‘Me neither.’ I steal a tissue to wipe my face, too. ‘I didn’t think I’d be this emotional. It’s so pathetic, I hate crying! I always promised myself I wouldn’t cry.’
‘Well’ – Lou takes a deep breath – ‘today is a big day. A really special day. I think it’s OK to feel emotional. It’s been such a long time coming.’
I give her another hug, and when we pull away, we look at each other, smiling brightly, our eyes shiny and wet.
‘Love you, Esther,’ she says softly and another tear rolls down my cheek.
‘You, too, Louise,’ I whisper.
‘OK, SHITTER’S DONE,’ the plumber yells from inside the bathroom and we shout a simultaneous ‘HURRAH’.Neither of us can believe it’s taken all these years to get the loo fixed properly. By a real professional plumber and not by the landlord’s incompetent son-in-law. No wonder we’re both so emotional.
‘Can we see?’ The two of us cram into the doorway and coo as the plumber stares at the ceiling, looking bored. ‘It’s amazing! There’s no water around the rim!’ I speak in awed tones. ‘Can I flush it? It won’t overflow?’ The plumber screws up his face at my question.
‘Of course it won’t overflow, what am I, a fucking idiot? It was an easy fix.’
‘Wowwwww!’ I say, stepping forward to test the handle.
‘Hold on!’ Lou sounds fearful. ‘I’m going to step back. I don’t want to mess up my dress if it does spray water or something.’
‘Good idea,’ I agree reverentially. Louise has got a new job as a – wait for it – magician’s assistant. Perfect, right? She absolutely loves it and has an incred outfit to wear. She reckons Great-Uncle Merton helped her get the job, but I think she’s confusing ghosts with magic. It’s a year-long contract and she’ll be touring all over the country with the show. She’s thrilled. She gets all the buzz of being on stage in front of an audience, and doesn’t actually have to act. Which is handy really, because it turns out she is pretty shit at acting. She finally got a one-line job onCasualtyrecently and when it aired, they’d cut her face out. You could just hear her off-screen, shouting, ‘Someone ring 999!’ And even off-screen she somehow managed to be utterly unconvincing. Eitherway, she’s happy and the new job is giving her loads of roleplay fodder for bedroom time with Sven.
The plumber huffs angrily and crosses his arms. ‘It won’t fucking spray water. What toilet sprays water across the room?’
We both eye him. ‘We’ve been through a hell of a lot with this toilet, mate,’ I tell him calmly. He has no idea.
The door bangs. ‘Girls?’ Sofia’s voice echoes in from the hallway.
‘We’re in the toilet!’ I yell back. ‘With the plumber.’
‘Filming pornography, are we?’ She peers round the door and nods at the gruff plumber.
‘Oh, I’ve never heard that one before,’ he says, rolling his eyes. ‘Now, who’s paying me?’ the loo-saver grunts as Lou and I exchange looks. The landlord is not going to screw us again, is he? He promised he’d be here to sort out the invoice.
‘He’s outside.’ Sofia catches our worried glance. ‘I just passed him. He’s screaming at someone on the phone.’ I raise my eyebrows. Of course he is. He’ll be punishing another poor tenant who pays the earth to live in one of his many London hovels.
‘I’ll go,’ I volunteer bravely, giving Sofia a quick smile as I pass. She’s here a lot these days, it’s nice. Especially with Bibi gone.
I fling open the front door. ‘Mr Whittle?’ I enquire, nervously.
‘WAIT!’ One hand is on the phone and the other comes up in front of my face, palm up. He continues shrieking into thephone for a minute while I hop from foot to foot, freezing my butt off out here without my coat.
After a minute, I try again. ‘Mr Whittle, the plumber is inside and he’s waiting to—’
‘Just SHUT UP,’ he spits in my face, yellow teeth flashing. ‘I’m speaking to a tenant and you’re being disrespectful.’
I’mbeing disrespectful? I AM?
‘You’reshoutingat a tenant actually,’ I say furiously. ‘Just like you do with all of us. You’re abully, Mr Whittle, and I’ve really had enough of it.’ I’m yelling all of a sudden. ‘Just because you’re the landlord, you think you have all the power. But we have rights, y’know? We’ve put up with a lot of shit from you over the years, and we’ve always been good tenants. We pay our rent – the rent you put up every year! – and we pay the bills. You don’t get to treat us with such disdain! I bet if we called up all your tenants, they’d say the same.’
‘How DARE y—’ Mr Whittle’s chest expands to twice its usual size as he steps into my personal space. But his rant is stopped in its tracks by Sofia and Ivan appearing from nowhere. With a dancer’s light step, Sofia is suddenly in front of me. ‘Step back,monsieur!’ She draws herself up to her full five-ten, towering over the puffed-up Mr Whittle. He quivers. ‘We will find not only all your other tenants,’ she threatens, her eyes flashing as she gets in his face, ‘but Ivan and I will both join the complaint. There are rules in place to stop tiny pricks like you taking advantage of the housing crisis. You will face sanctions, sir! We all know the roof is fullof asbestos and we say nothing. If we choose to complain, it will cost you thousands.’
Ivan joins her, another body between us. ‘And we know the electrics aren’t up to code. Or the pipes. You’d be buggered, mate. Better start getting your act together around here.’
Whittle looks shocked at this. Tenants uniting together to help one another? This is his worst nightmare. The horror!
I step forward. ‘Go pay our plumber for finally fixing the toilet, Mr Whittle. Oh, and that bloody yellow damp on my bedroom ceiling is going to be sorted as well, isn’t it?’ His face darkens so I add a killer blow. ‘Because’ – I pause super dramatically – ‘Bibi might be moving out, but Iwillsend her after you if I need to. Believe me when I say she has taken down bigger pricks than you.’ I don’t mention the time she threatened a man with a knife. We currently have the higher ground; I wouldn’t want to blow it.
He pales at the mention of Bibi’s name – as he should.
