enough to run out of teabags was enough to cause a heightened state of anxiety; I’m very good at the self-blame thing. If I went out to buy teabags, I would not be able to check the house properly because it wasn’t an even-numbered day today. I might be able to get teabags and bring them back to the house, but in the meantime someone could have broken in, and would be waiting for me to return.
I spent more than an hour fretting over which was the worst of the two options—which rule was the more important? In order to try to get the images out of my head, I checked the flat several times, each time getting it slightly wrong. The more times I did it, the more tired I was getting. Sometimes I get stuck like this. Eventually I physically can’t check anymore.
And a small, small voice of reason at the back of my head, trying to be heard above the cacophony of self-reproach, was screaming this is not normal.
By a quarter to ten, I was scrunched into a corner, a small tight knot on the verge of self-destruction, when I heard it—the sound of the front door being closed—properly—and footsteps on the stairs.
Before I had a chance to think, I saw a way of escape. If I couldn’t buy teabags, maybe I could borrow them . . .
The footsteps passed my door and continued upstairs to the top flat. I waited for a moment, rubbing my cheeks to get rid of the tears, dragging my fingers through my hair. There was no time to check the flat. The front door wasn’t unlocked; I’d heard him shut it, I’d definitely heard him shut it. I would have to just go.
Taking my door key, and locking the flat just once, checking it just once, I went up the stairs, pausing outside his front door. I’d never been up here before. There was a window on the landing, but no other light. I looked down the stairs. I could just about see my own door. I knocked, listening to the silence and then the footsteps on the other side.
When he opened the door, I jumped a little. Everything sounded so loud.
He had a nice smile. “Hi,” he said. “You okay?”
“Yes. I wondered if you have any teabags. That I could borrow. I mean, have. I’ve run out.”
He gave me a curious look. I was trying so hard to look normal but I must have been giving off desperation out of every pore.
“Sure,” he said. “Come on in.”
He held the door open and retreated into the flat, leaving me standing on the doorstep watching his back. In normal circumstances I would rather have died than follow a stranger into an enclosed space, but these weren’t normal circumstances, and if I was to get teabags by ten o’clock I would have to do it.
At the end of the long hallway was the kitchen, which I worked out was directly over my bedroom. No wonder those Chinese students had kept me awake with their party, I thought. Three shopping bags were on the kitchen table and he was rooting around in them.
“I just bought tea—ran out myself yesterday. I’m Stuart, by the way. Stuart Richardson. Just moved in.”
He offered me his hand, and I shook it, with the brightest smile I could conjure up. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Cathy Bailey. From downstairs.”
“Hello, Cathy,” he said. “I saw you on the day the agent showed me around.”
“Yes.” Just give me the teabags, I was thinking. Please give me the fucking teabags. And stop looking at me like that.
“Look,” he said then, after a moment’s hesitation, “I could do with a brew. Why don’t you put the kettle on while I put this stuff away? Would you mind? Or are you busy?”
Put on the spot, I couldn’t very well admit that I had nothing better to do than worry about where my next teabag was coming from, and besides, my watch now showed three minutes until ten o’clock, which meant I wasn’t going to get the tea in time unless I made it now.
So I did it. I found mismatched mugs on the counter next to the sink, choosing two and rinsing them out under the tap. Milk was in the fridge. I put fresh water in the kettle and boiled it, and made the tea, stirring and adding milk drop by drop until it was exactly the right color, while Stuart put his