TWENTY

Stephanie waited in her room for over an hour but Ryan didn’t call. Eventually she phoned him.

‘Thanks for calling,’ she said when he picked up.

‘Steph, you OK?’

She remained silent for a few seconds. The sound of his voice brought a lump to her throat. ‘Not really.’

‘What’s going on? Your message worried me.’

But not that much.

She looked at the door; beyond her room the house was having one of its quiet periods. ‘I’m in a bind. A real bind here. Look . . . I’m sorry, how are things with you?’

‘All right. You know, still doing the night shifts. Contract, but it’s still work . . .’ He said other things but she found herself unable to pay attention; she was too engaged with trying to work out how to explain her situation to him. He finished what he had been saying with, ‘You? Workwise?’

‘Bits and pieces. Shit mostly. Nothing changed there.’

‘So what’s this mistake?’

‘This house. This . . . place that I’m staying in . . .’ She kept her narrative to details about Knacker being ‘unstable’, and things of that nature: the deposit he would not return, her parlous financial state, the missing bank card, and her need to move out fast. And though some of Ryan’s old protectiveness towards her reappeared, she was disappointed that he didn’t immediately offer money; at one time he would have done so, confident that she was good for a loan, that she was not dishonest and hated dishonesty. With the little bit of money her dad left her, she had also helped him by covering the deposit and a few months’ rent on their first place together. Had he forgotten? She’d never asked him for anything else, besides to let her go, and repeatedly during the last three months of their time together.

He must suspect that if she was calling him she had no one else to turn to. But if she wasn’t mistaken Ryan’s voice was different now: quieter, less tight with emotion, as it had been whenever they’d spoken closer to the time of their split. She also intuited a wariness because she had made contact with him. How things change. ‘You’re seeing someone?’ she blurted.

He went quiet for at least three seconds. ‘Yeah.’

It hurt, but only as a residual instinctive jealousy, as an infuriating sense of proprietorship over someone you didn’t want to be with anymore. Though she’d never stopped loving Ryan, she didn’t want him back. Not long ago, she’d even prayed he would meet someone else. All the same, she couldn’t prevent her ego getting mixed up in his romantic affairs, particularly now she needed his help.

‘Steph, can you blame me? I mean, you broke up with me.’

‘I’m fine. Totally fine with it. I thought you might be anyway.’

‘You?’ he said, and his voice tensed as he entertained that thought.

‘Few one night stands and a gangbang but nothing serious.’ He knew this was not true, but Stephanie sensed a bristling from his side of the phone. ‘I’m joking. There’s been no one. It’s not something I even think about.’ At least that was the truth. ‘Hardly a priority in my current situation.’

‘Good,’ he said too quickly to have thought out his response.

‘But I need to get out of here and you’ve already answered my question. I’m sorry I bothered you.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘I’m not being like anything. I only thought . . . wondered if I could crash at yours until I can save a deposit on a room. But that would be complicated.’

‘Steph, you know I would help you out. No question. But things are tight here.’

She hadn’t asked him for money.

‘We’re saving too,’ he added.

‘Don’t tell me you live together? You’ve only just met her.’ She wished she could take it back and hated herself for wanting to hurt him. In her mind she’d built Ryan into a guaranteed escape route – albeit an unwise one fraught with emotional attrition. But she now had one less safety net; the call confirmed it and the idea made her feel limp. Thank God she hadn’t fled to him after her first night at the house, loaded down with bags. It would have been awful. But worse than this?

‘Sometimes you just know,’ he said, his tone subdued by a combination of sullenness and passive antagonism she remembered only too well.

This was going nowhere. ‘Sure. Look, I better get off. I need the credit on my phone to look for rooms.’ Her voice was starting to break, which would only get worse the longer she stayed on the line.

No, wait, don’t go. I’ll call you back. He used to say things like that all the time, but they were way past all that now. Instead, he said, ‘Try Joanie. Or Philippa. Bekka.’ And that really sobered her.

‘They’re in Stoke. I’m not going back there.’ I’m never going back near her: near Val.

For Ryan to even suggest she return to her home town was another example of him no longer truly thinking about her. Or even worse, no longer caring about her much. They were truly moving on and forgetting each other.

‘You’ll be all right,’ he said, and sounded relieved the conversation was closing. ‘You’re a clever girl, Steph. Don’t need me to tell you that. Something will turn up.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about. In my fucking room.’

‘What? This bastard landlord trying it on with you?’

‘No.’ Not yet. ‘Look, I wouldn’t have called if I wasn’t desperate.’

‘Cheers.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. But . . . No one would believe me. This house.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘It’s not right. It’s all wrong. There’s people . . . girls who keep talking and crying, but I don’t know if they are there. I can’t find them.’

‘What?’

Stephanie began to cry. She sniffed. ‘Things are going on here.’

‘What things?’

‘I don’t know. Someone was in my room, Ryan. My room!’

‘What? Where is this place?’

‘Edgehill Road. I can’t stay here.’

‘What number?’

‘Eighty-two. Can you help, please?’

‘But who was in your room? I don’t understand.’

‘They weren’t there when I switched the light on. In the bathroom . . . another one . . . a voice. Everything is wrong.’

‘What? Are you saying—’

The credit on her phone ran out with a bleep and it took all of her scant composure to resist throwing the handset against the wall.

She bit down on a stream of curses before they left her mouth – obscenities that would have made her feel even more desperate – just as someone announced themselves with three playful raps on the door.