The streets Larry takes me through are more upmarket than my usual haunts. Nice detached houses, well-kept gardens, and newer model cars. We’re not far from the city centre, but it might as well be another world. The place doesn’t belong to the faded industry that was the heart of the city’s past, or to the universities and tiny offices of its present.
“It’s just up ahead, down a little cul-de-sac,” he tells me.
He takes a final long drag on his cigarette then puts it out and tosses the butt into a carefully trimmed hedge. From one of his many pockets he pulls out a small can of deodorant and sprays himself down, then crams a handful of chewing-gum into his mouth.
“So is your family rich or something? These are pretty fancy houses.”
Larry chews heavily on the gum. He shakes his head.
“Not rich, no. Perfectly middle class. My mum’s a dentist and my dad’s a senior accountant.”
“Sounds pretty rich to me,” I mutter.
But then again, a steady Tesco wage seems rich compared to my upbringing of living on government handouts. From when I was ten it had just been the three of us in a rundown house, Mum too off her head on drugs to hold her own life together, let alone a job.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” I add. “I already feel out of my depth here.”
“Maybe,” Larry shrugs. “But then I’ve seen puddles of piss on a night out with more depth than you’re used to. Live a little.”
“Larry, you don’t leave the house. Ever heard the term ‘pot calling the kettle black’?”
“I live plenty. Just mostly via a digital landscape.”
The cul-de-sac matches the rest of the area. The whole place puts me on edge. I know I don’t belong here. I can feel eyes watching me from the houses. Even Larry seems a little uncomfortable, though he looks shifty at the best of times. He approaches one of the doors and knocks.
I look over the house while we wait. Like the others it’s well-kept and lacks any outward sense of personality. A black Mercedes sits on the driveway while a red BMW is parked just outside. Through the window I can see a spacious living room with a huge TV.
It was the sort of house where the scratchcard would only just cover the deposit. I could never live here. Thinking of the scratchcard sends a spike of anger through me, but it also makes me think about the woman and her Pot Noodle. I wonder what kind of place she lives in. I can’t imagine her in a prim suburban neighbourhood like this, even if her choice of meals was based on taste rather than finance.
The door opens and a middle-aged man with neat, greying hair opens it. He has glasses, is clean shaven, and is wearing a shirt and trousers despite it being a Saturday. He looks as different to Larry as it’s possible to get.
The man’s eyes move over Larry without lingering, instead focussing in on me. I shift my weight uncomfortably and wait for someone to speak.
“Come in,” he finally says. I’m left with the distinct feeling that Larry and his dad don’t get on much.
The inside of the house is strangely empty. There’s plenty of furniture and technology, all of it expensive looking, but the walls are plain white and there’s no shelves or pictures. It almost looks like a display house, maybe even less so. Nothing is out of place and everything is purely functional.
As we enter the main room, a woman is working at the table on a laptop. She doesn’t look up. The man grabs a sheet of paper and a pen from beside her and hands it to me. He directs me to the kitchen counter.
“I’m not in the business of housing freeloaders,” he tells me bluntly. “This is just a trial scheme. We have full rights to kick you out at any time, and we have a connection to you so we can track you if you decide to betray our trust and try to steal from or abuse my mother. If the lodger situation works, then we can look for someone who can actually pay rent. Someone to keep an eye on her while paying us, not the other way around.”
I look at the paper. It’s a long list of rules that reads like a legal document. No smoking, no drinking, no inviting people over, and no loud music. It sounds boring, but pretty standard. I sign it without too much hesitation and hand it back.
Larry’s dad nods then disappears into another room. The woman, who I assume is Larry’s mum, still hasn’t acknowledged us. Like his dad, she looks attractive enough. I can’t imagine Larry being a product of their genes.
I open a cupboard and it’s empty. Looking around the kitchen I can’t see any food. There are plenty of appliances, but I’m again left with the feeling that they’re more for show than actual use. I give Larry a questioning look and he just rolls his eyes.
“Let’s wait outside,” he says. He turns to the woman. “Tell Dad we’ll be out front.”
“Sure.”
We leave the house and Larry fidgets with anything he can touch. I can tell he’s desperate for a fag.
“Your parents are weird. You adopted?”
“Not to my knowledge. It’d make things easier.”
“So what gives? Why aren’t you handsome and successful? It seems to run in the family.”
“Luck of the draw.”
He leans against the car and takes out his comically large collection of keys and starts moving them along the ring like a Catholic would with Rosary beads.
“They tried, believe me. I spent my childhood studying, and when my grades weren’t where they wanted them to be, they piled more and more on. I didn’t have friends. They saw it as a waste of time, like being social was the reason I was failing. That I just needed to work harder. Turns out some people just aren’t that smart.”
“You work with computers, don’t you? That’s got to take some brains.”
“Yeah. I’m good at it too. It’s not traditional though. Coding just seems to click with me, you know? It doesn’t matter that I’m making decent money from something I enjoy. To them, if you’re not a doctor or a manager of some kind then you’re a failure. But they stopped trying to push me, so now we just civilly coexist.”
“That sounds kind of fucked.”
“It is what it is.”
Larry’s dad steps out. The car clicks open and he motions for us to get in. I climb into the backseat and admire the interior. This is possibly the first time I’ve ever been inside a car that isn’t filled with crumbs and food wrappers.
The engine starts and the radio fills the car with the dull voice of a man talking about quarterly financial statements. Larry’s dad makes no move to change the channel, so I settle in for the dullest ride imaginable. Nobody speaks. I stare out the tinted windows and watch as we leave the main city behind. There’s more trees now, and the buildings become more eclectic.
It’s about twenty minutes of stock forecasts and heavy silence until we pull up outside a large house. We get out and approach it. It looks like one of those big American houses that are built to imitate European mansions but lack any of the style of the original. Several of the houses I can see are similar. They look almost too big. I feel tiny in their presence. Insignificant.
There’s a buzzer on the door which Larry’s dad rings. A long stretch of time passes before we hear noises behind the door. A series of locks and chains are undone, then the door opens.
An old lady greets us. She’s thin, almost inhumanly so, but her white hair is styled in a massive perm that gives her a weird sense of proportion. She’s in a pale blue dress that looks like it was pulled straight from the sixties.
“Hello!” she exclaims enthusiastically. “It’s so nice to see you all. Is this your new partner?”
She directed the last part at Larry while pointing at me. I don’t know which of us looks more disgusted. She sees our reaction and cackles merrily.
“Well, in that case you must be my new lodger then. Come in! Come in!”
Inside, the house is nothing like that of Larry’s parents. Photographs and paintings are everywhere, as are an assortment of cups, teapots, and vases. The whole place looks filled with clutter.
We all sit around a coffee table in a living room filled with so many armchairs and settees that there’s barely any room between them all. I introduce myself and she gives me a toothless grin.
“How lovely, dear. I’m Mabel, but you can call me Nanna. Oooh, it’s going to be so nice having a strapping young man around the house.”
I don’t think anyone has ever seen me and had the word ‘strapping’ come to mind. I hope to God that she’s just trying to mess with me. I haven’t fallen far enough yet that I’m willing to be an old lady’s toyboy. Well, not unless I can wiggle my way into a hefty inheritance.
The kettle is boiling on the hob. Mabel quickly busies herself making cups of tea for us all. She follows this up by passing around a tin of biscuits. It’s like she has a checklist of old lady tropes she’s working through.
Larry’s dad divides his attention between watching me and then watching his mother. For the first time in my life I start to feel bad for Larry. No wonder he’s socially awkward. Finally, the older man seems satisfied that I’m not going to pocket the cutlery. He finishes his drink and stands up.
“Well, it seems like you both get on acceptably. I’ll leave you to get better acquainted. Call me if anything is amiss.” He turns to leave then pauses, suddenly remembering Larry’s existence.
“Do you need a ride back?”
“I’ll stay here a while. Thanks anyway.”
He leaves without another word. Larry doesn’t watch him go, instead just staring into the bottom of his cup between sips. Mabel hands him another biscuit.
“Cheer up, lad. Ignore the stick up his rear. Just wait for the day you can stick him in a home.” She cackles again and winks at us mischievously. “Now then, our Larry, help your dear old Nan set up a guest bedroom.”
I frown. Is the universe playing a trick on me? I look from Larry to the old lady.
“Your Larry?”
Mabel cocks her head quizzically at me. Even Larry looks at me confused. I blink, trying to make sense of everything that is happening.
“Larry, what is your full name?”
His confusion seems to grow.
“Laurence Davis. Why?”
“So I’ve just been calling you your actual name all these years?”
“Wait, you didn’t know my name was Larry?”
“Why would I call you your real name? Everyone else gets a stupid nickname but little old Larry just gets called by his name? You didn’t think that was weird?”
“Well, yeah, but then why would you pick Larry as a nickname? It’s a perfectly good name.”
“You looked like a Larry!”
“I am a Larry!”
Mabel watches us while sipping delicately on her tea. More biscuits have appeared on her plate. She’s enjoying the show. I take a calming breath.
“Alright then, Terrance, care to show me to my room?”
“You can’t just change my name! That isn’t how this works!”
“Watch me.”
Matthew Roys 