Creative writing submission from the Rest Less community – submit your entry here.
I’m arguing with my temporary lodger. He’s swearing at me. His thick Irish accent changes the insult to “cont”. I’m fascinated by the new name and why he felt it appropriate to call me what arguably is the worst curse.
Thick brown hair, he was short and stocky. Looking at him you can tell he wouldn’t endure the sun and he had small hands. When he spoke, it showed his big teeth, thin lips, and strong jaw. His face was ruddy, not an office worker.
I said, “Who do you think you are? You can’t call me that in my own home, I won’t have it, not again no more, nobody!”
He repeated, “You are a cont!”
This time it was stronger and had more venom. He may have spat. His small blue eyes were staring right through me, and it was all too familiar.
“Listen, do not ever call me that again! I will call the police”, I replied.
I’m in my pyjamas, no slippers. I used to wear slippers all the time when I was in my violent marriage. Makes it easier to run out the door and you can’t drive or run very far barefooted. Here I am in another potential violent situation without footwear.
“You a horrible cont!” he spat again.
That’s it, I need to call the police and I did. During which, he started to throw his arms in the air in an uproar. He said, “Women like you ruin the lives of men like me. When you go to court, I’m going to stand up and tell everybody you are a cont. I’m going to tell the newspapers you’re a cont and when everybody knows you’re a cont, no man will ever go near you again. I understand why you had been beaten, you deserved it.”
I started to shake, first my legs, then my arms. I tried to hide it and pulled an ‘I’m revolted by you’ face. The police officer on the phone asked me his name and I couldn’t remember what it was.
“How do you not know the name of your lodger?” she said.
Some more body parts shaking, head racing, and being pre-occupied that I didn’t have any shoes on.
“Patrick O’Leary”, I told her.
“That’s not my name you cont!” he shouted.
I didn’t care what his name was at that moment. I needed the police to arrive, carry him out of my home and lock the door to it all.
I shut down my phone and went into my bedroom and put my slippers and a jumper on over my pyjamas. I went back into the kitchen where the shouting had continued. He started to shout with spit.
I said, “Men like you make my stomach turn, you should be ashamed of yourself. You’re nothing but a piece of crap! Shouting at a woman barefoot in her own home. Well, guess what I will do. Every time you treat a woman like shit and she calls the police, it’ll get logged and eventually you’ll be named and you will be shamed and nobody will come near you!”
I didn’t stop there either. I reminded him I had a copy of his driver’s license and work references so if he wanted to talk about screwing me over, I could screw him over more. I had good teachers he was a novice.
“Nobody cares what you have to say!” I must have shouted that repeatedly.
It was the truth. I was the only person in the place and I didn’t know him. I didn’t care about whether he lived or died and I certainly didn’t care what he had told me. He looked at me with disbelief. I don’t think anybody had ever told him that before. It gave me respite to think about my next move.
This was easy, I had the list imprinted. Shoes, keys, mobile, and money if I had any and leave.
I believed the Irish were even-tempered and mild-mannered. Maybe he had lied about being Irish too.
In the short time I knew him, he told me he was a proud physical worker, not an intellectual. He had walked out on a seven-year relationship with an intellectual, who had wasted her time playing video games after a day’s work. He had found her challenging and would work on his van until the early hours.
He had a camper. It was described to me as a modern-day mobile home. He talked about the Customade kit, solar panels, and sliding BBQ. The sitting space that could be placed in a luxury mansion. My imagination had thought it could be one of the nicest looking campers I would see. I wondered why he would want a room to rent from me for a fortnight, couldn’t he had slept in his van? “It had no bathroom”, he said.
He had an ego, a hot temper, and was stubborn. His face was contorted with rage. A man in his late 30s had started off friendly and now I had turned down his offer of a “drink in the local that evening” he had turned. The bile in my stomach had reached my mouth and left a metallic taste I had recognised like an old friend.
I left the flat. I could see the impact of my shouting back in his face after I fought back, and I wasn’t going to risk staying any longer. Running down two flights of old tenement stairs, I stood outside the back garden sheltered from the rain with a cigarette.
Edinburgh was grim on a good day. Today was typically end-of-winter. Wet rain, mist, and cool winds howling through the open door.
When I think about relationships now, it always results in thoughts about my presumed death. When I had a date in the summer, that lead to another date, I invited him into the apartment but asked him first if he had any intentions of throwing me out the window. I never saw him again.
It’s very difficult to date when your head is filled with anxiety. I hold a health and safety check and risk assessment when I meet them…
“Why do you have a rucksack? Have you got a murder kit inside it?”
“No, I light my own cigarettes, I don’t wish for you to set my hair alight.”
“Thanks for the offer to pick me up, but I can’t afford for you to open the car door when we’re driving so you can push me out and leave me for dead at the side of the motorway.”
Tears started to run down my pinched face. Women like me. Was I one of those now? Would every man I encountered believe I would cry rape after a one-night stand, cry abuse if they lose their temper, or report them to the police if they swore?
I thought I had been fixed. After two years, six months since leaving. After all the counselling, psychiatry one-to-ones, medication, and my trip to the retreat, I was fine.
But, I’m not fine. I wasn’t even close because the first person I wanted with me right now, in the garden, sheltered from the rain was my ex-husband – the man that broke me.
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