Tales of Disturbance

The Bathroom Part 2

But as chance would have it, on the Friday evening, Louis had happened to walk past an Estate Agency. The door pinged to announce Louis's arrival for he had gone right inside. A little man with half-moon spectacles was sitting behind a desk, tapping away on a computer. He had narrow eyes and a hook nose. His greeting was civil; his questions were intelligent, and they quickly got to the point, the point about the unfortunate but imminent eviction of Louis Franelli; a man who needed to find a place of residence on the tight time scale of just a few hours.

Louis immediately outlined his budget to the man.

(He thought it best to get that out of the way.)

'Hmmm' the little man said, visibly a little taken back, however Louis was glad that he was not completely shocked. Unfortunately Louis Faranelli had no idea how to read a person's face, and actually, and we might as well explain, the estate agent exhibited visual indications that he was about to laugh out loud in a kind of cartoonesque manner. 

When the estate agent realized it wasn't a joke, he quickly rearranged his face. It was at least entertaining, and the little man's life was really quite mundane.

Next Louis confided in the little man about his student loan debts.

'Hmmm' said the little man again. Then added: 'I see'

Finally, Louis explained his desperation in detail, for he was surprisingly eloquent when it came to his own feelings.

The little hook nosed estate agent was quite gripped throughout the tale. He had adjusted his spectacles (and his views) and also leaned forward a couple of times. Also, to Louis's surprise, he was quite sympathetic. He understood, he said, that no one, not even someone on a normal, average salary, could afford to live in Nod-Nol, not without borrowing an extortionate amount, and, month by month paying back rather more. This particular hook nosed estate agent was not only speaking from bitter experience, but on top of this, he had had two, nearly three, failed marriages. Divorce was expensive in Nod-nol. He too had debts.

His next question was gentle for he understood by now that Louis Faranelli was a man without a friend in the world: Could Louis find flatmates? Share out the rent and bills little? This could make everything more affordable.

Louis was afraid he couldn't. He was very sensitive to noise and also he generally disliked other people.

The estate agent took off his glasses altogether (after fiddling with them intermittedly during the conversation), rubbed them thoughtfully with a cloth, and saw the truth. The man in front of him was odd, that much was clear, and also desperate as he was about to be made homeless the next day, (Saturday, a good fine day for eviction.) Surely he could do something for this unfortunate man in a crisis? In these desperate, troubled days surely they all needed to compromise a little...

And with that, Louis learned about his new home and that it was going to be a bathroom... (otherwise known as: the cheapest room available in the whole city, with 'in the city' being a generous expression.)

Back in the bathroom Louis smiles on the toilet seat. Yet, he thinks there is so much to do. He will make a plan, even before he goes to bed, for he has a very active mind that sometimes stops him dropping off to sleep straight away. So he takes out a pencil. He takes out some paper. He takes out a bed that inflates like a miracle. He retrieves his cold-weather sleeping bag from his rucksack that he used at school on his Duke of Edinburgh Expedition where the other boys poured cold water in his sleeping bag. He puts on thick thermals with feet attached to them. He puts a fleece in a pillow case.

Louis Faranelli lies down. He feels so snug he forgets all about his pencil and paper and the plan he was going to make. He snuggles down inside his sleeping bag (he doesn't bother turning out the light). His sleeping bag is special. Actually it's lined with sheep's wool, as if Louis Faranelli had anticipated sleeping in a bathroom of a building site with no central heating.

It is the first morning in the bathroom. The air feels like sharp pins on his face. But he peels off his sleeping bag and his clothes. He stands, lifts a long leg over the bath and pushes a button. Now he is having a wonderful shower. (This is the kind of luxurious convenience, he thinks, that only living in a bathroom can bring.) The water is hot and white steam fills the whole space like a promise fulfilled.

Louis Faranelli puts on his clothes and measures his new home with a tape-measure the colour of a blackbird's egg. He records these dimensions on the bathroom window with a satisfyingly-thin tipped marker pen. Louis writes further, complicated symbols on the window - dizzying mathematical symbols with spikes and small neat cyphers. And what are these for? No one knows; no one but Louis Faranelli. No one.

He goes outside. He surveys his land. The sky is a block of concrete. It's grey and eddies of dust blow in his eyes. There's a din in the distance. He remembers the motorway. He had bad experiences last night on the motorway, and he tries to forget these. He turns his attention to some black hopping things on the grass. Crows. Louis Faranelli does not like crows. SHOO! he says. SHOO! SHOO! He runs towards them with his great long legs. And they flap away.

Louis Faranelli remembers he needs wood. This is actually why he has come into the garden in the first place. The trees that border the abandoned house on the motorway are bare as scaffolding. Some branches are on the ground, blown off by hefty gusts of wind. Louis makes use of these tree branches and also the remains of an old pine fence. The wood is weathered but not rotten and above all it is dry.

Louis Faranelli chops and gathers and makes neat piles for the rest of the afternoon. It is an interesting scene: a tall thin figure chopping wood, a big grey block of carpark sky behind him. A man with red hair that we have not yet mentioned, and a face at once strained and kind: the face of a man who is relieved to be living in a bathroom, intent on doing the best he can to exist in the impossibly expensive city of Nod-nol.