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to the bathroom.
    Blocking out the sound of their discussion I gently closed the door, locked it, and perched on the loo to ponder.
    Maybe I had outstayed my welcome.
    What did I mean maybe ? Of course I’d overdone it. Like I always did with everything else in my life, I’d assumed I’d be forever welcomed. I was wrong, and I’d been treating the place like a hotel. No wonder poor Miranda was at the end of her patience.
    I looked down at myself. I was still in the same old pair of pyjamas I’d slept in for a week and was wearing a pair of fluffy old slippers that’d seen better days, lent to me by Miranda. And I had on nothing else. I hadn’t even bothered to put on her borrowed dressing gown. This outfit was my customary choice of garb when relaxing around their home. Not very nice, I know. Not how a decent person should behave in someone else’s home. Not only was I treating their home like my own personal bedsit, but I was also turning into a selfish and lazy slob. And one too scared to take her life back into her own control. I’d been putting it off for weeks, but now it had to be faced.
    Unfolding my legs, I treated myself to a quick check of my reflection in the mirror of the bathroom cabinet. A bloodshot and bleary eyed woman I didn’t know and scarcely recognised squinted back. I stuck my tongue out at her, and groaned when I saw the white coating furring it.
    “Bloody hell,” I remonstrated out loud, running a hand through my recently cropped and dyed hair which was jutting out in all directions. “You’re one mucked up dehydrated mess! Don’t you know too much booze and too many late nights makes you hung-over? No wonder poor Miranda is fed up of having you around. Who can blame her for having a go? I’d turn on you myself, given half a chance.”
    I sneered at myself once more for good effect, and felt all the better for having given the stranger in the mirror a good talking to. Then I brushed my teeth, smelt my armpits, and decided to take a quick shower.
    Afterwards, with one of their large, fluffy bath sheets wrapped around me, I managed to slip out of the bathroom without being seen and quickly scurried back to the lounge, aka my bedroom, where I hastily grabbed up socks, a clean bra, pants, grey joggers and an elbow length white tee-shirt with the word ‘Spitfire’ across the bosom. Cheap and cheerful. What I could afford. All from Primark. Great store if the funds were low.
    While I was dressing, I heard the front door bell chime, then the sound of voices in the hallway, but with the door closed I couldn’t hear clearly who was coming or going and, besides, I was too busy trying to tidy up the mess I’d left in the room to wonder or even care if we were having visitors.
    After having deflated the blow up mattress that served as my makeshift bed, I pulled back the curtains to let in some light, and opened a couple of windows to let some air into the stale-smelling room. I parked empty crisp packets and cans of lager into the waste paper basket, folded my sheets and dumped them with the duvet and pillows behind the couch out of sight, then tucked all my dirty clothes into a plastic bag I kept solely for the purpose.
    Surveying the room, I decided that it didn’t look too bad, although the floor looked as if it could do with a once over. I decided to offer Miranda to help clean the flat. I’d insist. I needed to make amends, and not give my sister-in-law any more reason to despise me any more than I despised myself just then.
    I did have a plan of action brewing in some distant compartment at the back of my head. There were a couple of possibilities I reckoned I could pursue. Someone at work had kindly offered me a room to rent in their house, as apparently their previous tenant had recently left. It wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t what I wanted, but it would do if my other option didn’t work out. I guess I’d never really imagined I might have to spend the rest of my life alone or having