Goodlord E-Book

Ella Frears

• Herausgeber: Rough Trade Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 163

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Taking the form of one long email addressed to an estate agent, Goodlord is a fictional memoir of habitation, a genre-defying novelistic text that beautifully evokes the people and places of our lives——the spaces of work, those that may or may not be 'home', sites of trauma and ecstasy. Showing all the control of voice one would expect from a poet of her rare skill, Ella Frears has created a book that is as funny as it is harrowing, and beautifully skewers the contemporary housing crisis while questioning the fundamental desires, drivers and disappointments that lie at the heart of our obsession with 'property'.  

Leseprobe

First published in 2024 by Rough Trade Books

Design by Craig Oldham, Eliza Hart—Office of Craig

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronically, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the permission of the copyright owners. ©Ella Frears, 2024.

The right of Ella Frears to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Sections 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Print ISBN

9781914236426

eISBN

9781914236440

an email

We’re delighted to be renewing your

tenancy. We’ve partnered with Goodlord,

a property technology company, so you can

sign your renewal contract online. To get

started, you’ll need to set up an account

with Goodlord.

Ava, Nestor Estate Agents

Dear Ava,

It’s not your fault this caught me like it did –

Goodlord – the name disturbs me most. As though

we’re meant to pledge ourselves, to call our faceless

landlord good… or God, and I should – should I? –

feel graced, or blessed to live under this roof?

Oh Ava, I was snagged on it.

To tell the truth a thread came loose,

I should explain:

picture me in this little flat you rent us, lips

parted, blowing my coffee’s meniscus into waves – soft

at first, then crashing up the mug’s insides

and over,

yes, the sheets will surely stain,

and I was thinking of the old gods, Ava,

and ships they sank without notice, without malice,

I was reading an article, just the top, peeking

over the paywall; the surface-foam of current events

lifted with a teaspoon,

the surface is where the art is, I said.

Not everything’s like coffee, he replied.

I like my men bitter.

It’s been a while since we’ve – well,

we did have thrush – a pox

on both our crotches! – see, Ava,

the article spoke of basements being built across the city

they can’t go up,

and so they dig

I think that was the gist but

what intrigued me most was the idea that

once they’d dug – what – three floors down?

the digger was too big to get back out,

cheaper then, it said,

to dig a little grave and bury it there – imagine!

Thousands of diggers entombed across the city…

you must have many questions but I only read the tip

of it,

it struck me though,

and I thought about the summer’s day

a surveyor friend, well, more-than-friend,

let me climb into a digger’s little cab and pull the earth

from deep inside a trench,

a thrill!

Perhaps you’ve also tried,

I made a joke, a good one,

about burying a body, then my phone rang –

my uncle had died.

All those diggers sealed in concrete, underground,

so sad,

and then your email, Ava,

and though it was a Sunday,

that soft buzz is like a siren’s call – I couldn’t help but tap

the icon,

I was in bed.

Did I mention that? Lazy, you might think, but

I’d had this dream…

I was wandering through a house I visit

often, though I’ve never actually been.

The Big House, I call it.

The grand construction of my sleep.

It’s funny,

but I’ve never dreamed of here – this little flat – though

it’s – what, nine years now? –

you’d know.

I suppose these boxy multi-purpose rooms don’t suit

the architecture of dreams.

The Big House has winding halls, and grounds,

and countless rooms that shift,

shall I show you around?

Might be nice to take a tour yourself, no?

Come on in,

observe the polished concrete floors, the

big bay windows, and that view! The stars and planets

swimming – the universe in perpetual bloom,

and inside, my previous day unfolding

like a fern,

look there!

You might think that’s my granny on the carpet,

in child’s pose, but things change in the peripherals,

stare directly and you’ll see she is in fact

a rotisserie chicken.

Ava, speak to it,

it might speak back! And tell you all about

its chicken life, that ended in

my kitchen –

that reminds me,

Re: my previous emails about the oven, Ava,

how we have to stick a chopstick through the back

and manually spin the fan like cranking an old car to

make it work,

all those emails to your office…

the dodgy lock,

the rising damp,

that swollen crack across the worktop – Ava, I can’t bear

to press it!

Though it’s begging to be pressed

and no reply until this email, Ava,

Goodlord

that closed compound, enough to

make me housesick, how I hate it!

Hated him too, first time we met

that surveyor more-than-friend

it was winter,

I was queueing at the cinema, lost

in thought, I was thinking about dogs – the extra things

they see and smell and hear beyond our reach…

He wanted to get by, I hadn’t seen,

and so he moved me with the rolled-up newspaper

in his hand.

Startled – shifted – I looked at the paper

rolled-up tight, then at his eyes, cold, already locked

ahead and moving past me and I was sure, that in that

moment, I had thought so deeply of dogs

I’d transformed.

Ava, please don’t stress, I know pets aren’t

allowed here – honestly,

I’ve never even known a dog.

Once when I was walking home I saw

a small, quite fluffy dog beside its owner.

As I passed I met its eye and thought,

what a stupid little face,

I heard my brain annunciate the words, my mouth,

of course, was closed.

The dog began to bark, tugging on its lead,

gnashing its tiny teeth, growling…

The owner was shocked,

she’s never done this to anyone before.

Is there a digger under your house, Ava?

Hard not to think of them like buried pets.

Not dogs, but diplodocuses their arms like long necks,

raised.

Thousands of machine graves.

That uncle – my uncle – was an impressive man,

bodily I mean, broad and tall. A brick. A house.

His wife was mean and small.

They put his coffin on a gurney,

I guess to save his friends the struggle.

It looked odd to me,

I much prefer the carrying of men by men –

the gravity.

My uncle’s small, mean wife wore lace.

She’d paced about the house waiting for the hearse as

though about to go on stage.

The cemetery was on this steep, steep slope,

ankles buckling in their black-heeled shoes.

The greyest sea beyond, the houses far below.

Everything to the side of grief. Even the sun

beside the point, you know?

The priest was young, I’d watched him

kiss the book and thought the kiss a little wet for death.

Anyway,

the undertaker almost lost the gurney

to the slope.

I willed it, I confess!

To speed past your small, mean widow and her

ghoulish friends, and shoot over the edge, to make one

final joke, refuse the grave they’d dug for you,

take flight –

now there’s a death!

Do you believe in ghosts?

You must, Ava. I don’t.

And yet I have seen two.

Seen one, heard another.

As a child, whenever I had a fever, I’d hallucinate:

clocks, where no clocks were, the hands spinning

at a weird speed, too fast but also sort of… lagging.

It’s common, I’ve heard, in children – maybe you used to

see things too.

Sometimes I’d see the ceiling gently falling in,

a train hurtling towards me – much too fast… and yet

too slow.

During one especially bad night, my mother called

a doctor. He asked to speak to me, she handed me the phone.

What can you see? He asked. He had an accent, maybe

French.

A train, I whispered.

What you need to do, darling, he said, is board that train.

‘Darling’ – I know!

No doctor’s ever been as tender since!

Thing is, Ava, it worked. I never saw the train, or clocks,

or ceiling

coming down again.

That doctor’s voice became a talisman of sorts, you see –

do you? – where I’m going with this…

whenever I was overwhelmed, I’d feel that weird

speed push me forwards, drag me

back,

and I’d play

his voice

inside my head, darling

board that train…

and everything

would settle,

Ava,

do you

understand,

for years

I comforted

myself with darling,

board that train,

and then

offhand

one day

I told the story

at a dinner

that my mother

was also at

and after, quietly

she said, no

that never

happened,

no night

doctor,

no sweet, French

doctor, just you,

a child with a fever,

speaking

in an accent

we had never heard

before. Quite

spooky, actually,

she said,

one’s child calling

herself

darling

like that –

Ava, what the fuck.

Better for me to say he was a ghost, than unpick that

tapestry,

though rich, I’m sure.

Actually,

the dream I’d had before your email moved

my phone across the bedside table with a buzz –

I could hear him in the basement of The Big House,

the sweet French doctor, I could hear him through the

floor, but couldn’t find the stairs or door

to get to him.

I asked the other people there – party guests,

all wearing masks that bore the faces of my favourite

people fixed in disappointment, I felt sweaty –

I guess it’s on my mind… I mean –

I’m trying this new deodorant out,

a natural one – have you gone through this phase

yet, Ava? You know those spray ones kill the planet or

your breasts –

it’s pretty herbal this one, intensely so

and though I’m not so sure it’s any nicer than the smell

of me… I persevere.

I must have worn it in my dream while looking for the

doctor because a figure with my mother’s face sniffed

and asked,

have you been marinating pork?

…sage, citrus, rosemary leaf oil…

I am the pork.

And still the doctor called me from the basement,

darling… darling…

but I couldn’t find the stairs

or door –

in horror films the basement is where monsters are.

I lived in someone’s basement for about a year,

it wasn’t you – was it? – The letting agent

for that place?

I hope not, Ava.

I’ve never been so frantically unhappy!

Corridors so narrow that my shoulders touched

both walls as I walked down, my bedroom had no

window – a sort of breeze block coffin, just bigger than a

double bed.

No window!

Just a plastic door onto a small communal courtyard,

concrete too,

not much out there, except a washing line,

an old fridge drawer with someone’s strawberry plants.

The basement flat next door to mine was

occupied by women – a brothel! – I was told by a

particularly sour man upstairs.

I doubt it’s true. And anyway

what does it matter, Ava, they were sweet and quiet,

they had these kids there, twins I think – a boy and girl,

what – three years old? – who’d play outside my door.

See, in the summer I would have to keep it open or I’d

bake,

and so I’d have a curtain drawn across,

at this time I was going out a lot,

nocturnal,

summer’s days I’d nap, the ceiling creaking

with the heavy shuffle of that sour man upstairs,

the fabric of my curtain gently billowing in the

dusty breeze

and often I’d be woken by a scrabbling

sound and see four tiny arms reach underneath the

curtain,

feel around for anything on my floor,

and if there was an object, they would take it –

a make-up brush,

a pair of plastic sunglasses,

a tangerine,

a mug,

a postcard from my aunt,

countless bobby pins

and hairbands…

I never stopped them.

Instead, began to feel quite superstitious about the

things I dropped.

I’d never pick them up.

Libations.

Once it was my favourite lipstick… I saw it hit the

floor and roll towards the curtain, and felt happy

to be free of it.

What even is a property technology, Ava?

Goodlord.

It’s always been a triangle – us,

and you, the shapeless, shadowy form that is

our landlord.

Goodlord.

Maybe they are like God

landlords.

You never use his name, just landlord –

your landlord –

as in…

“This email is to inform you that your landlord will

be increasing rent.”

Remember that one, Ava?

A classic!

Interesting, it wasn’t that

that set me off –

no we just shuddered, muttered, took it

it’s how things are.

But this –

I read your email and a strange, chilled anger

filled me, Ava,

like if fury were gazpacho – zingy, fresh,

and icy –

brimming

oh

it’s spilling over –

Ava, I refuse

to stem it –

I’ve known this feeling once before

cool rage

evening dress

captain’s hat

bass deep light dimming strobe ceiling low jump glass

warm alcohol sweetening wood sticky wet towel laughter

cheering skin tightening brain thinned knee rising blood-

impact ring imprint tooth dislodging clean blur clean blur

clean – but here,

I’m falling into something else, it’s not for you,

this,

not yet, Ava –

I want clarity.

I want to be so clear with you

and look –

I haven’t even told you how we met,

that surveyor more-than-friend and I –

met properly, I mean.

After the cinema, the newspaper,

woof woof

I was working in a pub, a gastropub –

it had a pizza oven, Ava.

I wasn’t in the basement yet.

My first year living in a city.

First year at University.

In halls, we were sixteen to every kitchen.

It was chaos,

but a dream, Ava!

The books stacked up – the Post-its on the pinboard.

Carpet tiles and yellow pine and flaking paint –

Oh hi there, sweet Nostalgia! – the cakey hobs, the partly

melted plastic chopping board, the jagged knives.

The toaster that would spark and make your crumpet

taste un peu toxique.

Our floor was mostly art students

and so the bath in the shared

bathroom would frequently be filled with eggs

or oil

or blood – though fake I think, or animal at least –

or cream.

No one ever cleaned it with anything but water so

it had this ring – this film – a muddiness in the grain of

the enamel. Sort of purple, if purple were unhappy.

And still we bathed, Ava!

Candle on the windowsill, beer swigged from the

bottle

and sometimes a friend or lover

would be in there,

crammed together

in the grime.

Sure, our deposits never made it home.

But they’re not meant to are they, Ava?

First week, I walked around with my C.V.

and this pub hired me on the spot.

A girl in halls had told me – print your C.V. in navy

blue instead of black so it stands out,

I did.

And then one night the surveyor and his friends

came in while I was working –

            thing is, Ava, I’d never

normally entertain a man like him, but this pub – was

kind of dodgy –

I wasn’t exactly thinking straight –

how do I put this?

I was young, nineteen –

you’re not much older are you, Ava?

Twenty? Twenty-two?

I’ve looked you up –

and all the other people working at this bar were men –

some boyish, some more grizzled, some

completely addled – fucked!

This pub was owned by a big brewery – I forget the

name – a chain – who never checked on things,

they never came to see how it was run,

or hadn’t yet

and boss-less, boundary-less, these men had lost the

plot –

a night-time world of booze, free money

from the till, and girls and girls and girls just coming in.

At first I found it funny, Ava, the way men are

when left unchecked together.

I liked how I became the centre of the orbit

working there

all glances led to me

my body.            Hot.

Thing was, I needed the job,

and these boys,

          they had a bet to see

                                    who’d fuck me first.

Really, Ava!

Though I didn’t know it then.

What started as gentle flirting, well,

it escalated

fast.

And though some of them were cute – especially

this curly-headed boy who smelled so good… the rest

were kind of gross, and one guy – Matthew –

well, he was really mean.

I giggled through a week or two.

The work itself was great – a busy bar, the rush of

keeping up, and all the happy, horny eyes of strangers.

With the bar between us, I was safe.

I loved to pull a pint with eyes locked on the eyes of a

student, banker, hairdresser, local alcoholic, then move

on to the next.

You might be thinking I was up for it,

I was.

I’d pin the bits of paper, napkin, cards with people’s

numbers, names, and little notes onto the pinboard in my

room – near-conquests! what-could’ve-beens!

There, I was Woman. Born from egg.

Gazed upon, adored, fought over, stolen –

I felt indestructible.

They’d have these lock-ins after work.

The manager was rarely there at shift time but after

closing he’d emerge. He had this office like a cupboard,

would sit and watch the footage from the cameras.

He was pallid, wormy-thin, I guess

in his late thirties – soft, sad eyes.

The only one who didn’t try it on with me. In fact,

I seemed invisible to him.

Slightly disconcerting.

He had girlfriends on and off.

Once, when I was working on the daytime shift, a

girlfriend came for lunch. She was about his age, looked

sensible and clean. They sat and had a pizza and a

cappuccino each. They were cuddled-up inside the

leather booth, I took their plates, they barely noticed me,

and then I saw his hand move up her thigh,

she laughed and slapped it,

Grandad, no!

So that’s what he was into.

Anyway, these lock-ins, they felt fun, the way

it can be fun to dip a toe into the dark, cold water of a

lake you’d never swim in.

I felt sciencey – you know that feeling, Ava?

Like doing field work

not that I’ve ever worked in science you

understand –

but I’ve often felt my brain

switch, put on a lab coat and observe.

Fourteen I think, was when I felt it first – some

boys from school had asked to see my breasts.

I showed them. I didn’t see why not.

We were by the reservoir, just out of town.

T-shirt raised, I watched them take me in. Time slowed. I

shivered and the bushes shivered too.

It was a trade – a swap. They got their

willies out. I took them in right back. Their corduroys,

dicks in hand, the muddy path, the cowpat by their feet.

That cloudy sky was really trying to

have a golden hour…

then two weeks later, I was walking

home just after dark with another boy, who was my

friend – a soft, large boy who had an Eeyore quality –

and he told me that the boys had told him what we’d

done.

You’ll show them but you won’t show me? He said.

Why would you want to see? I asked him,

but he sulked and said we couldn’t be friends.

And so, I did what I had done before, because why not,

Ava? I lifted my shirt for him to see. But he immediately

bent down, began to lick my nipples.

That’s when my brain put on the lab coat first.

I thought, it’s happening, so why not study it.

What can you feel? I asked myself.

Very little, was the answer – streetlamp, tarmac,

geraniums in a window box – cold… and weary for my

age.

There was no trade – he showed me nothing in

return, left triumphantly.

Later watching Ground Force with my mum, I got

a text from him.

Did I take advantage?

Oh Eeyore! I still don’t know! The thought hadn’t even

crossed my mind. And when I didn’t reply another text

came through.

I had to stoop.

Anyway Ava,

the lock-ins at this pub – they had my brain

wearing that lab coat almost all the time – I didn’t mind.

After closing up, with all the lights switched

off, the bar wiped down, the guys would rack up lines.

The chef, an older Polish guy – who

hated pizza but made the best I’ve ever tried – would

have the drugs, or else he needed to pick up –

and so often this bloke, Ketamine Chris, was there –