kitchen at the same time – and there wasn’t room for two
of you to cook – you couldn’t just hang out.
One can’t get to know a stranger from the
doorway of their bedroom, Ava.
It’s a shame.
We might have been good friends had architecture
allowed.
I was very nearly friends with the woman in TV.
She’d moved into the house just after me.
She had the worst room – just bigger than a cupboard
with a child’s bunkbed in,
illegal, obviously –
a five bed, rented at the price point of a six bed
with a little wink-nudge from the agent…
Might as well regress a little further, said the
woman in TV when she had viewed the room.
She was tall and would have been too long
for bunkbeds, but her rent was pretty cheap.
Not cheap-cheap Ava, but –
you know.
The day that she moved in, I helped her carry some
boxes and we chatted, got on well.
When she was done unpacking she asked me if I
fancied going for a pint.
She worked behind the scenes on dating shows –
production.
Fascinating all the stuff that goes on, Ava!
The casting, the cajoling, the controlling and the ‘villain
edit’ – what a notion!
Before the house share, this woman had been
dating a magician – imagine that!
His name on stage was Maestro Paul.
She hadn’t fancied him at first – long
leather coat, voice a little whiney – but he’d grown
on her,
or rather – hung around enough to end up present
one night when she was drunk and lonely – swooped
on in.
He worshipped her, would tell her she was
beautiful a hundred times a day,
