I’ve no idea if she means just the two of us, or everyone.
“OK.” I say, after a moment.
“Good.” She looks pleased with this, and she takes a pen and scrap of paper from the table and writes down a number.
“Text me yours. I’ll set something up.” When she hands it to me our hands touch a second time, and this time I savor how smooth her skin is. But it’s her eyes I remember most, the way they sparkle when she looks up and says:
“See ya Billy.”
I text her before I even leave the café, but she doesn’t reply at once. In fact it’s two days before anyone texts me again, so I start to worry if my cell phone might be broken. But then it chirps at me, a couple of days later. I’m actually still in bed, since it’s Saturday, and I don’t have any lectures. I have the phone charging on my desk, so I have to get up quickly to grab it, but then I see it’s not from Lily. It’s from Amber.
Hi Billy, I was a bit distant the other week. Super busy. Let’s go out with your friends. I wanna meet Guy again!
I read it, and though I’m disappointed it’s not from Lily, it also kind of makes me smile, and then a second text comes in.
It’s Saturday night. You must have some party planned?
And then there’s a loud banging on my door.
“Yo Billy, get your ass out here.”
I don’t know who it is, and then the voice gets harder to identify because loud music suddenly fires up from the kitchen. Whoever it is bangs on the door again, and then they shout again. I identify it as Jimbo this time.
“Get up you lazy piece of shit.” We’ve all got to know each other a bit better now, this is just how he talks to his friends.
“What is it?” I reply.
“We’re tidying.” Jimbo says. “Get up.”
“Tidying?”
“Just get your ass out here.”
I consider ignoring him, since it isn’t my mess, but I decide I better help, so I get dressed and come into the kitchen. Here I find that everyone else from the house is there and actually tackling the disaster of our communal living quarters. Jimbo is wearing pink washing up gloves and soaping up all our plates and cups and dishes – we ran out of clean ones weeks ago, but they never got washed. Claire is there drying up and putting them away, while Sarah and Laura are delicately picking up items from the mountain of trash and dropping them into black bags. Guy is sweeping, sort of, behind the row of chairs.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re having a clean-up. We’re gonna start a rota.” Jimbo tells me from the sink.
“I thought you liked the mess? What changed?”
No one answers for a second, then Laura does.
“I saw a rat.” she explains, wrinkling her nose.
“Where?” My eyes turn to the Trash Mountain. “What? An actual rat?”
“I think so.” She gives a shudder. I feel Guy come to my shoulder, and the four of us regard the pile of trash as if it might conceal terrifying monsters.
“I’m not 100% sure it was a rat,” she goes on. “I was a bit stoned, at the time. But it was definitely something. And that is disgusting.”
“And it’s not good for bringing pussy home,” Guy adds, causing Laura to shove him back to his sweeping.
“You want to help fill this up, Billy?” Sarah says, holding out her bag.
“Course he’s going to fucking help,” Jimbo shouts from the sink. “If he thinks he can get out of it he can fuck off.” Which is rude of him, because of course I’m going to help.
“I can get my computer,” I suggest. “I’m very good at spreadsheets. I could make the rota.”
“Oh no you don’t you lazy piece of shit. Grab a fucking bag.”
So I do, and strangely enough it’s actually the nicest Saturday I’ve had with the other guys in the house. Me and Laura and Sarah fill six bags of trash before we see the top of the actual trash can again, and then we slow down a bit, just in case Laura really did see a rat, although I’m doubting it would still be there, if she ever did see it in the first place. And at the same time, we get talking, about what they’re studying, and how they’re finding it. And it’s funny, but now that I’ve met Lily and Jennifer, it’s kind of made me more relaxed around my housemates – they seem… ordinary, but not exactly in a bad way. Laura has her hair tied back, and her skin is kind of blotchy. And Sarah still looks quite pretty – almost like a less glamorous version of Jennifer, Lily’s friend. But nowhere near as stunning as Lily, so it makes her easy to talk to.
Laura picks up a plastic bag by its corner and tugs it loose from the now much smaller trash mountain. It comes free and drips trash-juice on the floor.
“Urgh, get it in the bag.” I step forward and stretch open the black bag I’m holding, and we get it in. As we do so there’s a rustling from the bottom of the pile.
“I saw something!” Sarah says, and we all stare, tense.
“It was just the pile settling back down,” I say. I’m still sure we’re not actually about to reveal a rat, that would be disgusting. But then Guy comes over with his broom. He turns it around and pokes the handle into the pile, hooking it under the partially broken-down remains of a trash bag. I remember setting it up, next to the can, after it overfilled. He lifts it, and we see a section of the floor we’ve not seen for a while, stained yellow. And then we see it. First a flash of brown fur, and then the scaly skin of rodent tail,
