THE LATCH KEY PEOPLE

We are the latch key people.  Keys in pocket at all times, sometimes we crush them in our fingers, for the security of knowing they’re there.  We’re not going to have to dread being locked out, of having to knock and announce our presence.  We keep to our rooms.  Landlords and landladies are avoided at all costs, especially if the rent is late, especially if we’ve broken something.  We want our deposit back.

Forms from the Government are left unfilled, because who knows we’re here and who is going to chase us for them?  We’re uncounted and secret.  Most of us are young and just starting out, but not all.  Some of us are older, cut adrift, reeling from lives we’ve lost, the warmth of family and security all gone.  We’re left with a couple of bits of furniture, a laptop which also serves as a TV, and clothes.  Central heating is another person’s decision, when we eat depends on the availability of the kitchen and there is the race for the bathroom mornings and evenings.

We’re constantly planning while drinking endless cups of tea.  Our dreams are saving money, a place of our own on the property ladder, the end of austerity and the vague hope that something or someone might turn up and make it better.  In truth, we don’t save anything and we don’t do anything to improve our lives.  Time and money is spent on those short term escapes to better places; the houses of friends or lovers and mini-breaks.  Always it’s better elsewhere; warmer, a working shower, a cosier mattress and a bigger TV screen ...

We can be caught on our way back through the door Sunday nights; “You’re never here”, “Got the rent?”, “It was your turn to put the bins out”, blah.  Other Sundays we sneak unbothered to the sanctuary of our rooms where dark thoughts await:-

How will they notify my loved ones if I die?  Will my loved ones care?  I have let them down.  I am property-less, penniless and living alone at forty.  How did this happen?  I have nothing and once I had it all - all to play for and all to fear.  Well, now the worst has happened.  It has, hasn’t it?

NOT GOING HOME

Monday morning, the lodgers breakfasted in the living room wearing layers of clothes.  The temperature outside was -8C, but Laurence the landlord had switched the central heating off before leaving for his Carribbean cruise with his mistress Marlene.  Only his wife Helen was not shivering, she was smoking a crack pipe, oblivious.
“Surely,” Kate said, “we switch the boiler on.”
Manky Franky laughed hysterically, causing him to break wind.
Pervey Pete stood and dragged Kate up, he marched her forcefully into the kitchen and pointed to a steel door with a safe combination key; “Boiler’s behind that.”
“What’s that dent on it?”
“Last time he went on holiday, we attempted to open it with an axe.  Futile.  Sweetheart, sleep with me, share body heat.”
The smell in the lounge was unbearable, Helen had passed out, head on Franky’s lap.  Disgusted, Kate finished her breakfast in her room.
Franky shoved Helen’s unconscious body onto the living room carpet and got to his feet; “I’m checkin’ out man,” he said and headed for the front door.
Pete nodded to himself, there had to be a way of avoiding being here.  Upstairs Kate was exploring internet options.

Pete’s boss was impressed with the hours Pete put in.  Working in a zoo wasn’t the best paid job, especially when your title was Manager of Pet’s Corner, but Pete was there early and still present when the boss left.  Pete was philosophical, OK so Kate had rejected him, but the sheep couldn’t, they let him snuggle up in their shelter at night and – well, they were not high emotional maintenance like women ...

Kate was disappointed when she arrived at the couple’s house straight after work.  On the internet Don was described as 6ft 5 with a six pack; and Trudy as a leggy blonde.  Don was 5ft 6 (when asked he claimed he’d got the numbers round the wrong way), his only six pack was in the fridge and his pot bellied figure was covered in thick grey pubic hair.  Trudy looked like she’d spent years on a sunbed; leathery skin, bleached hair dried out.  However, their home was warm.  So, after Kate had given them the best evening they’d ever had, she asked; “Do you mind if I stay a week?  I can wash up and cook.”

Don and Trudy were more than happy.

Exactly an hour before Laurence returned, the boiler fired into life.  He arrived to find Pete, Kate and Helen basking in the warmth.

“Everyone’s here, except Franky,” he observed smugly, “anyone seen him?”
Helen stared into space.
“I haven’t been here,” Kate and Pete said simultaneously.
There was a knock at the door, Laurence opened it, the others could hear him talking; “Oh my God!  No, I was in the Carribbean.”
Two Police Detectives followed him into the lounge.
“Franky’s dead,” Laurence said, face pale beneath his tan, “found murdered on the railway line, some sick bastard tore his guts out.  We’re the only people who knew him ...”
“Yes,” one of the detectives interjected, “and we’d like everyone here to account for their whereabouts in detail for this last week.”
Pete and Kate looked first at each other, then speechlessly up at the detectives.

THE ROOM HUNT

“Welcome.  Cup of tea?”  He was a good looking older man.
She was instantly interested; “Please.”
He had a character dwelling and the room he showed her was huge.  Then began the Twat Test - the talk in which potential land person and lodger suss each other out.  “My relationship of two years broke up ...”
What guy in his late forties has a relationship lasting only two years?
“... I’m stuck with a £400,000 house on the island and this place ...”
Am I meant to be impressed?
“... I've been a software engineer for twenty years, I hate it.  Next year I’m going to go to Namibia to join an elephant conservation programme.  When I return I’ll become a life coach.  It’s all about controlling your inner chimp ...”
What’s he on about?  Just fucking nod and smile.
“... Once you identify your inner chimp, you can communicate with it - tell it to calm down.  Oh and I’m taking up salsa dancing.”
This is a mid-life crisis on legs.
“You seem ever so nice and friendly.”
I haven’t said anything.  “Thank you, Colin, that’s kind.  I’ve got other rooms to look at, I’ll let you know.”

“Hello, thanks for coming.  I’m Terry.  Cup of tea?”  He was an ordinary non-threatening man.
She was instantly at ease; “Please.”
He had a normal home with a big room to rent and it all came out during the Twat Test.
“Do you know a celebrity has slept in that bed?  Have you heard of Lonely Lionel Blue?”
“One hit wonder with ‘I’m So Totally Lonely Tonight’?  Good song.”
“Two hits, don’t forget ‘It’s Been a Crazy Lonely Summer’.”
Ooops
“His guitarist, Fatty Natty slept in that bed.  That’s Fatty Natty with Lionel in the old days.  There’s one of Fatty Natty now and there’s one of me and Fatty Natty at an award ceremony ...”
Oh my God, there are pictures of Fatty Natty everywhere.
“I’ve got the memorabilia in my cupboard.  Tracey who lived here used to sit with me and watch slide shows I’d made of photos from the glory days to music ...”
I’d rather sit in my room alone in the dark and stick pins into my legs.
“You seem ever so nice and friendly.”
I haven’t said anything.  “Thanks Terry, that’s kind.  I’ve got other rooms to look at, I’ll let you know.”

“Hi, I’m Laurence.  Come in.”  He was a smug man with an oily complexion, “I’ve run out of tea.  Sorry it’s a shit hole.  Manky Franky was meant to clean up.”

“Manky Franky?”
“You’ll realise why when you meet him.  Come upstairs.”
The room was a small and dark, with wardrobe, desk and bed.  It smelt of takeaway.
“And this is the bathroom.”
“There’s no mirror.”
“It fell off the wall in the middle of the night.  We all shat ourselves.  I live here with my wife, Helen, but my mistress comes round when she’s at work.  Can you be discreet?  There’s me and Helen, Manky Franky and Pervy Pete.  You’d be taking Lisa’s room, she moved out when Pete shagged and dumped her - never a dull moment.  Tell me about you.  You seem nice and friendly, but you never know."
“I enjoy constant, unending drama and the misery and folly of others.  The competition’s been tough, but I’d like to take this room.”

THE MIRROR'S SUICIDE

The mirror had been lovingly crafted by Tibetan monks who lived lives of purity, moderation, health and humility.  They liked to think wherever their work went, these values would be reflected.

The mirror found itself in a student bathroom reflecting Manky Franky wanking into the toilet.  After Laurence the Landlord would press his face to the mirror and squeeze his unruly zits until they erupted, then he’d wash his smug face, knowing he was ready to meet his mistress.  Helen his frumpy wife would simultaneously sit on the toilet, pushing out a number two while smoking a fag.  Later, Pervy Peter would slither in for his turn; he’d move aside the picture he’d hung up and check the hole he’d drilled so he could see into Laurence’s bedroom was unblocked, then he’d scrape the dry skin off his feet with a pumice stone.  Last into the bathroom was Lovely Lisa.  The mirror was reassured by the way she sprayed air freshener around and cleaned up.  There was something of the monastery about her – purity and humility.

When Helen was at work, Laurence’s mistress Marlene would arrive and Peter would come straight to the bathroom and stand, eye pressed against the hole in the wall, watching Laurence beating Marlene’s bare backside with a paddle.  “Classic,” he’d whisper, while pleasuring himself.

At the end of one of these vile days was a party.  Laurence smugly checked out his reflection – wife and mistress both present at same event.  Lovely Lisa conscientiously cleaned the bathroom in preparation, dusting the mirror reverently.

Purity, moderation, health and humility didn’t make an appearance.  Instead there was excess, Manky Franky got drunk and vomited round the toilet.  Then drugs, Helen sat on the loo smoking crack.  Her husband knocking on the door roused her, she staggered and slipped, falling heavily, passing out, face in the remnants of Franky’s puke, pants round her ankles.

“Do you think she’ll notice?” Marlene asked as she and Laurence opened the door and saw her prone frame.
“No, let’s go!” cried Laurence, pushing Marlene into the bedroom for debauchery.

Peter slithered into the bathroom, stepping over Helen’s body and pressing his eye to the peephole.

“Peter!  What are you doing!” Purity had arrived, the Lovely Lisa.

“Look!” Peter ushered her to the hole in the wall.

She peered through it gasping; “Oh my!  I didn’t know you could ...”

Peter put his hand up Lisa’s skirt; “I can show you so much more, my dear.”

She turned to him; “Oh, Peter, you mustn’t, my boyfriend’s downstairs ...”, but she let him slide his thick tongue down her throat.  At their feet Helen stirred and moaned.

“She won’t wake up!  Don’t worry!” Peter flung Lisa against the wall, pushing up her skirt and unzipping.  The two began to fuck passionately against the tiles.

Lovely Lisa being defiled by that sleaze was too much for the mirror to bear.  Illusions broken, it longed for the monastery.  They all eventually went to bed, but the mirror knew it faced another morning of Manky Franky and the rest.  It couldn’t do this anymore.  Gradually it wriggled until it was at the edge of its fastenings, then it leapt from the wall and shattered with a deafening crash.  Seven years’ bad luck to them all and a curse upon their house of iniquity!