Slice of life

 “This isn’t working,” said Ernest.  He was sitting on the edge of the sofa with an old blanket over his knees staring avidly at his phone.  Outside winter had brought the darkness in already even though it wasn’t yet five o’clock and so the room was mostly illuminated by the light reflected off Ernest’s face.

“What’s not?” asked Barry, his flatmate.  Barry had just arrived home from work and was taking his coat off in the hallway, hanging on a peg, and then taking his shoes off to leave on the doormat.  Barry liked things neat and tidy at all times.

“This relationship,” said Ernest.  He sighed heavily and put the phone down.  “Turn the lights on, will you?  I can’t see anything in here.”

Barry came in to the living room and turned the lights on.  A single 100W bulb without a shade illuminated the room starkly.  The carpet was beige and stained; the coffee table was orange and sticky with something that wouldn’t scrub off; the couch looked like it had been used as a dog-bed for years.  The darkness had been better.

“With Jamela?” he asked.  “Or did you change her already?”

“Hey hey!” Ernest stood up, the blanket falling to the floor and revealing he wasn’t wearing trousers.  His pale, unmuscled legs looked flabby and dead in the light, and his underpants were wrinkled and worn.  “I’m not that bad!”

“You dated Shirley for three days before deciding she wasn’t good enough for you,” said Barry.  He was of the opinion, privately held, that everyone who’d dated Ernest that he knew about was too good for him.  He was saving money to move out and live by himself and nearly there, and there was nothing about Ernest that was making him regret this choice.  Ernest, as though to reinforce this, belched.

“She was a minger,” said Ernest, which was a reflexive reaction to anything that he didn’t like.  He paused, thinking about it.  “Well, she wasn’t that bad,” he conceded to himself.  “I sort of liked her, but she kept wanting to split the bill.”

“And you wanted her to pay all of it,” said Barry.  He left the living room and went into the kitchen.  The fridge was mostly full, so Ernest couldn’t have been up for too long so far today.  The left-over pasta from last night was there, in its pan, and Barry stirred it thoughtfully.  It would do.

“Well, I’m not working, am I?”  That was a familiar whine.  Barry took the pan of pasta out and poured a little milk into it.  Closing up the fridge he set the pan on the stove and turned the heat on.

“You stopped working last year,” said Barry.  “You said you’d had enough and you needed to find what you loved doing.”

“Yeah!”

“Which seems to be sitting around the flat all day mooching off your latest date from that app.”

“Yea— no!”

“And complaining that no-one wants to pay you to do that.”

“Whose side are you on anyway, mate?”  Ernest’s head appeared around the doorframe.  He sneered at the pan of pasta.  “I was going to have that.”

“Lucky I got here before you then,” said Barry.  He stirred the pan, mixing the milk in as the cheese sauce started to melt.  “It’s my pasta, you should eat your own food.”

“Everything in that fridge is yours.”

“True.  Doesn’t stop you though, does it?  Anyway, what’s wrong with Jamela then?  She seen through you already?”

“I don’t know what you bloody mean,” said Ernest morosely.  “Can we share the pasta, mate?”

“No,” said Barry.  “I’ve got a squash game at eight and I’m not messing around trying to keep you happy tonight.  Make your own food, or buy it, I don’t care.”

“Might get a pizza then,” said Ernest.  He disappeared, but a moment later his voice floated back through the doorway.  “You want pizza too, mate?”

“I’ve got pasta,” said Barry patiently.

“Oh yeah, I forgot.”

Barry stirred the pan again, which was starting to bubble now, and decided to make one last try on Jamela’s behalf.  “What’s wrong with Jamela then?”

“She’s not bloody here, is she?”

“So?”

“So I only dated her because I want someone to warm the bed,” said Ernest.  “Yeah, is that Malt Street pizza please?  I want to order a large pepperoni.”

“Warm the bed?” said Barry, half under his breath.  “What the hell?”

After a rancorous exchange with the pizza shop Ernest hung the phone up.  “Yeah, she’s fine and that, but really I was just cold and needed someone in the bed with me, but she’s acting like she’s entitled to see me now when she feels like it.”

Barry tipped the pasta out on to a plate.  “And that’s bad?”

“Yeah mate.  She’s not keeping the bed warm and she expects me to go out and see her.  In places.”

“You could just get a hot water bottle,” said Barry sighing to himself.  “That’ll keep the bed warm.”

“You got a tenner for the pizza, mate?”

“No,” said Barry with feeling.  “No I bloody haven’t.”