Bathrooms added willy-nilly making
bedrooms L-shaped, odd shaped, too small, too
awkward to fit anything but a bed,
even the little attic space, however steep or
strange the angle of the ceiling, is a bedroom now.
Glossy portfolio. Buy-to-let mortgage swinging
down the street,
and every house and flat, garage and loft
decorated with
NEUTRALITY and THRIFT
as their main guiding principles.
Oh, Ava!
These cursèd rooms,
they sap! they sap! they sap!
Goodlord
Doesn’t it depress you too? It should!
The separate flat was occupied by a couple
and their toddler and their baby. I don’t know how they
all fit down there – didn’t, I suppose.
There was a narrow corridor from the front door
that passed their flat and led upstairs to ours. They kept
their bikes out there.
Every day we edged around or climbed across
those bikes – oil smear on my new cream trousers,
plastic bag snagged on a pedal. Bashed shin, bashed
knee, bashed elbow…
I’ve never understood them, Ava – bicycles
past childhood. I’d hate to feel inferior
and sweaty on a road.
We didn’t complain.
They looked exhausted all the time,
also,
when we showered it rained a little in their flat –
I think that’s worse than climbing over bikes,
do you agree?
Our bit of house was on two floors.
There was a tiny kitchen but no living room, no
communal space – why have a lounge when you can fit
another bedroom in, eh, Ava?
Unless you happened to be in the
