The Dishcloth by Laura Barker
Everyone knows my generation prefers to spend its money on avocado toast and selfie sticks and gluten free bread, than on a down payments for a house. I do know some people of my generation who own their homes, but guess who bought those homes (really bought them, not has their name on the thing)? Mommy and Daddy. Or in some cases, Nana and Granddad, or in rarer cases, Auntie and Uncle, or Godmother and Godfather, or Daddy and Papa.
But there is another group of people who have easier access to stable housing. People who come out of prison. Not everyone who comes out of prison, ha-ha, obviously, that would make too much sense. We’re talking sex offenders. That’s right. When they first come out, they go to Approved Premises, where there are people around day and night to take care of them, and the whole time they are in there, a key worker is making it their business to secure them a more permanent place, somewhere that’s far enough away from schools or women or wherever the group they like to sexually offend likes to gather. Now, I don’t think this is a bad idea. People do much better in life and commit fewer crimes (or less criminalised harms is what we’re meant to call it in this age of prison abolition, because of course not all harms are crimes and not all crimes are harmful – did you know it’s illegal to use someone else’s Netflix account?) when they’re well supported and they have a team around them. And if anything’s stigmatising and isolating it’s a sexual offence on their records, so it makes sense to pay professionals to be that support network. But my issue is, if you’re not a sex offender, and you don’t have a set of parents who can afford to (or in my case, want to) help you pay for a deposit, you’re fucked.
The first part happens the way it usually happens. I was living with a partner, the relationship broke down, and we, like so many people who used to be couples, continued living together until the end of the contract. She moved back in with her parents. I couldn’t afford to live on my own, so I looked for an apartment to share. Then I lost my job. People always think it’s because I was depressed after the break up and performed badly at work. But the truth is, I’ve been depressed since I was eleven, and I was performing at work like I always performed at work: mediocre. But they were reshuffling or restructuring or whatever they call it and my boss said, “I’m afraid we just don’t have a place for you anymore.” So I went on unemployment, and the apartments that accepted tenants who are on benefits were just going like hotcakes. I was never quick enough. Of course, I went to the local council and put my name on the list for an apartment but the lady said, “Look, I’ll level with you, unless you are about to give birth, this meeting is an absolute waste of your time.” I thought about pretending I was about to give birth – people get very uncomfortable asking fat non-binary people direct questions about pregnancy, and I did have a friend who was pregnant, so maybe I could use her urine to fake my own pregnancy like I’d read in Gone Girl. But then I’d just get found out, so I thought better of it and went to stay on my friend Nav’s sofa.
“You can stay as long as you need to,” says Nav, but Nav’s partner Bev says, “Well, I think it’s best to draw up some boundaries, you know, get something on writing.” She wants to know how many house viewings I’m going to per week and how many job interviews, as well as what I’m going to contribute to food and bills while I’m here. “We do everything communally,” she says, which actually means she makes a comment every time you use olive oil, saying, “It’s a lot more expensive than rapeseed oil, you know,” and likes to make a big deal of how quickly the toilet paper is going down. I start buying all my own things, but Bev says, “We live communally in this house, if that doesn’t work for you, you need to think about going to stay somewhere else.”
If someone washes something up and Bev thinks it’s not to standard, she takes it out of the drying rack and puts it on a dishcloth and puts a note on the dish cloth saying, “I’d appreciate it if people washed up properly! Thanks, Bev xoxox.” Once this has happened three times, Bev calls a house meeting, just me, Nav, and her, and says, “Look Shalida, before you came to stay on our sofa, we didn’t have any issues with washing dishes. Now I find they’re dirty quite a lot. So, you know, we know that it’s you. I wonder if you’re maybe being a bit passive aggressive here? You know, not washing the dishes properly because you’re angry at your situation, or,” and here she makes a gesture with her hands as if she’s grasping for air, “maybe with me?” She cocks her head to one side and takes a sip of Rooibos tea.
And this is where I lose it. I tell her that if she’s going to appropriate black culture, including our tea, she should be nicer to black people, like me. Nav, who isn’t white, but who isn’t black either, looks confused, and then he buries his head in his hands as if he just can’t handle whatever’s going to come next. And what comes next is that Bev goes around the house collecting everything that’s mine. I don’t have much stuff, it’s just one suitcase, and some toiletries, but she collects them one by one to make it into a bigger performance than it strictly has to be, and she puts it all outside the door. “You’ve really crossed my boundaries,” she says. “And we agreed that if you crossed my boundaries, you would have to leave, didn’t we Nav?”
Nav says nothing. He still has his head buried in his hands. I know he won’t look at me leaving, even when I say, “Bye Nav,” and put my hand on his shoulder. Bev removes my hand and says, “It’s time to go Shalida,” and I get out of there.
I go to stay at my friend Sara’s. That night when Sara gets home from work, we drink a half bottle of wine and discuss Bev’s antics. Everyone has heard rumours that Nav’s partner, Bev, has no manners, but this is concrete proof and Sara is very entertained. “Tell me the thing about the washing up Post-It again,” she says. I do an impression of Bev writing her little note, and the two of us fall over laughing. Then, after a few more glasses of wine, we start talking about how Bev will die. Sara says that Bev will die a terrible accidental death like getting hit by an asteroid and I say that no, Bev will die from choking on a dishcloth.
The next day Sara comes home from work early. There is no spare room or sofa at Sara’s place; she shares an apartment with two women, sisters, who barely speak English and keep themselves to themselves, and I’m sharing Sara’s room with her. So, when she comes home early, I’m in the bed we’re sharing, in an ancient T-shirt and a pair of stretch cotton boxers, compulsively reading problem pages on the Internet. It’s not a good look for someone who’s supposed to be studiously job and apartment hunting, and when I hear her enter, I slam my laptop shut and scramble around for some clothes. But when she comes through the door, Sara’s face is wet with tears and she clearly has no interest in whatever it is I’ve just been reading or what I happen to be wearing. “Bev’s dead,” she says.
She shows me a post on Facebook. Bev died choking on a dishcloth.
I think it’s a wild coincidence and honestly sort of funny (why did she have a dishcloth in her mouth in the first place? Does Bev eat dishcloths? That’s hilarious!) but Sara is somehow convinced that we killed her. She says ‘we’ but I know she thinks me because I’m the one who came up with the dishcloth-choking scenario. Sara can’t sleep and she can barely eat and after a few weeks of this Sara loses her job in recruitment and can’t afford her rent or even seem to take care of herself and she ends up moving in with her married sister who has two kids under three and is probably grateful for the free babysitting. The two sisters ask on Google Translate if I want to take Sara’s room, but with no savings and no job, I can’t afford it. They very kindly say I can stay until they find someone else. I mean it’s not that kind, Sara is still paying rent until the end of the month. Sara messages me day and night asking why we did what we did and don’t I feel bad about it, and I am empathetic and sympathetic, until one day I snap and I say, “Sara, this is ridiculous. You can’t kill people by talking about their death.”
“What if you can?” says Sara.
“Fine,” I say. “You’re going to die by choking on a melon.”
The next day, one of the sisters knocks on my door at 6 o'clock in the morning and tells me on Google Translate that Sara is dead. “What?” I say.
The sister tells me, on Google Translate, that she choked on a melon her little niece put in her mouth when she was sleeping. She read about it on Instagram.
I am devastated. Sara and I have been friends for a decade. She was the one who supported me when I finally estranged myself from my parents. She was the one who was there for me when things with my ex first started going down the shitter. And also, I may have killed her.
I cry so loud during the nights, these great wrenching sobs from deep inside my belly, that one of the sisters tells me I have to move out, even though Sara’s still renting the room for four more days. I go to stay with my friend Shanique who lives in another city. She was friends with Sara too. When I tell her how guilty I feel, Shanique says, “Me too. I just wish – I don’t know, that I spent more time with her, I guess. I’m not good at keeping in touch with people. We hadn’t talked in months.”
“No,” I say, “I feel guilty because, well, I think I killed her.”
Shanique nods her head. “I know babe,” she says. “It’s normal to have these feelings.” A few years ago Shanique started training to be a counsellor but she gave it up and became a beekeeper instead. “It’s part of the bargaining stage of grieving. If only I was a better friend, maybe she would be still alive. If only I was more attentive, maybe she’d still be alive. If only.”
“No,” I say, “I mean, I’m literally thinking I may have killed her.”
Shanique nods her head again. “I know babe, I hear you,” she says.
I am so frustrated that I just tell her. I tell her about Bev and I tell her about Sara. Shanique makes a strange expression on her face. Then, after a long few minutes, she says, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay with me.” That’s it. She goes to the hallway and hands me my suitcase and she says, “You need to be around people who can support you and I’m not that person.”
Rumours spread fast. Shanique tells people I killed Sara. Nobody wants me to stay with them. And so I’m at my parents’ house. Yes, my parents. Now, big spoiler: the reason I don’t talk to my father is because he’s a sex offender. Not the kind that went to prison and got out and got given a key worker and a nice apartment. He’s the kind who never went to prison because nobody, least of all my mother, believed me (not that I believe in prisons anyway, but you get my point). And so in order to move back in with them, which they are delighted with, by the way, they’ve always felt very hard done by that neither of their daughters are in touch with them (my baby sister isn’t in touch with me either but that’s for separate, unrelated reasons), I have to handwrite him a letter stating that all the accusations I made about him were fabricated. He takes this letter and he frames it and puts it on the wall. “That’s better,” he says, “Now we can put all that nastiness behind us.” He offers his arms out in a hug and I think I am going to hug him back, I am walking towards him, and then I feel something rising in my throat and very quickly I vomit all over the floor. I can see everything I have eaten that morning: vegan scrambled eggs, avocado toast, rice and beans, a gluten free wrap, fried potatoes, pineapple salsa, a big blow-out breakfast with my rapidly dwindling current account. When my mother is making a big noise cleaning it all up with a dustpan and a bucket of water and a horse brush, I whisper to myself, “My father dies choking on that handwritten letter I wrote him,” and I just wait.
Laura Barker
Laura Barker is a writer, artist, and facilitator, and she co-runs runs a queer black writing group in London, UK. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, Apparition Lit, midnight & indigo, The Other Stories, Qwerty, Planet Scumm, Middleground, Flame Tree Publishing Gothic Fantasy Anthology Series, Love Letters to Poe, Ongoing, and Cosmic Horror Monthly. Laura guest edited for Apparition Lit and her YA novel Picnics was shortlisted for the Faber Andlyn BAME (FAB) Prize. She was a lead writer at Spread the Word and London Wildlife Trust’s nature writing partnership This Is Our Place. Her favourite crisps are Ready Salted and she’s an Aries rising. Follow her at @LauraHannahBar.
