The Moving Times Of Caroline Proudly

2 Henry Place

With the disappointing lack of Ronsellier based accommodation listed in the Fitchester Echo over the next 3 consecutive weeks, I had no choice but to look further afield before a homeless crisis set in. I was forced to accept living back out towards Peer Road and I settled for a room in a house in Henry Place. It hadn't got the grandness that much of Sacville had but it did offer the general civil aspects of the area and it certainly wasn't Rodden.

The day I moved in, I opened the door to find a completely tattooed and heavily pierced housemate, with bright orange dreads, in the hallway. With a thick northern accent and a rollie stuck to his lip, he introduced himself as Gary and asked if I needed a hand with my stuff. I took him up on his offer and as we lumbered everything up into my new bedroom, he happily chatted about why he was in Fitchester and why he hated it. I liked him instantly. He was a city boy from Sheffield, trying to cope with the culture shock of provincial Fitchester. "M'am thinks that being around cultured Southerners will be good for me...fuk that...I'm not a bad lad and I ain't changing nothing for no one!" he explained, as he sat comfortably on my bed making another rollie. He continued. "How's about I make us a nice cup of cha and then leaves ya to sort out that pile of shite?" as he nodded at the heap of my belongings. That was exactly what he did and by the end of my first day at Henry Place I had discovered that Gary was as straightforward as that. He did what he said, and he said what he did.

Later, when my other new housemate came home, he knocked on my bedroom door and politely said that he hoped that he wasn't disturbing me, but thought that he would introduce himself, and just wanted to see that I had everything I needed. Chris was tall and gangly with curly hair, round glasses and a cheeky smile. His thick accent instantly gave away his Devonshire roots. The three of us sat around the table in the dining area of the open plan sitting / dining room and chatted. I was delighted with my choice of accommodation and felt miles away from the cold and characterless Donald Drive.

A sudden announcement that it was likely that the shoe shop would be closing down in the near future caused me to address my life. Perhaps it was living with Chris and Gary, who were both students who knew where their lives were going to take them, that made me decide that I should go back to study. I enrolled at FitchTech to do a part-time, year's course of 2 'A' Levels, working at the shoe shop when I didn't have lessons.

With three students in the house, it was remarkably quiet. Gary popped back to Sheffield whenever his finances allowed and when they didn't, he spent a lot of time getting stoned and listening to music in his room. He was always cheerful even when he was complaining about being stuck in Fitchester. His mother called the house fairly regularly. I assumed that it was to check that he hadn't jacked everything in and done a runner from Fitchester. Her opening line was always 'Alright luv. Our kid there?'. He also had quite a lot of phone contact with his twin brother, with whom he clearly had a loving and yet volatile relationship. Shouts of '...for Christ's sake, our Bill, for Christ's sake!' were common and often followed by the sound of the handset being slammed down in exasperation.

Chris was in his final year of his photography course and usually got home late, ate and spent the rest of the evening in his room playing REM whilst working on some college project or another. I had morning lessons followed by work at the shop and then home to study. Philip, my dear old friend who had helped me move from Peer Road in his Land Rover returned to Fitchester. The proximity of his mother's house to Henry Place meant that I started to see a lot of him. Despite the length of our friendship, and his normally overconfident manner, Philip had a very annoying way of phrasing his self-initiated invitations to come over. He always called with the line, 'If I bring a bottle, can I come over?'. Despite constantly reprimanding him and asking him to at least change the focus of his question he somehow couldn't help himself. My response became, 'Of course you're welcome to come over. It would be lovely to see you! I have a bottle open but if you want to bring one, that would be great!' As one of my A level subjects was British Government and Politics, I had convinced myself that to discuss the state of the country over a couple of bottles of wine with Philip was as effective as textbook learning. When my bottle was empty, and we were getting close to the bottom of the one he had brought we would go to the pub around the corner for more supplies. Normally by that time, the subject of politics had long slipped off the conversation agenda. We never actually made it into the Pub's bar because just inside the front door there was an off-licence alternative. Over a stable door, up until the last client in the bar was ready to leave, you could get a bottle of Pinot Noir for two quid. Philip and I became regular take away clients and over the stable door we would get welcoming nods and smiles from the old regulars drinking on the other side in the bar.