10
Harriet awoke early to the unwelcome sound of water spattering on the Velux window in Jonathan’s spare room on Saturday, and by the time she was on the M62, it was a wipers-on-full-speed-setting powerful, pavement-rinsing downpour. It was the kind of rain from a slate-grey sky that had fully settled in for the day and might think about easing off by the evening, if you were good. She had a longer journey than usual to the Radisson Blu in Manchester, and Harriet prayed the marrying couple, Rhian and Al, would laugh the inconvenience off.
Hopes of such resilience were dashed as she was shown into the spacious bridal suite. Rhian was starfished and sobbing, face down on the bed, still in her tartan flannel pyjamas, her mum anxiously holding her hair back so that the expensively salon-glossed curls didn’t get mussed. The make-up artist was solemnly unpacking her kit for a second time, accepting her previous efforts had been for naught.
‘This is a storm to bring the bones of the lepers up,’ Rhian’s Nana Pat said, who, it must be said, wasn’t helping. Nana Pat seemed very much a woman to embrace any misfortune.
‘Godssake, Mum!’ Rhian’s mother Lynn mouthed at her furiously, making a zipping-lips gesture, at which Nana Pat shrugged and returned to sipping what turned out to be Harvey’s Bristol Cream in a teacup.
‘It’s like … calming app rain, the sleep app rain,’ Rhian said, lifting her face briefly from the duvet, before resuming her howling.
Harriet thought better than to say, ‘that’s ironic,’ and busied herself taking photographs of the gauzy sparkled bridal gown on its hanger. When she was done, Lynn discreetly suggested she leave them alone while she talked Rhian round. ‘If she doesn’t pull herself together soon it’s thirty-five grand up the chute.’
Harriet never said this, obviously, but so many weddings seemed to come with such dizzyingly elevated hopes of being a Hashtag Perfect Day that they could only end in squabbling and misery. Not only did being a Mrs Someone not appeal to her, she didn’t want the stress. Harriet had once seen a couple have a meltdown over whether their personalised coasters were round or square. By the time you were bellowing THE TILE SHAPE LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING FROM A GREENE KING PUB, YOU TWAT! at your furious fiancé, you’d drifted quite a long way from the point of it all.
Harriet ended up outside in the hotel reception’s grand stone entranceway, eating a hash brown roll wrapped in a paper napkin with the three bridesmaids. They observed the monsoon in the dry, from only an arm’s length’s distance, as if they were under a waterfall.
Hollie, Katie and Jo had foam rollers on their heads, and strong Yorkshire accents. They were smoking Marlboro Lights held aloft in French manicured hands, hotel dressing gowns thrown over the stretchy flesh-coloured tubing that provided the foundation for today’s outfits, fluffy slippers on their feet. Harriet always liked the ‘chrysalis to butterfly’ of the preparations, and the trio cheerfully agreed to a snap in an archway, the torrent as background, as if they were still in wardrobe on the set of a dramatic music video. Harriet might not desire a wedding herself, but she still loved photographing people who did enjoy them.
‘I know she’s raging that her tarot reader told her she should choose today,’ said Hollie, flicking ash on to the ground. ‘But it’s fuckin’ Manchester? What are the chances? Not a million to one, is it? If you’re this bothered about rain, go abroad?’
Harriet thought this was a fair point, and that it was also terrible luck to have stumbled on to an unreliable tarot reader. You should always check a tarot reader was professionally quality accredited in their field before taking their advice. Otherwise you could so easily end up with any old fraud with a pack of cards and a silk turban they bought off eBay, making stuff up for money. She made a mental note to tell Lorna this, and realised she’d never made mental notes to tell Jon funny things. He’d have completely missed the point, slow blinked and said: ‘Are there validated tarot readers?’
‘She did look at Cyprus but her Nana Pat wouldn’t travel any further than Manchester, she wouldn’t even come to Harrogate because she doesn’t like the food,’ said Jo. Ha. Nana Pat being the architect of this chaos felt about right. Plus, it was the first Harriet had heard of a Harrogate cuisine.
‘You’ve just got to get on with it, haven’t you?’ said Katie. ‘My cousin got a stress rash on her neck on the day so bad that she had to wear a bolero jacket over a strapless Marchesa dress, and she’d had her tits done specially. Total waste.’
‘Not a total waste. The same tits went on the honeymoon,’ Jo said, stubbing her fag out, and Harriet was so taken with their sorority, she almost wished she smoked. Imagine if she had married Jon. Country house hotel. Lorna looking resigned yet dejected in her bridesmaid dress, Roxy preening delightedly in hers. Jon, in a cravat and in his element. It wasn’t a kindness to accept a proposal from someone you weren’t in love with, however much rejection felt like wanton cruelty.
‘Are you married, Harriet?’ said Hollie, pleasantly.
‘No, and I dumped my long-term boyfriend last weekend. I’m living in his spare room.’
‘Oh that’s minging, sorry,’ Hollie said. ‘There’s eight ushers today though, so plenty to go around, hahahaha.’
Oh, God. Harriet had forgot Al was a madcap-lad groom, no doubt she’d have to do an ushers’ ‘squad strut’ photo with Peroni bottles. There was a lot to be said for the calm and order of unpopular introverts.
‘Do not touch Bruce, whatever you do,’ Jo said. ‘Awful in bed, like riding a mechanical bull.’
‘So gorgeous he doesn’t think he has to try, that’s why,’ Hollie said. ‘Also avoid Batley Chris.’
‘Why is he called Batley Chris?’
‘The other Chris isn’t from Batley,’ Jo said.
‘No Bruce, or Chrises from Batley,’ Harriet agreed.
‘Right, do we reckon she’s rallied?’ Katie said. ‘Let’s get a bottle of bubbles from the bar and take it up. She needs to be told it doesn’t matter if it’s shitting it down, the human spirit is bigger than this.’
‘Yes!’ said Hollie. ‘We’ll do a pre-show prayer huddle with her. Time to find her Sasha Fierce.’
‘See you there,’ Harriet said. Were these three always this entertaining? She’d like to book them for funerals.
Harriet feared the worst in the bridal suite, heading back with camera lowered in anticipation, but moments later Lynn threw the door open to her with a grit-teeth smile, and made a fingers-crossed signal in front of her body.
Inside the suite, a composed Rhian in a towelling robe was sat daintily drinking a V&T through a straw as the make-up artist primped at her repaired face with a tiny brush and ‘We Found Love’ pumped away motivationally in the background.
Apparently, an encouraging FaceTime with the groom, a stiff drink and some Rihanna on the stereo had done wonders, her mum explained, under her breath.
‘Knock knock,’ Hollie called from the hallway and then she, Jo and Katie conga-danced into the room, to much squealing delight from the bride. ‘Turn the music UP! We found love IN A RAINY PLACE!’
Lynn gamely joined the conga and Harriet tried to get a few photos, though she doubted they’d win any awards.
‘C’mon, Nana Pat!’ Katie shrieked, and hoisted her unsteadily to her feet. ‘And you, Harriet! Put the camera down!’
Harriet consented to join the back of a conga that did two awkward laps of the bed and went into the bathroom before realising they couldn’t execute a turn and backed out again, Hollie yelling in automated voice: ‘THIS VEHICLE, IS REVERSING.’
As they disbanded, Nana Pat announced: ‘If one of us falls here we all go down like ninepins. That’s what took my friend Oonagh’s husband, Roy Plomley.’
‘A conga line?’ Harriet said.
‘A fall!’
‘Mum, can you try to think positive, please?’ Lynn hissed and Pat said: ‘There’s nothing positive about the way he went, they removed the feeding tube.’
Nana Pat aside, the mood seemed to have swung wildly upwards.
‘Thanks for bearing with us,’ Lynn said to Harriet. ‘Sorry for this fuss. You must’ve seen it all by now?’
‘Every wedding is unique,’ Harriet said, smiling. ‘This is uniquer than most.’
The strangest thing about her job is how you had an intense, access-all-areas pass to a stranger’s world, this tiny, intimate snapshot of lives-in-progress at a crucial point. Then you never saw them again.
It was quite bittersweet, in a way.
She could probably forego the pleasure of tons more Nana Pat, though.
During the second, and what she feared wouldn’t be the last, conga line of the day, Harriet saw her phone flashing with a call from Roxy and excused herself into the corridor – away from the decibels of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ – to answer it. The bridesmaids had made alcoholic lemonade from lemons.
‘Have I got a house for you!’
‘Have you?’
‘New listing today. Proper beautiful semi in Meanwood, a quiet street, one of my faves. It’s a very reasonable rent because he’s looking to fill the room quickly, and you should see your en suite bedroom and the garden.’
‘… My en suite …?’
‘But call him now, absolutely NOW, to arrange your visit! It’ll go in a heartbeat when I put it online in an hour.’
Harriet’s heart sank. She’d instructed Roxy she’d rather have a place to herself, even though she knew the outgoings would be punishing. Hell is other people. In usual Roxy fashion, she’d listened, discarded this information as burdensome and ploughed on with her better ideas.
‘He? The other tenant’s a man?’
‘It’s the twenty-first century. Men can be people too. Plus you’ve got an en suite. No bathroom sharing. That is key to housemate harmony, in my professional opinion.’
‘Why’s he looking to fill the room fast?’
‘Apparently there were problems with the last one, so he booted him and wants someone in ASAP. Can’t have it empty because his mortgage is a bitch, I’m guessing.’
‘The other occupant is also the landlord?’
‘Yeah, he owns it.’
‘Why did he buy a house that’s too big for him?’
‘Harriet, I am the letting agent, not his official biographer.’
Living with her own landlord? What could be more appealing? He’d be having cold rage fits at every coffee cup ring.
Harriet thanked Roxy for her discovery, thinking it’d be easier to deter her via messaging, and rang off. Her WhatsApp pinged with a set of photos. She leaned against the wall of the corridor and clicked through them, as the champagne-laced squawking continued in the bridal suite.
Alright, it was lovely. Aesthetic splendour was not a thing Harriet expected or wanted in her stopgap rental, and she was surprised to be so carried away by it.
The semi was the end of a row, a handsome box in proper old Yorkshire grey stone, covered in Virginia creeper. The door was a vibrant glossy orange. The interiors were an exercise in discreet peacockery – lots of dramatic yet dusty wall colours, fashionable appliances and potted palms. Lorna would approve.
Not to stereotype, but if this was a straight man, he was one with an arty design job. Harriet had never known one who’d choose a Coca-Cola red Smeg fridge, or the star pendant light in the front room, or the sleigh bed in the master bedroom.
The garden was abundant with roses and there was a swing seat at the far end. Off to the side, a long picnic table had a canopy of fairy lights strung above it. Every setting implored you to fill it. It said Insert Your Life Here. Not that Harriet had much of one.
Damn you, Roxy. She’d found something that was nothing like the brief and somehow exactly what Harriet wanted.
Another ping. A business card for a ‘Cal Clarke’ and a text.
Seriously H call him because I fully expect this to disappear in the blink of an eye. Check out the master suite bathroom. I want a copper bath, a chandelier and that blue-black paint
Actually that’d been the only element of the décor to give Harriet pause. It was chic but also a bit ‘sex people.’ That said, she’d not be using his quarters. As long as he didn’t have sex in it too loudly.
Sod it, she’d ring Mr Cal Clarke, she’d find out he somehow had seven informal visits lined up for Monday already and it’d not be worth being the eighth, and that’d be that. She didn’t want to ignore Roxy’s find as she could be petulant as well as impetuous – she might take it badly if Harriet didn’t follow it up.
A youthful, confident-sounding man answered after two rings.
‘Hello, this is Cal.’
‘Hi I’m Harriet Hatley. I’m interested in the room you’re letting and wonder if I could make an appointment at the start of next week to view it?’
Was there anything worse than cold calling a stranger?
‘Oh, hi. That was fast! The ad’s not even live yet, is it?’
Harriet squirmed and hummed and ahhed noncommittally. She had a very different constitution to Roxy.
‘I’m busy Monday and Tuesday with work, actually. I’ve got something on Wednesday, too. I should’ve thought of this when I chucked the listing up, shouldn’t I?’
‘Ah OK. Maybe Thursday?’
‘Thursday is … sod it, do you know, I’ve got to be honest, I hate this rigmarole. The last guy spent an hour chatting on my sofa and got through two cups of builder’s and a flapjack, and I still failed to spot the fact he was a loon. We could just do this on the phone, now?’
‘OK … I haven’t seen the house?’
‘You’ve got the link?’
‘Yep.’
‘That’s pretty much the deal. Fully furnished. There’s no rising damp or car up on bricks we manoeuvred the photos around, it’s a nice-looking place in good nick. You’ve got the second bedroom with an en suite, and I work long hours so I won’t be competing with you for the kitchen much either. Rent is bills included and that covers the cleaner too.’
Ooh. Financially, Harriet couldn’t fault it. It would be nice to have spare income …
‘That’s very fair. What do you do for a living?’
‘I’m a politics reporter for the Yorkshire Post.’
‘Oh!’ With that information, Harriet’s most basic sort of apprehensiveness at having not met this Cal faded away. Not only did she stereotype men who could do interiors well as gay, it seemed she also stereotyped males doing white-collar, respectable-sounding jobs as Not Murderers. As if there was any solid precedent for thinking that. What was a murder-ey job, anyway?
A pause. ‘What’s that noise?’ Cal said, as the hens clattered loudly past the suite door shrieking harmonies to Calvin Harris.
‘Oh, I’m a photographer.’ Harriet moved slightly further down the corridor. She had no idea why she spontaneously omitted the ‘wedding’, that was an air and grace she’d had at the start of her career – ‘I don’t want to be pigeonholed!’ – that she’d long ago dispensed with. Maybe because Cal was quite well-spoken, and she felt Yorkshire-accented-common.
‘Right. That must be … fun?’
‘On and off,’ said Harriet, conscious that he could probably now make out the offstage lusty shouting along to Guns N’ Roses ‘November Rain’.
‘How old are you, if that’s not an impolite question?’ Cal said, and Harriet felt sure this was because he could overhear it. ‘Only I’m thinking if you’re twenty-four, your “having parties” interest might be higher than mine at thirty-two and we’re probably best off knowing that upfront.’
‘An ancient thirty-four and anti-social as hell, to be honest.’
‘Brilliant news. So, to summarise, you’re not a guy, so that’s got to be a head start. You’re a thirty-four-year-old loner. Have you got a habit of walking around completely naked, and watching SNL clips at ear-splitting volume on your laptop? And not even the good ones. The weird ones where the studio audience are all having heart attacks laughing and you’re too British to work out what could possibly be that funny.’
Harriet smiled into her handset.
‘None of that sounds like me.’
‘And final question, sorry to be indelicate but I’ve got some PTSD to manage. Do you have a habit of using the downstairs loo with the door open?’
Harriet laughed. ‘No. Oh God. Does anyone really do that in a shared house?’
‘It turns out they do. And he had the en suite, the animal.’
Harriet guffawed again.
‘So, unless there’s anything else you want to ask me, the room’s yours, if you want it,’ Cal concluded.
Harriet felt unprepared for this. Not only could she not think of a reason to refuse, more importantly, she couldn’t think how she’d phrase refusal. ‘I’ll think about it’ would sound pompous and, from what little she could tell of the nature of Cal Clarke and the terms of this impromptu offer, would result in a polite yet firm farewell.
‘Yes, thank you. I will take it.’
They agreed to the sending and signing of a six-month contract and moving in next weekend. Harriet rang off not knowing whether to feel exhilarated at being so decisive, or slightly idiotic at being hustled into it, and settled on both.