The Forgotten Guide to Happiness. Sophie Jenkins
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a salamander in Ealing. I could hot-bed with students in Bethnal Green if I didn’t mind going nocturnal and sleeping through the day.
And then I came across a website called the Caring Share.
The deal was, I could live with an old person for practically nothing and in return I would spend eight hours a week keeping them company and generally being helpful by doing ‘light household duties’, something I did anyway, for free. The website looked inviting – patterned china and cupcakes and old people with grateful white smiles. It was like moving in with Granny. I could offer advice on crossword clues.
I typed in my details. For references, I cited Kitty and Anthea, who could at least vouch for the fact I was honest and literate.
In anticipation, I advertised my possessions on Gumtree with the proviso ‘Must Collect’, and over the next two weeks I sold the lemon sofa and armchair, my IKEA desk and the small beech foldaway table with the four chairs that slotted into it.
It was like dismantling a dream, emptying that flat. Each night the place was hollower and less mine. The landlord brought people round to see it and the couples would stand by the window, arms around each other, taking in the view, and I wanted to kill them. And one day, scaffolding went up, and the safety netting bathed the flat in an alien green hue, like living in a pond.
The red and black Trek bike was still in the hall. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it, even though it was the most valuable thing I possessed. It was a symbol of success; and I wondered if I could save money by riding it.
I carried it downstairs. It was very light – it weighed practically nothing. This is, in cycling terms, a sign of quality, apparently.
The night was cold, the kind of cold you get opening a fridge door, and in the west the turquoise sky was streaked with dirty dark blue clouds. I tucked my scarf into my parka and wheeled the bike onto the Heath, the wheel ticking, the chain clanking against my leg.
I couldn’t sit on the seat because it was too high so I held onto a bollard for balance and pedalled a few yards, sitting on the crossbar. It really was a lovely bike. I dismounted in a controlled fall by a speed bump and wheeled it virtuously along the path which says ‘No Cycling’ and took it for a walk before I went back to the flat.
When Mark and I moved in together, I’d imagined life was going to get better and better and better; all summits and no valleys; I’d imagined us soaring relentlessly upwards, propelled by happiness, trailing fame and fortune.
I hadn’t imagined it coming to this, being here alone, clearing the place out by myself.
Love. What was it all about?
I thought about my dad and Jo-Ann’s unlikely alliance and whether love amounted to nothing more than finding someone you could watch Netflix with.
That’s what dating apps should be about – matching up couples and box sets. ‘I have The Wire and I’ll raise you Better Call Saul.’ ‘I have Happy Valley and Miranda. Sorry. It’s not going to work out.’
A few days later I was delighted to get a call from the Caring Share about a place in Knightsbridge with a widow named Mrs Leadbetter who had room in her apartment for someone mature. Was I mature? I reassured them about my maturity and general common sense and I agreed to go there that afternoon to meet Mrs Leadbetter in person.
Knightsbridge! Harvey Nicks and Harrods! I was instantly cheered by the news. I’ve always wanted to live in Knightsbridge – who wouldn’t? We could go walking in Hyde Park. And forget the baking, we could go out for afternoon tea.
Mrs Leadbetter’s flat was in a small sixties block at the back of Harrods, in an architectural style totally different from its neighbours.
I buzzed her bell and she told me to come up in the lift. It was a very small lift with no mirrors. Personally, I like a mirror in a lift. It’s the last chance to prepare before meeting someone, but as this one didn’t have one I had to hope for the best.
Mrs Leadbetter was waiting for me by her open door. She looked very old and withered, with thinning white hair over a candy-pink scalp, but her navy velour tracksuit and white trainers gave her a jaunty air of sportsmanship. She was scrutinising me with the same thoroughness.
‘You’re too young,’ she said.
‘I’m not that young,’ I reassured her. ‘It’s just good genes.’
She studied my face. ‘Are you over fifty-five?’
‘No.’ My genes are not that good.
‘I need someone over fifty-five to come with me to the Over Fifty-Five Club. I told the Caring Share I wanted someone mature.’
‘Oh … I thought they meant sensible.’
‘Come in anyway. You might as well have a cup of tea while you’re here. Have you come far?’
‘Parliament Hill Fields.’
‘I used to watch the Blitz from there,’ she said. ‘It was like Bonfire Night every night.’
I was right. She was very old.
Her sofa was draped with a cream mohair throw, and as I sat down the hairs magnetically attached themselves to my black trousers.
Mrs Leadbetter made the tea and sat next to me with the perky curiosity of the elderly. ‘Tell me something, why would a good-looking girl like you want to live with an old dear like me?’ she asked.
So I told her the whole tragic story from the beginning and felt depressed again.
She was sympathetic about my rejected book and my lost love and she offered some advice. ‘Find yourself a husband with a house and a good job.’
‘It’s not that easy these days to find someone to love you.’
She looked surprised. ‘Don’t worry about looking for someone to love you. Find someone to love,’ she said.
‘Yeah – I’ve tried that and it didn’t work,’ I told her.
As I said goodbye I felt disappointed that my room with her hadn’t worked out. I wanted to be settled; I wanted to go home again – wherever that was.
The following evening I went to see a bedsit in Mornington Crescent.
Mornington Crescent is that inconvenient stop between Camden Town and Euston on the Northern line, Charing Cross branch, and a road at the wrong end of Camden High Street. However, it had a charm of its own and, what’s more, a Burma Railway Memorial.
I got there at six. It was a wet night and the rain made golden haloes around the street lights.
The building had the faded ghost of a sign stencilled above the front door: ‘The Grand Hotel’. A flake of red paint peeled off the front door as I banged the knocker, not a good sign, and I heard footsteps thudding down the stairs.
This thin guy opened it, shirtless, early twenties, smoking and toting a Spanish guitar. ‘Hey! I’m Louis, come on up,’ he said, taking me up the uncarpeted stairs to the first floor.
On the landing, the energy-saving light was losing the battle against the dark.
With a flourish, Louis showed me into what he described grandly as ‘a place to call your own’, which was thoroughly deodorised by cigarette smoke. Strung across the room was a pink sheet hanging from curtain wire, which, with a candle behind it, cast a rosy glow.
‘See that partition? Behind there it’s all mine. This here is your end,’ he said, hoisting his jeans from his hips to his waist and pointing to an alcove fitted with a single bed and an orange Anglepoise lamp. ‘Want to take a look? Get an idea of the potential?’
He pulled back the ‘partition’. Most of his end was taken up with a king-size mattress. Beer cans doubled up as tables – handy for his phone charger and that sort of thing.
‘You can do