Single in the City Read online

  I want to go home. To the triumvirate. These clothes are designed for self-(esteem)mutilation. I can’t get the first pair of pants past my knees. Double-checking the size, yes, size eight, is no comfort. I yank. They don’t budge. Every pair fits the same way. That is to say, they don’t.

  I’m trying not to panic. ‘Chloe!’ I don’t know why she looks so embarrassed. I’m the one hopping towards her grasping my pants around my thighs. ‘Chloe, what’s going on here?’

  ‘You need a bigger size.’

  And just when I thought we could be best friends. Of course I don’t need a bigger size! The pants are mis-sized, or cut wrong, or this store is known to stock absurdly tiny clothes. ‘I’m a size eight!’ I’m a little vain about this. Although it’s just a number, there was a time in college when I got a little large. Those pizza-delivery people were as persistent as Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was back to normal by senior year but the experience definitely left a mental scar, and slightly dimpled thighs.

  ‘You’re an American size eight. English sizes are smaller. Try a ten or a twelve.’ She’s sliding a gorgeous pair of wool boot-cuts over her hips.

  Ten? Twelve? Is she mental? Everyone knows there’re two important milestones in women’s sizes. One: double digits. Two: the dreaded teens.16 I won’t be a double-digit girl again, especially when I haven’t had the indulgent joy of getting there. Maybe I should do all my shopping at home. But The Gap doesn’t have these pretty clothes and besides, I can’t wait that long. Steeling myself, I take a size ten into the dressing room.

  It doesn’t fit. I can just get the legs over my thighs but something funny is happening around the waist. I’ve got butt cleavage (builder’s bum, Chloe helpfully translates), flashing at least two inches of crack when I sit. You don’t even want to know what squatting looks like.

  This has been worse than shopping for a swimsuit in midwinter. At least then there’s the compensatory anticipation of sun and sand, and the delusion that a little tan will turn the pale puckered horror in the fitting-room mirror into a body worthy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. I can’t face the sight of my thighs stretching that judgemental ridge of fabric across the front of any more pants. Just the idea of a size twelve makes me want to rethink my stance on liposuction. Skirts are much more forgiving and, totally forgiven, I’m now the proud owner of half a dozen. I’ll never have to buy a skirt again.

  ‘Don’t let it upset you,’ Chloe counsels while sipping her skinny latte in Costa Coffee.17

  Easy for her to say, surrounded by shopping bags full of pants. Size-eight bitch. ‘How am I supposed to live here if I can’t even find pants that fit!’

  ‘Shh! Pants are underwear.’

  ‘They are not. Underwear is underwear.’

  ‘Not here. You’re shouting about your knickers.’

  ‘Oh.’ Then I’d better stop doing that. ‘Do you think the girls here are shaped differently?’ It’s a theory I’m working on (clinging to). I notice, for example, that Chloe, while willowy of leg, has a gut. And I’m not just saying that out of sour grapes. She’s built like a blueberry muffin. Perhaps evolution has created different shapes in different countries. I come from Sicilian stock on my mother’s side, and even though my father’s family was British from way back, everyone says I look just like my mother. Maybe it’s simple genetics at play. I’m not fat, I’m Italian.

  ‘That’s probably it. You’re built to wear the Italian designers, like Armani.’

  ‘Really, you think so?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  Finally, Chloe becomes the friend I knew she’d be. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘You did well today.’

  ‘Hmm, yes. Now that I think about it, though, I feel like I already have that zig-zaggy wrap dress. It did seem familiar when I tried it on.’

  ‘Keep the receipt. You can check when you get home.’

  ‘I suppose, though I’m not sure where it could be. Maybe in my wardrobe somewhere. And I’ve got some things at the cleaners.’ She opens her purse and starts pulling out receipt after receipt, smoothing them on the table top. No two are from the same cleaner.

  ‘Well, those boots are great.’

  ‘Yes, I wondered about those too. There might be a pair at home.’

  ‘Save the –’

  ‘Receipt, I know,’ she sighs. ‘I’ll never get around to returning them. The place is such a disaster, I’ll lose the bags.’

  ‘Well, if you want, I’m happy to come over and help organize your closets for you.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t let you do that. The place really is a tip.’

  ‘But I’d love to. And if it’ll help…Who knows what treasures we’ll find?’

  ‘Really? Erm, okay, if you’re sure it’s no bother.’

  ‘Are you kidding? I love doing stuff like that. It’ll be fun!’

  Truthfully, I can think of at least 972 things I’d rather do than excavate someone’s closet, but a woman who can’t find a £400 dress obviously needs guidance. Besides, I can tell Chloe is a genuinely nice woman. I want to help her.

  While we may not have solved the world debt crisis or global warming today, I feel we’ve made some important progress.

  Now gainfully employed, I’m justified in flying Mrs Doubtfire’s nest. And none too soon, since her scant hospitality has worn thin. She now throws her cardboard-flavoured toast at me in the mornings. She’s obviously still disappointed at my failure to produce a husband for her inspection. She also thinks I’m an alcoholic, based on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence. She wouldn’t always see me drunk if she’d give me a front-door key instead of making me ring the bell after 10 p.m. The woman has trust issues.

  ‘’Annah?’ says the man in the doorway.

  It’s Crocodile Dundee.

  ‘Hi, yes, I’m Hannah. I’m here about the room?’

  ‘G’day, I’m Nathan? This is Syrah, and over there’s Adam? He had a beet of a rough noight.’

  ‘Hnn,’ confirms the pile of blankets on the sofa.

  The apartment is big, pretty and clean. Incidentally, the Australians are also big, pretty and clean. And the bedroom is palatial, with weak winter sun dribbling through its tall windows.

  ‘I love it!’

  ‘How soon can you move in?’

  ‘I can be back here in an hour.’

  He laughs. He realizes I’m serious. ‘Oh, ah, well…’

  ‘Give us a minute, will ya, ’Annah?’

  ‘Sure, Sarah, no problem.’ If they don’t let me be their housemate, I’m going to cry in their living room until they either relent or call the police.

  ‘You’ll have to put down a deposit,’ Nathan advises when they emerge from their kitchen conference. ‘Two weeks’ rent?’

  I’d give them a kidney if they asked. ‘No problem.’

  ‘Well then, you can move in tomorrow. Welcome!’ Sarah strides over and hugs me. She’s squeezing too hard because I swear tears are squirting out.

  So my new home is in a slightly down-at-heel white-painted townhouse on a tree-lined crescent near Earls Court Tube. I didn’t expect this much green in London, but the English are absolutely obsessed with their gardens. Even borderline slums like Earls Court have them. We Americans may think we embrace the great outdoors, infatuated as we are with our national parks and ride-on lawnmowers. But we’re rank amateurs compared to these people. Everyone here, ev-ery-one, regardless of race, colour, creed or class, has a green thumb. Even Chloe waxes poetic about the ‘pot plants’ that she proudly cares for on her roof terrace. At first I mistook this for misdemeanour drug use, but it was just another translation error. Entire TV shows are devoted to the finer points of caring for one’s zinnias and ridding one’s tomatoes of garden pests. It must be a reaction to all the rain. The English have found a silver lining in all those clouds.

  ‘G’day!’ Sarah doesn’t seem the least bit annoyed that I’m on her doorstep with my worldly belongings at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning. She looks like one of those
easy-going girls who’s never plucked or dyed, waxed or bleached, because she doesn’t have to. She’s Elle Macpherson without make-up. ‘Come on, you bludgers, ’Annah’s here. You bidda git off yer arses!’

  She doesn’t sound like Elle. ‘No, that’s okay. I don’t have very much.’ I admit that the mountain of luggage behind me is somewhat undermining my credibility.

  ‘Well, good onya! Perfect timing.’ Nathan’s tall and blond and square-jawed. I truly believe that the fallen are better-looking than the righteous. What else accounts for Australia’s transported population being so much more handsome than England’s home-grown one? Not that I’d start anything with him for all the tea in China. Housemates are off-limits. Almost always. ‘Heart-starter?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  He’s pointing to his beer can.

  ‘Uh, sure.’ Nobody refuses the kind hospitality of a new housemate, even when that hospitality borders on alcoholism.

  ‘Good, get ya stahted for the Church. You’ll come, won’tcha?’

  Australians drink to go to church? ‘Well, I’m not very rel–’

  ‘Aw, come on, ’Annah. It’s cracker!’ Adam confirms, which, judging by the rapturous look on his face, means good. He does look rapturous, angelic almost, with cherub-fat cheeks, blond curls and a young boy’s optimistic countenance. He could even have wings, though he’s a bit too portly to make much progress off the ground.

  ‘Well, why not?’ I have the slightly uncomfortable feeling that I may have agreed to live with god-botherers, but I’m willing to suspend my judgement for the moment.

  ‘Ya ready?’

  ‘Maybe I should change.’

  ‘Nah, you’re fine,’ advises Sarah between chugs of beer, ‘though ya may want shoes ya don’t care about.’

  Why, do we trade them with fellow worshippers at some point?

  Oddly, there’s a huge group of what look like very normal (read: good-looking and fun) people milling in front of the Tube station as we arrive. ‘We’re just waiting for a few more,’ Sarah tells me. This appears to be a siege in progress. Maybe these young travellers aren’t welcome in English churches and collect en masse each Sunday to storm the cathedrals in an effort to exercise their freedom to worship. Though the motive is no doubt worthy, my mother will still be mad if I get arrested today. ‘You’ve got seven quid onya, right?’ Nathan asks as the church comes into view.

  ‘Yep, I think so.’

  ‘Good. You can buy a membership at the door.’

  Pay at the door? Either this is a very orderly siege or I’ve completely misunderstood the situation. It must be one of those progressive places where the service is more theatrical. Wait till I tell Stacy that London’s churches charge entrance fees. ‘Will there be singing?’ With the grey sky framing its stone façade and rising spires, the church seems very severe indeed. And it doesn’t look big enough for all these people. Maybe that’s why they have to charge admission.

  ‘Aw, yeah, all the songs you know by heart.’ Sarah overestimates the rigour of my religious upbringing. I can hum along to a few fervent ditties, but sing them? I don’t think so…‘’Annah? Where’re ya goin’?’

  ‘Wha–?’ My new housemates are staring at me from the sidewalk. ‘Inside?’ Based on their bent-double hysterics, I’ve done something wrong. ‘What’s so funny?!’

  ‘Over here,’ Sarah says, gesturing to the concert hall beside us. ‘We’re not going to church. We’re going to the Church.’

  The building is cavernous, with a stage at one end and a bar at the other. Sawdust covers the floor. It’s the adult equivalent of Chuck E. Cheese,18 and just to add to the ambience, they’re playing one of my favourite songs. I’m not proud of my devotion to Bryan Adams, but there’s something irresistible about a catchy tune earnestly sung. I feel the same way about tall, blond men offering me beer. Oh look, there’s one now. ‘Thanks, Nathan.’

  ‘Cheers!’ He necks his can without pause for breath. ‘Ah. That’s good! Whaddya think?’

  ‘This is great!’ Parties at noon that don’t involve dinosaur-shaped birthday cakes or bickering relatives are rare on my social calendar. ‘What is this place?’

  You may have gathered that the Church has no religious affiliation whatsoever. It’s London’s party equivalent of The Beach, a secret passed on among backpackers and expats. Genius struck nearly thirty years ago when a couple Australians were looking for a place to drink on Sunday before the pubs were legally allowed to open. An enterprising publican hit upon the fine idea of charging membership to his ‘club’, hosted in his bar on Sunday. Despite its popularity, only about half a dozen people in all of London know where the place actually is, the rest being victims of beer amnesia. I can’t help but feel that fate had a guiding hand in my choice of housemates. How lucky I was to answer that ad! These seem like good people, friendly and more than willing to include me in their lives. When Sarah drapes her arm across my shoulder to belt out Mr Adams’s famous chorus about one particular summer in the 60s, I shout in her ear, ‘I’m so happy you’re letting me be your housemate!’ Yes, that’s a little bit of the beer talking.

  ‘Me too. We knew you were awright right away. And Paul had big shoes to fill!’

  That’s right, I’m replacing a young South African spoken of in reverential tones for his ability to ‘skull’ the ‘amber nectar’ without getting a ‘gutful of piss’. Alas, Paul’s drinking prowess held no sway with Immigration, who kicked him out when they learned he’d been working here illegally. This was a sobering cautionary tale for me, considering that I’m working here on a somewhat informal basis myself. ‘They turned him around at Heathrow,’ Adam had told me. Not even the chance to collect his belongings. Like a disaster happening somewhere else, it makes you appreciate what you’ve got.

  ‘Besides,’ Sarah says now, ‘it’s nice to have a girl in the flat.’ I’m relieved to know that she’s not going to be territorial about Adam and Nathan. Not that a woman who looks like Sarah has much to feel threatened about.

  ‘How long have you known the guys?’

  ‘Just since we moved in. Er, eight months?’

  It’s going to take me some time to get used to my housemates constantly sounding like they’re asking questions when they’re not, but this verbal quirk is no stranger than Americans’ habit of peppering our sentences with ‘like’. I’m the first American the housemates have seen at close quarters. At least, I think I am. What Adam actually said was ‘Too right, yer a seppo.’ Seppo, septic, septic tank, rhymes with Yank. And I thought English-English was hard to get to grips with. I’m going to need a translator to live with these guys. But they seem to have as hard a time understanding me, because when I asked how they got their work permits they just looked at me blankly.

  ‘Did you meet through friends?’ What I really want to know is whether Sarah has any first-hand knowledge of her housemates’ bedroom techniques. This information is purely for informational purposes you understand. Well, mostly.

  ‘Nah, we all answered Paul’s advert.’

  ‘Good. I mean, it’s good that you all get along so well.’

  ‘’Nother beer, ’Annah?’ Without waiting for a response, Nathan pulls a can from its plastic webbing, pops it open and hands it to me. I’m sure his mother is proud to have raised such a fine host.

  ‘Thanks.’ It’s kind of hard to drink my beer, what with him dancing me back and forth. He’s flirting, of that there’s no doubt. I’ve been to gynaecologists who were less intimate. Unfortunately, my resolve not to start anything with a housemate is being somewhat diluted by all the Fosters.

  Boundaries, in fact, seem to be falling all around us. We’ve only been here an hour and already everyone is talking to each other, lubricated by free-flowing beer and music we know all the words to. Oddly, despite continual assaults, Sarah isn’t paying any attention to the wide array of male talent on tap. Like Sputnik, being in Sarah’s orbit might give me more gravitational pull.

  ‘Hiya, this is Gianni and
I’ma Paolo,’ says Paolo to Sarah’s chest. Really? Italians?

  ‘Where do youa come from?’ Gianni asks her.

  ‘Gypsies.’

  ‘’Scusa me?’

  ‘I come from gypsies.’

  ‘You sounda Australian.’

  ‘Australian gypsies, mate.’

  They nod like they completely understand. Either they’re the most gullible men I’ve ever met or they’re equally adept liars called Keith and Jamie from London’s East End.

  ‘Where do you come from?’ I ask Paolo/possibly Jamie.

  ‘I’ma from Italy. You know Italy?’

  I know of Italy. Geography has never been a strong suit. ‘A little.’

  ‘I come from Pizza.’

  ‘Pizza?’ Come on. He may as well say he’s from Parmesan or spaghetti with clams.

  ‘Sì…no, no. Pisa. Likea the tower.’

  Oh, Pisa. This is one cultural divide too wide to bother crossing.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the DJ announces in a booming voice as a man in a spandex leotard and cape climbs the stairs to the stage, ‘please welcome today’s first entertainer, Fartman.’ The room goes nearly silent. The man taps the microphone a few times, then aims it under his cape. ‘Pth, pth, pth, pth, pth.’ He pauses, then squeezes out ‘pth pth, pth pth’. It takes me just a second to recognize The Blue Danube waltz. And they say classical music isn’t accessible to the masses.

  ‘That’s vile!’ Sarah shouts. I notice, though, that the man holds her attention.

  Adam at least has the good grace to look unimpressed by the man’s gaseous prowess. He and Nathan are busy anyway, swapping drinking stories of monumental immaturity that, told with an Australian accent, have me in tears. The Irish aren’t the only drinkers with the gift of the gab. Sadly, watching Adam, I realize that he’s one of those men cursed with devastating teddy-bear qualities. While it’s delightful to have him as an SBF (safe boy friend), I’m sure he’s tired of being told he’s ‘too nice’ by women. Still, I’m thrilled that he’s my flatmate. Every girl should have at least one nice man in her life, to provide a corrective experience against the stinkers she generally dates.