Seedling 24: Homebound
Weak sunshine was peeking through as my train closed in on Tottenham Hale. The Stansted Express was eerily quiet on this holiday morning and I stretched myself sideways, head against the glass, watching the morning dew dappled and shimmering in the morning’s rays on grassy fields as we whizzed by. I snoozed for about ten minutes but had gone nearly the whole distance without remembering to restart my mobile, here, back on UK soil. I pulled it out of my inside pocket and powered up; it came back with a few notifications on our rota software. Nothing had changed on my work schedule, per se, but there was a ‘somm team meeting’ now pencilled in for Thursday at two p.m. I didn’t think much about it, all of my being was focused on getting back to Stockwell and sleeping another good four or five hours.
‘Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass and I’m homebound…’
I’d only just entered the front door when I heard The DJ warbling away, upstairs. I’ll admit, I never thought I’d hear decades old Vanessa Carlton broadcast over his speakers, and as far as his singing - well. Don’t bum any cigarettes.
His door opened and the sound transferred from his speakers to his mobile, as he skipped across the top landing and started down the stairs. I was getting a bottle of water from the fridge when he tumbled in, the music now streaming from his left palm.
If I could fall into the sky
Do you think time would pass me by?
Cause you know I would walk a thousand miles…
‘Oh hey, Mate. You alright?’ The DJ was non-plussed by my presence, shirtless and wearing track pants. In spite of the many jars of creatine teetering on top the icebox, he was pretty scrawny, but with subtly slate-like pecs and a linked, flat stomach. He scratched away at his chest, then pushed past me to grab three chocolate puddings from the top shelf of the refrigerator. And without waiting for my response, he was making his way upstairs while Vanessa Carlton was, again, making her way downtown, the volume shifting back over the the child-size speakers in his room. The door slammed.
*
I slept like a rock.
That’s not an every day occurence for me. The older I get, the more I think I’m inheriting the sleepless gene that tortures Colm, Daniel and my Mum. But, I usually get in a very long snooze after the Derry/London trip. Flight goes out at 6:45AM, so I’m up at three or three-thirty the morning I travel.
When I rolled over and grabbed my mobile it was two in the afternoon. More than time for lunch. I sat up in bed and pulled my mac from the side table. But when I opened it, the laptop didn’t power up; it’d gone dead. There was no juice whatsoever. I leaned over and grabbed the cord, lightly jiggling it and following its journey to the socket - was plugged in, all right.
‘What the Fuck?! This is a brand new cord!’
Every bone in my body had the urge to break something, but considering I had only electronic devices in my immediate vicinity, I instead took a deep breath, threw the covers off of me, and pulled on flannel bottoms and a sweatshirt.
Fucking cold in here…
The DJ’s room was quiet, but I could hear The Geisha mumbling away behind his/her door as I crossed the landing and went down to the kitchen. I clicked on the electric kettle and pulled my eggs from my (named and marked in gaffer tape) shelf. Pan down, burner on, eggs in process. I was pushing the scramble around a bit mindlessly when I heard The Geisha slowly ambling down the stairs.
‘Paul..’
I turned from the cooker, spatula in hand.
‘Paul, do you have any electricity?’
My eyes narrowed for a moment. Did I? Without answering, I went to the kettle and turned it on and off. It didn’t react. It had never boiled.
‘Apparently not, no’.
‘What in the world…’, The Geisha shuffled over to the hallway closet, opened the door and looked at the meter. ‘Well what in the world…. the ‘pay as you go’ is at zero, again!’ He/she said indignantly. I moved my eggs off the burner and walked over. It was, indeed, at zero.
‘Is that normal?’ I honestly didn’t know how long a top-up lasted. This was the first place I’d lived that had a pay-as-you-go(PAYG) meter. I didn’t even know they existed. The Geisha said it wasn’t the cheapest way to go but made it easier to collect each flatmate’s share of the electric bill.
‘No, it’s most certainly not! I’ve never had a card go out this quickly. We should have two more weeks, at least.’
‘Well, I wasn’t even here for the last week, so I don’t know what’s happened’. I turned for the kitchen and stopped. I’d neglected to notice the long line of the DJ’s wet clothes piled up on top of the downstairs radiators, but now it stood like a gigantic wall in front of my face. I crossed to the thermostat by the front entrance. ‘This might have something to do with it,’ I said. The dial was set at 28º C. The Geisha came over.
‘What in the world…’
I pointed to The D.J.’s indoor clothesline and then went into the kitchen to boil some water in a pan for coffee. I didn’t have the patience to stand there and watch The Geisha do the math on how the laundry, cranked electric heat and empty PAYG card were related.