It was 5:46 on Thursday evening. I’d managed to take some of the holiday allowance that I was owed, so I finished work at lunch time to get the room finished on time. I’d worked flat-out all afternoon and managed to get the carpet down, the blind up and the bedding on. The room looked very smart and I was feeling rather pleased with my handy work. I was now in the living-room relaxing in my chair with a cup of coffee waiting for the doorbell to ring. At 5.57 the phone rang. I got up quickly and went to the hall to answer it.
‘Hello,’ I said in a bright, optimistic voice.
‘Hello,’ said a confident sounding woman's voice. ‘I am calling on behalf of Mr Reed. I have to inform you that regrettably he will not be able to make his 6 ‘o’ clock appointment this evening. He no longer wishes to pursue the vacancy and would like to apologise for wasting your time. Goodbye.’
The phone went down sharply. I paused for a second, then moved the receiver from my ear to in front of my face, and stared at it with a bemused frown, whilst making a strange noise of disbelief at what I had just heard. It was just about the strangest phone call I’d ever had. It was so odd the way she had spoken to me — and who the heck was she anyway! She didn’t even give me time to respond, and the number was withheld. What if I hadn’t heard her for some reason and needed her to repeat what she had said. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. One thing was certain though — Mr Reed wasn’t coming. I was gutted. I felt annoyed that I’d wasted my time rushing to get the room ready and disappointed that I’d lost a potential lodger — I’d had a good feeling about him too.

I returned to the living-room and sat back down in my chair. I took a sip of coffee and reached down to the magazine rack to get the paper and have another look at my advert. The newspaper wasn't there. But then I remembered that I’d had it out in the hallway on Tuesday night. I went out in the hallway to get it. It was on the phone table. I opened the page to look at the advert, but I noticed that the piece of paper I’d written on wasn’t in it. I looked all around the table area and turned out the sideboard that stood next to it, but I could not find it anywhere………. It was so strange. I knew it had to be somewhere as I’d tucked it in the newspaper just after I’d been on the phone and then put the paper on the table. I hadn’t moved it and no one else lived with me, so no-one else moved it. I remembered the piece of paper distinctly as I had used the same piece of paper the day before to doodle on whilst I was on a very long and very boring phone call to my phone company. On the bottom right-hand corner of the paper I had attempted to draw in heavy biro, a ninja squirrel on a motorbike holding an acorn machine gun; but I’d started the drawing too close to the edge of the paper and couldn’t get the tail in properly. I hadn’t really decided what enemy a ninja squirrel on a motorbike would have, so I drew an evil Womble, which ended up looking more like Penfold from Danger Mouse.
I had definitely written the details on there as I was very familiar with that piece of paper. I widened the search and looked everywhere I could possibly think of, but I just could not find it. It could not have just vanished in to thin air, or grown little legs and run away; but unless something magical had happened to it, then the only other explanation I could think of was that I had moved it and not remembered. But there was just no reason for me to have done it. It was so strange. Maybe the stress was getting to me more than I realised. I had started forgetting names — now maybe I was going senile.

As I sat there in my chair, churning it all over in my mind, I found myself getting more and more anxious about getting the room let. I really wanted to get the money rolling in as soon as possible. I decided to call the Window Cleaner to offer him the room. He did seem like a nice guy. I just hoped he hadn't found somewhere else to live in the meantime. I dug out the business card that he’d given me and made the call. The phone call went well and we arranged for him to move in this coming Sunday.

It suddenly seemed like a big deal. In three days’ time, I would be living with another person. Another person that I didn’t know. Sharing my living room and kitchen. Sharing my TV. Sharing ‘my space’ with a stranger. He would be sleeping and doing stuff on the other side of my bedroom wall. With me, the inconvenient situation, and now the Window Cleaner joining us in my bubble — was it going to feel a little too crowded?

But thinking like that would get me nowhere and I knew that for this to work I needed to dwell on the positives. It was a big sacrifice to make, but it was certainly going to help me out, and take some pressure off of me. Also, having someone to converse with might help to take my mind off of always thinking about me and my problems.

I was hungry. It was getting on for 8 p.m. now. I thought I might take the opportunity to cook in my own kitchen, on my own, for what maybe the last time; but after staring in to the empty cupboards for five minutes and then the empty fridge, I decided I would go and get a takeaway.