I'm just a friend
I meant to tell them I was moving out, once I'd got home and packed up me stuff I really intended to wait till one of them came in from work and then I'd tell her that I'd got a job and would pay what I owe as soon as I get paid, but let's face it I'm a shitting coward and I know how I'd feel if one of them had stopped paying her rent and lived off the rest of us, so I collected me stuff and left them a note, promising to pay them back as soon as I could. I s'pose I was lucky that no-one sold me stuff to cover what I owe them, mind you the whole lot put together was most likely only worth about 50p.
He had the tele on when I got back, I could hear it through the closed door, I mean, who the bloody hell closes the sitting room door when they're watching tele on their own in their own place? Maybe it's something posh people do or maybe he's just trying to tell me something. There wasn't anything I fancied to eat in the kitchen, well there wasn't much of anything in there, and I was bleeding starving, I haven't eaten much lately cos they don't give it away, well they do at them food banks but I never knew how to find one or even if I'd be allowed cos I'm single with no kids, and anyhow I didn't want to hang about in the kitchen at the flat because one of me flatmates could come in any second and start getting shitty with me.
There were some fliers on the hall table and because I think I'm probably a nice person, well a lot nicer than him anyhow, I knocked on the door, I can't believe that I've come to live here for a bit and I knocked on the fucking door like some bleeding servant, talk about Downton Abbey, then when I went in I asked him whether he wanted me to get him something from the chippy, which I thought was really nice of me, considering. If he wanted something mind, I hoped he'd give me some money to pay for it, cos a bag of chips is just about all I can afford, what with the train fares down here and that I'm now totally brassic.
I knew she was back, I could hear her banging about in the spare room and then she came and knocked on the bloody door, I mean, for fuck's sake I didn't say anything about her having to ask permission to be in the lounge or the kitchen, or anything, next thing we know she'll be asking if it's okay to use the bathroom. Anyway, this is the only television in the place and I don't expect her to behave like a servant, and she won't be here long enough to get on my nerves.
"I'm going to the chippy, get some chips, do you want anything?"
"No thanks, but if you're going to have vinegar on your chips, could you eat them in the kitchen" I never meant it to come out like that so that I sounded like some miserable old fart, God, what is wrong with me? I tried to soften the way that sounded "The smell gets everywhere in this flat" I can't believe I just said that to someone who'd made an obvious effort to be nice, offering to get me something to eat like that, especially as I had a take away Thai curry from the restaurant round the corner and even I can still smell it in here.
"Okay" I thought for a minute that he looked a bit, not sorry exactly, but as if he was a tiny bit ashamed of the way he'd just tried to make me feel bad about eating chips in his bloody posh flat, and let's face it so he should, the miserable fucker. He hasn't exactly put the red carpet out or bent over backwards to welcome me has he? I don't know what it's gonna be like working here but l've got a pretty fair idea I'm going to be bloody glad it's only temporary. Mind, it'll be quite nice not to have to worry about people banging on me door yelling for money while I try and pretend I'm not in.
I'll bet if he smiled he'd look completely different, I wonder what you'd have to do to make the miserable bugger smile?
-OG-
The nurse has been here for about a week, okay, maybe about twenty minutes, and she's in there with him with the bedroom door shut. She's obviously not NHS because if she was she'd have been in and out like a rat up a drainpipe and long gone by now, but it feels like forever cos I've been looking around for something to do, this place is sodding immaculate. There isn't any dust or dirt or mess anywhere, well, not that I can see anyhow, so I've emptied the laundry bin and put a wash on, it wasn't even half a load, but still, I've gotta show willing. I've done me room and I've wiped everything down in the kitchen and the bathroom, and it's only just gone 9.00 so I'm saving the vacuuming and the front room for later on, that way I can look busy when he's up and about. Shit, this is gonna be boring.
I don't know whether to wait for him or to have me breakfast cos I'm quite hungry and I'm dead bored, so I think I might gonna have to sit down and make a list of what's what with him once the nurse has gone, otherwise I'm gonna spend a shit load of time dicking about wondering what I'm s'posed to be doing, and one night of that was more than enough for me. I spent the whole evening, well, after I did as I was told and ate me chips in the kitchen, sitting in me room looking at four walls, texting everyone I could think of and then, when me battery died, trying really hard to read the book that one of me flatmates leant me a while ago and which I forgot to leave behind. I haven't read it yet, mainly cos I can't make head or tail of what it's s'posed to be about.
In the end I ate me coco-pops on me own, Christ knows what that bleeding nurse was doing in there, but whatever it was it was taking a shit long time and I couldn't wait any longer, I was starved, so I'm sitting in the kitchen having another go at reading the sodding book cos I don't wanna put the tele on and show him how pathetic I am. Even I think that someone who sits and watches Jeremy Kyle is pretty pathetic and I don't even know whether the boss would mind me sitting in his front room channel-hopping, it's his tele not mine and I haven't asked his permission and I don't even live here, I'm just staying here temporary.
When the nurse finally pissed off and he came out of his room, he was all showered and shaved and dressed 'n that so maybe that's what she was doing in there, although I couldn't blame her if she was doing something else, he really is a bit tasty, it's just a pity that he always looks so bloody miserable and unfriendly.
"Have you had breakfast?"
"Yeah, sorry, I didn't know whether I should wait for you … or what? Do you want me to get you some'ing?"
"No need thanks, I can manage"
I really, really wanted to say 'go on then, get on with it you miserable, ungrateful bugger' but that would most likely give him an excuse to send me packing and I'm not sure where I'd go, if the worst came to the worst I could try squatting I s'pose, but I'm not sure how you go about finding somewhere and to be honest I've never really fancied it either.
"I know, but it's what I'm here for, so what do you want?"
"What did you have?"
"Coco-pops" He raised his eyebrows at me, I don't know why, the coco-pops are mine, I bought them with me "Do you want some?"
She's just offered me some of her un-fucking-believably unhealthy breakfast cereal which, when you think about it was actually pretty nice of her in the circumstances, even if eating crap like that would mean that I'd have even more of a struggle to get any sort of fitness back. I really am going to have to try and start again with her, she's going to be here for a few days at least and I know I behaved like a total arse yesterday and it wasn't her fault that I was so annoyed with my mother. Mum seems to see the wheelchair as some sort of evidence that I've regressed to being a child that needs help to run my life, but I had to bite my lip when I pictured the expression on her face if she could see me eating rubbish to please the home help.
"Haven't had coco-pops for bloody ages, mmm" Actually to tell the truth, I'd forgotten how good they do taste, mind you, I haven't had them since I was a kid staying in someone else's house, we didn't do sugar drenched goodies in our house, so I found myself smiling at her and she smiled back. Was it me that thought she was quite pretty yesterday? When she smiles like that she's very pretty, got the most amazing green eyes, so pretty that I was reminded that I haven't had any female company for a bloody lifetime, well except for nurses who moonlight as torturers, and even though she's far too young not to mention totally inappropriate.
"Look, Dawes, we seem to have got off on the wrong foot yesterday, so I think we should start again if we're going to live here together for a little while"
Bloody hell he's only apologising, well I think that's what he means, I can't be sure, but I was right about how he looks when he smiles. Mind, what the fuck is all this 'Dawes' crap? It might be something to do with him going to a posh school or being in the army, or some'ing, I dunno, but it actually sounds a bit like that Upstairs Downstairs, the one what's Nan's favourite, so maybe his family are sort of like that, got butlers and servants and all that crap, but I do find it a bit odd.
We spent quite a little while going over what I was s'posed to be doing, and he didn't seem to have any more of a clue than me, except for telling me that he don't like tea, only coffee and not the instant stuff I call coffee, and he calls muck. Well he's posh isn't he? Only drinks that Nespresso stuff what comes in them little capsule thingies, so I'm gonna have to buy some tea bags. Apart from that, he just shrugged and told me that I should do whatever I thought needed doing, like the beds 'n polishing 'n that but to keep things really tidy and to put things back where I found them.
I think he might have that OCT or OTD or whatever it is they call it when someone has to have everything put back in the same place and keep insisting that clean stuff is cleaned over and over. I wanted to ask him but I didn't want to get up his nose when he's obviously trying hard to be a bit nicer, so I'll carry on doing stuff that don't need doing and cleaning stuff that's not dirty, but I think I'll try and find a bookshop or whatever where I can get something I can actually enjoy reading otherwise I might end up going mental with boredom.
He give me some money to go shopping for food but said he weren't fussy when I asked him what he likes to eat, so that I was dead tempted to tell him I'd only buy stuff that wouldn't stink the place out, but I didn't cos I'm not sure of how much of a laugh he'd be up for.
-OG-
I think I might have judged her a bit harshly when I decided she was some sort of useless teenager that would want to be out binge drinking and clubbing every night, she left her book on the kitchen table when she went off to sort out my bedroom and bathroom and she's reading 'Catcher in the Rye' which I wouldn't have guessed would be to her taste at all. Just goes to show how you shouldn't judge on appearances or first impressions although I didn't even give her a chance to make a first impression before I made a judgement. Even her voice doesn't grate on me in quite the same way as it did yesterday, although she says stuff that leaves me needing a translator, but I'm not sure whether that's because it's some sort of cockney slang that I don't know or she's just making it up.
-OG-
He was out when I got back from the shops and he'd never said he was off out or where he was going, still I s'pose he doesn't have to it's none of my business, and then when he came back in he looked bleeding knackered and went off to his bed without saying anything much at all. In spite of his wheelchair and that nurse this morning I'd sort of forgot that he's only just out of hospital, but I remembered this afternoon when I put me head round the door to see what time he wanted dinner and saw that he was flat out asleep and so bloody pale that he looked like he was dead or something. I didn't know whether to wake him up or to let him sleep, I wasn't sure whether I should check if he was still breathing or not, or maybe get him a cuppa or something, but I don't know how to use that Nespresso thing so I just shut the door and went back to the front room and put the tele on. I was going to have another bash at me book, I'd decided not to buy something else till I've really given it me best shot, but there is only so much culture I can do in one day, so I watched 'Pointless' instead.
-OG-
I know I have to do these counselling sessions, the army bloody insisted as a condition of living out while I wait out to go into Headley for rehab but they really are exhausting. Dawes was back when the taxi dropped me off but it was all I could do to get on the bed and then almost pass out, I was so bloody tired. I know she came in at some point, or put her head round the door or something, but I couldn't even get up enough energy to open my eyes let alone speak to her.
It was the smell of something cooking that woke me up and I'd just realised that I was famished when she knocked and asked whether I was awake and decent before she came in and then asked whether I wanted to have supper in bed, which was really kind of her, especially when I consider what I was like yesterday. She pulled a bit of a face when she put the tray on the bed and I said my 'thank you speech' as she told me not to get too excited because she wasn't Nigella which made me laugh so I asked her if she'd like to get her tray and come and eat with me while we had a chat, only if she wanted to that is.
He looks a lot better now he's woken up, well a lot less like a corpse anyhow, and he was nice about the food I dished up, I wouldn't describe it as something I'd cooked exactly, more like something I'd heated up, but it tasted okay and he invited me to eat it with him, which was a lot more friendly than he was last night. I actually found it was quite easy to sit and chat with him, he isn't nearly as snotty as I thought he was, although it was a bit weird sitting next to a really fit looking bloke who's lying in bed but who's actually me boss, still …..
"Are you enjoying the book? You know, Catcher"
Oh shit, what the shitting hell is he talking about? I didn't know I was s'posed to enjoy it for fuck's sake, can't we change the subject, talk about the weather or some'ing?"
"Umm, well not really"
I didn't want to lie cos he might ask which bit I'd enjoyed the most, and I've started the bloody thing three times now and I still don't know what the fuck it's all about, which means I'm gonna look like a complete prannet when I can't answer him "I'm finding it a bit hard to get into to be honest"
"Why are you reading it then?"
"Dunno, thought I'd give it a go, didn't I?"
"I wouldn't bother if you're not enjoying it, what do you like to read?"
Oh shit, don't ask me questions like that, I don't think I've actually read a whole book since I was at school, and probably not even then, well apart from Bridget Jones and stuff and I can't say that can I? and as I never went to school if I could help it, I can't remember any of the names of anyone what wrote anything.
"Lots of stuff, what about you?"
-OG-
A/N: Thank you for your reviews, I had a lot of fun writing this and I really hope that people have fun reading it. Next update will be on Monday, (R/L gets in the way sometimes) so I hope everyone has a nice weekend. We've got a new puppy so I shall be spending the entire weekend following her around wiping up pee and poo! As CJ would say, 'lovely'