The Flatmate I Keep Missing

How it begins

The first applicant owned a bread maker, a vacuum cleaner and exactly the television subscriptions Nadia had considered keeping.

On paper, he was an improvement.

She showed him the room.

He admired the light, asked about the bills and said the ferry timetable would suit his commute. He did not object to the tools beneath the hall table. He even knew how to reset the boiler.

Nadia waited to feel relieved.

Instead she noticed that he put his mug on the wrong windowsill.

“Is there a rule?” he asked.

“No.”

“You looked at it.”

“I was checking the paint.”

She was not checking the paint.

Tom had moved out three weeks earlier. He had found a smaller place nearer his work and carried his boxes down the stairs with the air of a man performing a sensible decision. Nadia had helped. She had held doors, wrapped plates and said this would be good for both of them.

Now a perfectly suitable stranger stood in the room where Tom used to forget to close the curtains.

The doorbell rang.

Tom appeared holding a single sock.

“This isn't mine.”

Nadia looked at it.

“Then why bring it?”

“It was in my last box.”

The applicant introduced himself.

Tom shook his hand, stepped around the loose floorboard and went directly to the cupboard containing the good tea.

Nadia watched him do it.

The applicant checked his watch.

“I can send references.”

“Of course,” she said.

After he left, Tom stood beside the window with two cups.

“Seems nice.”

“He is.”

“Good.”

“Yes.”

Neither moved.

On the refrigerator, an old drawing showed a boat with a kettle instead of a funnel. Tom had made it the week Nadia began work on the ferry.

She had not noticed how many small things in the flat had been made by someone expecting her to come home.

Tom handed her a cup.

For once, she put it on the wrong windowsill and left it there.