as I passed him, he turned his body at the same time to walk past me, presumably to go to the garden to smoke a rolly. Suddenly, but only momentarily, we were almost nose to nose. All my senses heightened. Panic rose in my throat; it felt as though something was stuck there. I swallowed, but it felt forced and uncomfortable. He was so close to me I could smell his skin. Then casually, without uttering another word, he stepped to one side and let me past.
I felt as though my instincts were lagging, but then some might say that my instincts weren’t properly sharpened beforehand, otherwise I would have foreseen the incident that changed my life forever.
With a dry mouth and a pounding heart I found my way into my bedroom, locked and unlocked the door six times, ending on a lock. Then I stripped the one-day-old sheet from the mattress and pulled out clean, white, starched sheets from the ottoman at the end of the bed. I set about pulling the flat sheet over the mattress protector and finished up with perfectly tight hospital corners; a learned skill that transported me back to sleeping in a single bed in a six-by-eight-foot room a mere few weeks ago.
After that experience, changing the
