A naturally messy person

Ed hears the sound of another bloody bottle saying hello to the bathroom floor. 

“Not another one?” He calls as he passes the door, which is actually ajar. 

Stevie’s voice comes back sounding lethargic. “No I reused used the same stuff”.

Ed grunts at him. He bumps his feet down the stairs. He’s in a good-ish mood. Keira squeezes by in the hallway. “Alright?” she nods. Norfolk kid, Ed thinks.

“Not bad, not bad. How‘bout you?”.

…

Scottish twat, Keira thinks, amicably. “Yeah, fair, thanks. Something up?”

Ed rolls his head back and forth. He’s reluctant to come out of his good mood, but he manages to put it on the side to pick back up in a second, like he does. “Eh. Yeah, well, something up there” he bobs his head back up at the top of the stairs.

Keira looks. “What, the bathroom?”

He bounces on his feet and bobs his head from side to side. 

“He’s gone and done it again?” (pointed sigh) “Twat.” She addresses the kitchen. “He’s done it. A-gain.”

Ed sighs after. “Hey, no, no, he’s not done anything like that – again – no, he’s just making a fucking mess.”

“So, anyway, you know what that means though”. He does.

Amy appears at the kitchen door and watches Keira. Keira smiles at her. Amy is worn out. “Are you sure he’d really carry on with all of this nonsense?” she wonders mildly, leaning on the doorframe.

Dez is a solid square behind her screening off the kitchen. “Men’ll be men.”

…

Keira snorts in a way that reminds Dez repulsively of his mother, and says something dismissive, then stomps up two stairs.

Dez watches as Ed gives her a wary look, and she raises her eyebrows. Dez doesn’t know what that means, but it’s probably flirtatious. Why have housemates got to be so glaringly obvious about it? Dez thinks. He’s certainly not going to do something that embarrassing. It’s a silly way to lose your friends. But they probably don’t care about him as much as he cares about them.

Dez eyes the two of them up. “I mean, I’m just saying that it’s not really your business.”

The two girls look straight at Dez. And like it’s a cue for Ed to be particularly submissive, the tall hallway-blocker lowers his head. 

…

Amy smiles apologetically to Ed, who smiles apologetically back to her.

Amy pushes herself off her elbow on the doorframe because it is getting sore. 

She comes into the hall and pats each of them on their shoulder as she squeezes in between the two of them to look up to the balcony of the stairs. “Shall I go and say something to him? What is it that he’s actually, you know, done?”

Keira’s face wrinkles. Amy purses her lips “but like actually?”

Keira turns on Ed.  

Ed bounces on his feet. “He’s just making a mess i’sall it is”.

Ed doesn’t want to make a point of Stevie’s antics. ‘Is all’ Amy thinks. “Clearly not”. If he’s making a mess she better go and settle the latest issue.

She pulls herself up the banister, tired, and the others thud after her on the complaining old wooden stairs. They’re really quite lucky to have a house this nice. She wishes Stevie wouldn’t keep bringing people into it without warning and then making a total mess. 

…

From the looks of it, Stevie has just had a shower. Dez doesn’t understand what’s so wrong about that but he follows them anyway.

...

“Hey are you in there?” Amy asks.

The tap is running. 

“That’s a bloody stupid question, isn’t it?” Dez looks confused.

“So’are you” Ed mumbles irritably. But quietly and not totally without humour. Amy feels amused, anyway. If Dez was Stevie he’d be being loudly self righteous now, but there’s no noise from behind the bathroom door and then the tap squeals off.

“Are you decent?” She asks. He wouldn’t mind anyway probably.

Ed makes some movement with his hand.

...

Ed goes in. Stevie is a checkered, pajama-clad, dripping wet pile like a rained-on picnic blanket. “Oof. It didn’t work out?”

Stevie’s eyebrows are remarkably mobile. “It did.”

Ed sits on the bath edge. It’s not comfy. “Ah.”

... “Are you coming out”.

“Tonight?”

Ed frowns. No, he meant, out of the bathroom, obviously.

“Well we can if you want -“

“Thought I’d wash first.” Stevie says pointedly.

Alright that’s enough, he tried, anyway.

...

“They’re super excited to have a natter.” Keira hears in Ed’s voice and despairs. Spineless. The bathroom door swings open again and she can see the things littered all over the tiles.

She gasps. “What a tip!” 

“Exactly, I thought it wouldn’t make much difference.”

She pushes the door and will let it hit the wall, but it won’t. How did he get his mess behind the door. “You absolute twat.”

“I heard.”

“Good.” 

“What’s the issue?” He asks, airily. “I always clean up.”

...

Dez coughs. Of course she doesn’t really care about the mess, but that’s her for you, that’s what she’s like. She just cares about women’s rights or something. Not that they were ever violated by consensually screwing up a lad like Stevie. “She worries about Jess.”

Keira scoffs unpleasantly. “Well not just her, no.”

Stevie looks drippingly disgusted. “Bit rude.”

Dez agrees. “Look, we’re just worried about you really - mate.” he says as reasonably as he can, though sounding reasonable is never so easy.

Stevie turns the tap back on. They’re all crammed into the doorway. Dez wonders how they must look. 

...

Keira realises they’re all squeezed into the doorway. How funny.

“Jess and Kaye and Alex and Elaina and, oh, I forgot.”

“You’ve got a good memory on you, I could’ve only named Alice.” says Stevie.

...

Keira will explode or collapse, so Ed pushes back in. “It’s not about any of them. Serious. Just, look, are you sure you’re alright?”

...

Amy isn't sure a naturally messy person needs to be emotionally checked.

...

Amy looks uncomfortable, Ed thinks. She’s always been quiet.

Ed sees Stevie nudge a wad of clothes out of his way.

He’s coming for the door.

...

Suddenly it all feels like a comedy ‘keep him trapped’ moment. At least to Dez.

Really it’s Ed’s fault, he practically jumped out of his skin just now. Dez thinks Ed being so intense is a bit over the top. 

Amy is looking confused and Keira’s still doing whatever it is that Ed thinks she should be doing. They all keep Stevie in though, so Dez sticks around. Not like Stevie could even get past him if Dez were just standing there alone - Stevie is a scrawny sort.

...

Stevie sits down on the bathroom floor in his scraggly pjs amid the mess and starts crying. Amy feels like she’s just been attached to an electric current. Sort of shocked and out of herself and disoriented. They used to do that, her brothers and sister, they’d all form a line from the sheep fencing and make her go at the end, so she’d get the biggest shock. 

…

Amy laughs. 

Ed can’t believe her. “What’s so funny, eh?”.

Stevie cries harder and both of them stop and stare. Then Ed picks himself back up. Honestly. Poor Stevie. Ed’s still in a good mood today, so he might as well as not help a friend when he needs it.

Stevie’s fairly heavy, but hauling him up from the floor is more of a task just because he goes completely limp and refuses to comply.

“A’right, grab his legs, Keira.” Ed says lightheartedly. “Steve mate, you’ve successfully got yourself out of clearing up today, and won a cup of tea on Dez.”

Dez wrinkles his nose. 

“Not too hard, is it?”

Keira is round at Stevie’s feet, uncertain. “Go on, Dez, just boil the kettle will you.”

Dez slumps down the stairs again. 

At least Keira’s willing.

Ed pats Stevie on his bedraggled head. “Come on, you’re going back to bed and then you’re telling us what’s up.” and Ed’s at least sure about the first part, because that’s where he and Keira are going to put him. He doesn’t know whether Stevie will tell them anything at all, but it sounds like the right thing to say.

…

Keira marvels just a bit at Ed’s capacity to go from angry to helpful in less than a minute. She’s not yet managed that. She’s still absolutely seething.

She can’t believe she’s transporting this wet wipe with her bare hands. 

And Stevie’s legs are heavy. Basically iron bars. Basically enforced labour. 

…

Amy watches them go down the corridor and stops herself following. She’s by herself outside the bathroom. They’ve all gone off to do helpful things. She leans on the wall and looks around just because she isn’t sure what she should be doing now that she’s laughed at her best friend and mistaken his chaos for some benign, messy tendency.

The room still looks like it’s a scene of a crime, with heaps of stuff lying around like bodies, and water pooled on the floor, and the tap still flowing, issuing bouts of whimpering squeals. She goes in and twists it off, and then she decides that if anybody should tidy up the mess, it’s probably her. 

…

Dez burns his fingers on the cup. Stupid hot water. It’s a cup of tea, for god’s sake, not a magic wand. What’s it going to do? He carries the cup back to the stairs feeling — he’ll admit it — completely emasculated, and looks up to see they’ve all disappeared. 

Thanks a ton. All of you.

…

Ed and Keira give each other a look, and then they drop Stevie down onto his bed together. Stevie curls up. No wonder, he must be embarrassed to death, having to be picked up like that and ‘moved’ like a baby. Ed feels guilty. But everyone was there and it was far too much. It was like moving a man from a battlefield, more than anything else.

Ed removes a tangled pair of jeans from under Stevie’s back and throws them on the floor. Just for now. 

Keira sits on the bed. “This is comfy, Stevie. Now I get the point of your sleepovers.”

Ed feels squeamish. “Uh. Maybe not right now.” 

Keira looks awkward. “Sorry, Stevie. Ah, here we are, here’s our wonderful Dez with a cuppa for actual emotional support.”

Ed thinks that perhaps Stevie just laughed, which would be unusual for him even if he wasn’t so off-colour. 

“And here’s our lovely Amy with a pile of magnificently folded clothes” she says, like announcing a leaderboard, “and now we’ll leave you be, yeah?”

Amy nods and puts the clothes on top of a desk, and Dez dumbly perches the cup next to Stevie’s bed.

Ed and Amy give Stevie a wave before they leave, and then the other two go out.