Five ordinary streets protruded from the concrete central island of this roundabout, known as Manor Circle, a roundabout which loitered on that side of the Thames only ever discovered by accident. None of these streets contained anything resembling a manor. Chiltern Drive led to a chip shop and off-license, open when they weren’t needed and closed when they were. Sandal Road curved toward the train station, where tourists disembarked to visit the failing high street and purchase overpriced goods at half-stocked housewares shops. The Byeways contained a pub which on Saturdays doubled as a nightclub and closed monthly when the police had to investigate the latest stabbing. Berry Avenue wound around to Cahill University’s back entrance, which students never knew existed and so never used.
Caldwell Street led nowhere.
On either side of its buckling tarmac squatted semi-detached, three-story family homes purchased decades ago by young pregnant couples hoping to get in on the up-and-coming regeneration area of Moxley Gardens. The children had since been born and grown and were now sitting university exams while their aging parents continued waiting for Moxley Gardens to up, come, or regenerate. However, most of the Caldwell Street houses remained acceptable enough for a crowd with a certain ironic sensibility.
This was not the case with house number 215. The façade of number 215 sagged more than its neighbors. Damp warped the window frames. The fence leaned as far as a fence could without falling over. In fact, all that made number 215 special was that the weed-infested front garden had yet to be paved over for off-the-street parking. However, what made number 215 Caldwell Street a poor excuse for a family home made it a fantastic student house. (Until a fire of unknown origin would destroy it some years later, but we’re not there yet. Don’t jump ahead.)
Because of its proximity to the university and its excellent transport links to London (which were excellent so long as the weather was neither snowy, rainy, windy, nor sunny), number 215 held great appeal for students. Over three narrow floors it contained six bedrooms, one full bathroom, a downstairs toilet that sometimes worked, a spare room, a kitchen, and a communal front room. There was also a private back garden, lovely for barbecues except during the spring and summer when it was prone to flooding with sewage. The landlord had not set foot on the property since his wife left him and the mortgage fifteen years ago. He allowed it to be let and managed by Jameston Estate Agents, where it became the charge of a man called Yanni who no one was certain even worked there anymore. As the landlord chose not to remove any of the shit furniture his ex-wife had bought from her alcoholic brother, the house also came fully furnished. Over time, it filled with the various abandoned items of previous tenants, including but not limited to coffee pots, teakettles, three microwaves (one of which worked), a Learn Spanish Now! VHS tape, and a vinyl recording of the Grease soundtrack. No student was entirely sure what belonged in 215 Caldwell Street and what they would be required to bring, as Yanni was the only person with the move-in and move-out checklist and his coworkers were beginning to think immigration had returned him to Ukraine.
And yet every autumn, number 215 was fully let because the university kept attracting students and students needed a place to live. House shares were the ideal alternative for those who preferred private accommodation with no privacy and the constant odor of a pot-smoking wet dog. In return, letting agents loved students because students never complained when their door wouldn’t lock or the smoke detector didn’t work or there was something suspiciously close to a bloodstain smeared on the wall of bedroom 2. As long as they had running water and a working microwave, they would chalk anything else up to life experience before returning to the ever-providing arms of the family unit following May exams. The cycle would continue and by September, six new young adults would claim 215 Caldwell Street as their own, pretending its faults were charms as they suffered within its walls.
The beginning of the end of communal living at house number 215 began in the afternoon of that one particular September day when a Ford Escort bumped against the curb and rattled to a stop. The engine wheezed and a clicking under the bonnet continued as the car wound down.
“This it then? Hollis. Hollis!”
His mum elbowed him in the side. Hollis jerked awake, grabbing his knapsack before it slipped to the gum-encrusted floor. He glanced out of the window, confused as to why trees were no longer passing in a blur.
“This it?” he asked, sitting up.
“What I asked you, innit?” She lit a cigarette, and Hollis held out his hand. “Where are yours?”
Smashed in the back pocket of my jeans, he thought, and flung open the car door. His mum popped the boot, and he gave it the extra thump it needed to open. He withdrew his canvas duffel and the cheap pink polyethylene zip bags Gran had given him, which he would torch as soon as possible.
“Hurry it up, love.” The cigarette dangled from her lips as she grabbed a plastic Tesco bag from behind her seat. Caldwell Street, number 215, his home for the next nine months, looked as dumpy as the letting agency had warned. A good lick of paint could’ve at least brightened it a bit, but whether or not the house wanted to be brightened was another matter.
Hollis unlocked the chipped green front door as his mother lagged behind.
“Don’t understand why you couldn’t have gone to the polytechnic like your brother. Good enough for him, and your father.” She wheezed, out of breath from the short walk.
“Dunno.” Hollis stepped into the darkened hall. “Hello?” No one answered.
“This is nice,” she said as she waddled ahead of him. “Look at this front room. Bigger than Gran’s. Where’s the kitchen? Never mind. I see it.” She continued down the narrow hallway. “And there’s a garden! Didn’t tell us ’bout the garden, did you, Hollis? Could do with a bit of work. Wonder if they’d let you do some DIY in exchange for rent?”
Hollis went upstairs. A musty smell emanated from the carpeted staircase, and a layer of sticky black dust clung to the banister. He couldn’t blame the letting agency, though. They hadn’t actually promised it would be professionally cleaned, only hinted that it might be.
Each bedroom came with its own lock, but the agent hadn’t known which key went to what door and had handed Hollis one at random from a Quaker Oats box. Hollis’s key opened bedroom 6 on the third floor—a square white box with yellow patches on the ceiling and hardened Blu Tack marring the walls. On one side, a wardrobe took up half a wall and half the floor space. On the other, a thin pillow and even thinner duvet were spread across a simple box spring bed. Hollis dropped his knapsack and looked out onto the overgrown garden, where he saw his mum repositioning the mismatched furniture to mimic the arrangement they had at Gran’s. He tapped on the glass. She didn’t hear him.
After carrying up the pink bags, he wandered into the narrow kitchen as she came in from the garden.
“Nice place this,” she said. “Could be real nice. When are the others coming?”
“Dunno. Today or tomorrow. Freshers’ Week starts Monday.”
“You ain’t no Fresher, are you?” She winked.
“Technically, suppose I am.” A red splotch stained a square of brown floor tile. Dried bolognese, he hoped.
“None of that now. Chin up.” She straightened his shoulders and lifted his head. “That other place weren’t good enough for you. Didn’t respect you, did they? You’ll be good here. Better.”