The guys at the pub toasted him, lost in admiration, but they didn’t know how difficult it was for him. OK, not difficult so much as awkward.
Their boyfriends – for they all had one, gallingly enough – regarded him with suspicion. All the women he came into contact with assumed he was either seeing one or other of his flatmates, or that he was gay. It was shagging suicide. He didn’t get laid for six months, even though he was good-looking, and personable, and popular.
Then came the day that he returned home from the library to find Ruth, his favourite flatmate, sobbing as she peeled vegetables over the kitchen sink.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, though as a rule he tried to avoid this kind of thing, heading to his room if there was a whiff of it in the air. But today he happened to be hungry and he knew that there was cold pizza in the fridge, so the peril must be faced.
‘Do you think I’m a lazy slob?’ she asked, sniffing madly.
‘Do I? No. God, no.’
Actually, she was, a bit. Nothing terrible, though. Frankly, she was about as untidy as he was, in terms of leaving mugs under the bed for weeks on end and empty DVD cases all over the floor. But it wasn’t that bad, was it? It wasn’t up to How Clean Is Your House levels. Yet.
And she’d never peeled a vegetable before. This was new. She had PickupaPizza on speed dial, just as he did.
But he worked harder than she did. Ruth rarely got out of bed before two in the afternoon, and was constantly making horrified remarks about how behind she was with her PhD studies. She spent half the week at her boyfriend’s place, and the other half mooching around the house watching Cash In The Attic. Rob privately thought she should get a job if she wasn’t interested in the academic side of things, but of course if he said that it would be furiously debated and held against him for all time. He wasn’t her supervisor. It wasn’t his problem.
She wasn’t his vision of a slob, though – she had nice nails and she dressed well, if a little outrageously sometimes – so he wasn’t being entirely untruthful when he repudiated the suggestion. And she was sweet. And a bit sexy. Who in their right mind would call a sweet, sexy girl a slob?
‘Did someone say you were?’
He took the cold pizza from the fridge and munched on it, enjoying its chewy, stale texture.
A fresh burst of tears greeted his question. He waited patiently for them to subside.
‘Dave,’ she said.
‘He didn’t! Have you split up then?’ A flicker of optimism. If Ruth was single, then …
‘No, we haven’t. I don’t think so. I’m not sure.’
‘Why did he say it?’
‘Had a meeting with my supervisor this morning.’
‘You mean you got up in the morning?’
‘Fuck off! You’re as bad as him.’ She half-turned, brandishing the peeler.
He backed away.
‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘Supervisor said I was in danger of being kicked out. I went to see Dave for a bit of moral support and comfort, and he said my supervisor was right and I should pull my socks up and stop being a lazy slob.’
‘The bastard.’ But Rob’s heart wasn’t in it. Dave had a point, really.
‘Do you think so?’ More woe poured from Ruth’s eyes, and nose, and dripped into the vegetable water. Rob thought he might give dinner a miss tonight.
‘Well, don’t you?’
‘No. I think he’s right. I want to be better. I want to get back on track with my PhD. I want to have a lovely room and cook healthy meals and all that jazz. I just don’t know how.’
‘Oh.’
Rob hadn’t expected to find Ruth on the road to Damascus. He had expected denial and indignation, followed by a resumption of the status quo. He supposed he ought to offer her his support.
‘Do you? Do you know how?’