Cohabitation Complications

London is not a city that indulges in permanence. Since moving here two years ago, I have had four jobs, countless best friends, and 13 housemates. Eighteen if you count the pets. Thirty if you count the mice we obliterated one week last May, in a massacre proudly chalked in on our living room blackboard (a giant thing found at the local dump) as "The Great Mouse Hunt of 2014."

June 22, 2013 was a Saturday, and the day I was introduced to what would become my only constant. Located in South West London in an area with good transport links and not a lot else, number 116 had a dreamcatcher in the downstairs front window. A two buzzer intercom that would forever confuse guests. And, when the door was opened, a dog that hadn’t been mentioned in the advert. Despite the broken banisters and the northern boy sat with peas on his head, I loved it instantly. And we were in by the end of the month.

These walls hold a lot of significance for me. It was in the downstairs back bedroom that Mike, my long term boyfriend at the time of moving here, first took up residence. I would stay here on weekends from home as I looked for a job and he settled into a new way of life. The bed dipped in the middle, but we were close to the kitchen. And as a temporary solution it was more than enough.

The living room is where I first kissed Tim, the northern boy with the peas who now lives in Hawaii. Where he proudly shared countless hours of original music as I looked at him with doe eyes for the duration of each song, snapping out of it once the chords had ceased being played. It was in here that I watched Netflix with Emily, sat in a fog of cigarette smoke at the hands of Dara and Annie, witnessed the changeover of the day shift to the night shift (Sam & Tim didn’t get along with Jack & Mike) and where I sat, just this year, massaging my rabbit's stomach after a trip to the emergency vets. The furniture is on a constant rotation, the orange sofa we found in the street this Christmas now a feature in our garden, the TV replacing a series of musical instruments sat on a footstool, a phase that answered the question “If you don’t have a TV what do you point all of your furniture at?”

You point it at a trombone.

The upstairs middle bedroom is filled with charged moments. Hours of crying on Tim’s bed as he kissed my forehead and told me it would be OK, excitement about current Tim’s arrival as we cleared old Tim’s desk, disgusted by leftover tissues and old pens. The overgrown back garden serves an uncomfortable reminder of my first kiss with Joe. Leaning against the wall after an evening of longing looks and holding hands, he apologised for tasting of smoke. I told him I didn’t care. The corridor smarts of loud 90s music and dancing with Sam, the doorways of emotional breakdowns and crying and tea at 3:45 AM. Of that one time we spilled bright red Mirinda on someone’s expensive white throw and stood watching the newly washed monstrosity dry in a mixture of hungover horror and hilarity. And of the many times I’ve been late to work because we caught each other on the way out of our bedrooms and somehow found something new to gossip about.

Organising our documents into a big red folder last week, I was reminded of all of the people I’ve known here. The original contract was signed in 2012 for a period of three years, with a clause that stated any housemate could move out at any time if they were able to replace themselves. The house stood at Dara, Annie, Joe, Ollie, and Tim. Not one of them remains, and following Tim’s departure in September, I am officially the longest standing housemate thus far, having lived with 14 of the 17 that have passed through these doors. Some of them return from time to time — Joe being the most notable, the fact that he lived here before me a complication from day one, as I moved into his ex girlfriend’s room after my brief stint downstairs. Tim visited us recently and the nostalgia was like a slap in the face. They move on, we move on, and the house, falling apart alongside the people inside it, is the only thing that remains the same.

That brings me to my bedroom. The largest room in the house, it stands in stark contrast to Sam’s, which is the smallest. Facing the front of the street, I am one of the first to be hit by the smell of rubbish when the weather is hot, the sound of foxes when mating season kicks in. Sam, on the other hand, has the roof for sunbathing and barbeques and a view into our neighbor’s gardens — the opera singing gay couple to the right that can be heard having repetitive sex from Tim’s bedroom and seen washing the pots from our bathroom window and the children to the left that watch us over the fence when we dare to use our own garden. It evens out.

My bedroom has a pink chimney breast, five windows, a double bed. It has chips in the wall from the time I threw a decorative plate in anger, posters and postcards depicting favourite things and day trips with people that have faded from existence. Stains on the carpet from spilled drinks and god only knows what else. My door is newer than everyone elses, my lock doesn’t work, I have both too much and not enough storage space, and there are moments of quiet in here that make me feel like I’m suffocating.

Within this room, I ended a four-year relationship. I broke my own heart time and time again, holding onto hope for something more from someone that had nothing to give. I worked late and woke early and wrote stories and read books. Watched marathons of trash TV and didn’t change out of my pajamas for days on end. Had funny conversations and serious discussions and made space for the collection of plastic animals we hide around each new housemate’s room as an act of initiation. There is a donkey in here somewhere that may never be found, placed in a rush by Tim months and months ago. I have lived, and I continue to live, harder and faster than I ever have and possibly ever will, within these four walls.

This month we almost faced eviction due to the incompetence of our estate agent and, to the surprise of everyone around me, I fought the decision. I fought harder than I think I’ve ever fought for anything that didn’t involve a romantic attachment and I won. We now have an extra two years and fixed rent and I get to stay in this house that has become my home, surrounded by the hauntings of both the metaphorical and literal sense, although it’s been a while since we've heard from Herbert the Pervert, the house ghost, or heard wailing babies outside the upstairs bathroom, so possibly just the metaphorical for now.

The truth is that I don’t know how long I have left here. London is not a city that indulges in permanence, and this house is the only thing that remains the same, even if the people within it are ever changing. Sam moves back to America soon, Laura is leaving, and Tim is unsure that London is for him. And, so, when our new contract runs out, it’s possible my time here will end with it. I’m OK with that. Maybe in two years time I’ll be ready for a more settled existence. Or maybe I’ll put up a fight to stay at 116.

My life is woven into the fabric of my surroundings: the ancient green sofas and the new IKEA bath mat, the ratty carpets and the memory foam mattresses. Within them, I have created an identity that, for now, I can’t be untangled from.

And so I remain. Drinking tea and longing for a simpler existence, not yet ready to walk away from the longest relationship I've had since moving here. Wondering about the people I will live with next.