Day 48

Thursday April 8, 2021

Mark:

Sarah comes into our room this morning as we’re waking up and all’s nice and chilled with a lovely morning vibe. Almost like we’ve all got our apartment mojo back. Full of fun, she tells us a little story about herself. One of those little self deprecating tales of comical disaster. Towards the end of it, mid laugh, her face suddenly turns to stone. She looks at me and says, ‘Stop thinking that.’ What the hell am I supposed to say to that? ‘I’ve got powers,’ she says. ‘I know what you’re thinking and you can stop it right now.’ Oh dear. This is not good. Yes ladies and gentlemen. We have reached that stage. The one where you don’t even have to say anything anymore. We are now actually being accused of thinking the wrong things. It’s kind of an irrelevance, but I really wasn’t thinking anything. Just enjoying the story. I guess that’s what you get these days if you happen to catch Sarah’s eye the wrong way, kinda like Maja did the other morning. If you’re now being accused of thinking something you may not be thinking, on top of almost everything you say – even totally positive stuff – being twisted into being something you didn’t at all mean, any kind of communication becomes impossible. All I can do now, as I lie in bed and she stands over us, is wait out this horrible misconceived, awkward misunderstanding and hope she eventually gives up and goes away.

We realise now that this particular mindset just isn’t going to stop. It had started to become almost impossible to say anything to Sarah without it being taken the wrong way. Now it’s even become impossible to not say anything as well. What can you do with that? After she’s gone, me and Maja look at each other and quickly agree that we really do need to take control now and look for something else. The time for hoping this situation will stabilise and all will be OK has passed. It just won’t. In the same breath, we agree that going back to the old place with the two of us living in that tiny room with Jenn living directly below just isn’t an option. But the rent is still being paid so it still exists for us. But no. Just, no. But it still does exist. Just saying.

In any case, this apartment is no longer the place for us right now so once more we go out for no other reason than we have to get out. The difference this time is that we’re totally cranking up the hunt for a new place. We’re starting to reach desperate town. With what’s just happened, it’s time to just get out. We would still rather jump straight to another country and we’ve been speaking about that a lot, but at the same time, we just need another place. Now. And if that’s to be somewhere in London again while we sort out the real move, fine.

We go up onto Hampstead Heath and I start to call friends to see if they have, or know of, any rooms going. This turns into quite a nice catchup with a lot of people as I let them know a little of what’s been going on – only the good stuff of course – and I get to hear how they’ve been doing. Some of these people I haven’t seen or spoken to in well over a year. I’m turning nothing up though, although the word is getting out and people are saying they’ll keep an ear and an eye open. But again, this is still pandemic, lockdown London. Not total total lockdown London, but there remains very little fluid movement of the kind that would normally see a room shake itself free sooner or later.

Then I call my producer friend Alex, who also works as executive chef at a pub in Angel. I played a few studio sessions with as he put together his pop/electronica album. Like everyone else I’ve spoken to so far, he doesn’t know of anything but he does tell me he’s having a party tomorrow night in one of the apartments above his pub. He says he was going to call me about this some time tonight anyway. A lot of people I know will be there and he’s doubling it as a video shoot for one of the songs I played on. Well, chicken and egg here. He’s arranged the video shoot and, with various friends helping out and acting in it, has decided to turn it into the opportunity for a party. He asks me to bring my bass too as he might want me to film a scene with me. Cooler and cooler. We will be there. Me, Maja and bass.  

I make some more calls for a while but still nothing concrete turns up. Oh well. We’ve got the word out there. Time to head back. It’s now sometime between six and seven.

We get to the apartment and Maja decides she wants to keep walking for a while. No problem. So we continue, this time heading into residential London rather than the deep green of the wonderful Hampstead Heath. All the while of course, we’re talking about our experiences with Sarah and our feelings about them. Then we start to talk about the day she came into our room and started filming. Then Maja says, ‘I’m really glad she deleted that video.’ Oh dear. It is true that we asked for that and that Sarah immediately agreed, but I think it’s time the truth was told here. I take a deep breath and dive straight in. ‘Maja, the video wasn’t deleted. Sarah sent it to people and got a negative response back from it. I’m sorry I never told you but…,’ I don’t get any further. Maja has already started to react and it’s stronger than anything I could have imagined. She’s hyperventilating and nothing I can say is going to help right now. I guess I should have just told her at the time, but like I said then, I really didn’t want things to blow up. Well, something had to give, and here we go. It’s blowing up. Immediately we head back to the apartment. This is happening. Now.

Maja:

We go back, pack a backpack each, and a suitcase with duvets and pillows, and our basses and head out, but not before a confrontation with Sarah.

Mark:

Oh yes. That confrontation. Neither of us is in the mood to speak to Sarah right now, and certainly not to have the moving out conversation. So we think we’ll just go in, pick up some backpacks and leave with overnight stuff and come again and maybe have that chat. We’re in and out with backpacks all the time anyway so we figure it will be inconspicuous enough. But somehow Sarah is able to read the situation exactly for what it is and lets her deep offence known that we’re trying to just secretly sneak off. We have to come back again over the next day or two anyway to clear out everything else and that certainly couldn’t be done in secret so no-one’s sneaking off anywhere. We just didn’t want to have any kind of big deal thing going on tonight. Of course I don’t get to say all that and of course it wouldn’t cut any ice if I did. It really is just best to just let Sarah say her thing and get out of here. But no. If there was any chance of us leaving on good terms, that’s not a thing anymore.

But before any of that happens, and before we head back to the apartment to have that confrontation we were hoping not to have, I call Cris to tell him we’re coming back. What I’m really thinking is that he can help us move with his super huge seven seater car. But he has a bad reaction to the fact that we’re moving back, saying this would not be good for Jenn. No it would not but we really have nowhere else to go. And anyway, we’re planning on moving to Ireland soon so hopefully it’s only going to be a temporary thing. He finally comes round to the idea and says, ‘Yes, I understand. I see you have no choice. OK.’ Great. It’s not like we needed his permission, but at least some kind of weak blessing which has been granted, even if someone reluctantly and hesitatingly. But there’s no way I’m going to ask him for car help now. I feel that would put him in an awkward, in the middle, situation.

Then, in all fairness, I have to call Jenn just to give her the heads up that we’re moving back in. She is stunned, but ends up with some kind of resigned acceptance.

Back to the old place it is and we enter quietly and back to the tiny room without encountering anyone. Straight away we start to look at apartments and rooms to try to get ourselves out of here as soon as possible. Nothing fits any kind of realistic budget and, as we talk it through, we conclude that yes, we’ll get onto planning that Ireland move, and then make it as soon as possible. So let’s lie low here. I’ll work my notice at the bar, and then we’ll leave. Two weeks, give or take, and we’ll be on our way. At least, that’s the plan.