“I don’t care anymore!” Emily stormed across the room, waving her arms wildly. “Mum, how much longer must we put up with this? My friends are already laughing at me!”
“Mum, it’s leaking again! Again!” Emily shrieked, bursting out of the bathroom with wet hair and a towel in hand. “I told you there’s something wrong with this flat!”
“Keep your voice down! The neighbours will hear!” hissed Margaret, dropping her mop and rushing to her daughter. “Where’s it leaking?”
“Everywhere! From the tap, the shower, even under the sink—there’s a puddle!” Emily flailed her arms, splashing water down the corridor. “I *told* you! I said we shouldn’t have taken this wretched place!”
Margaret silently stepped into the bathroom, surveyed the water creeping across the floor, and sank onto the stool. A month ago, they had moved into this two-bedroom flat in the city centre, selling their old cottage in the countryside. It had seemed like life would finally improve—closer to work, shops, the surgery. And now…
“Mum, why are you just sitting there? We have to do something!” Emily stood in the doorway, wrapped in her dressing gown.
“And what exactly should we do?” Margaret sighed. “Call a plumber? Pay for it ourselves *again*? This is the third time this month.”
“Well, maybe we should speak to the landlady? Make *her* pay—it’s her flat!”
“I’ve already tried. She says we’re at fault, that we don’t use the plumbing properly. How can you use a tap *wrong*?” Margaret stood and began sopping up water with a rag. “Go have breakfast. You’ll be late for work.”
“What breakfast? The cooker’s broken again!” Emily fumed. “Yesterday I barely managed to make porridge, and today it won’t turn on at all.”
Margaret only sighed. The cooker had been temperamental from the start, but the landlady, Mrs. Whitaker, insisted it was fine—they just needed to “get used to it.” Get used to burners that worked sporadically and an oven that had a mind of its own.
“Fine, I’ll run to Lydia’s and ask to boil the kettle,” Emily muttered, pulling on her jeans.
“No, don’t bother the neighbours!” Margaret stopped her. “It’s embarrassing enough. Yesterday we borrowed butter, the day before, salt. They’ll think we’re beggars.”
“So what then? Go to work hungry?”
Margaret looked at her daughter and felt the familiar lump rise in her throat. Why had they ever agreed to this move? Their cottage had been simpler, quieter. Here, every day brought some new misery.
Emily left for work hungry and furious, while Margaret dealt with the flooded bathroom. She wiped the water, tried tightening the taps—useless. A thin trickle still seeped from the valve.
The phone rang just as she was about to call the plumber.
“Margaret? It’s Mrs. Whitaker. How are things? No complaints, I hope?”
“Well…” Margaret began carefully, “the plumbing’s acting up again—”
“*Again*?” the landlady cut in. “What on earth are you doing to my flat? I told you to be careful!”
“We *are* careful. We just turn the taps on and off, like normal people.”
“Then why do you need a plumber every week? Have you dropped something heavy?”
Margaret pressed her lips together. They hadn’t dropped a thing—the flat simply wasn’t in the state Mrs. Whitaker had promised. During the viewing, everything had worked: the water ran, the cooker lit, the sockets didn’t spark. Now, every day brought fresh horrors.
“Mrs. Whitaker, could you please send a handyman? It’s getting rather awkward—”
“A handyman? You’re the ones at fault! I *told* you the fittings are old—they need gentle handling!”
“But the lease says everything’s in working order—”
“It *is* working! You just don’t know how to use it!” Mrs. Whitaker snapped, hanging up.
Margaret set down the phone and looked around. The flat *was* in the city centre, bright, with high ceilings. But each day made it clearer: the charm was only surface-deep. The wiring was ancient, the pipes rusted, the windows didn’t close properly, and the landlady refused to hear of repairs.
By lunchtime, Emily returned, dark as a storm cloud.
“Well? Fixed anything?” she asked, dropping her bag.
“Hardly. The landlady says it’s our fault.”
“Our fault? How?” Emily erupted. “Because her flat’s falling apart?”
“Emily, don’t shout. The walls are thin.”
“I don’t care!” Emily paced, waving her arms. “Mum, how much longer can we stand this? My friends are *laughing* at me! They say I live like a gypsy—no water, no power, a broken cooker!”
“Your friends should keep their opinions to themselves,” Margaret muttered. “Their parents *buy* flats, not rent them.”
“Then maybe we should buy one too?” Emily suggested suddenly. “We’ve got the money from the cottage—we could save a bit more…”
“What money?” Margaret frowned. “Most of it went to your treatment.”
Emily fell silent. The surgery *had* been expensive—that was why they’d moved closer to the hospital. They’d thought renting would be temporary, just until Emily recovered. Instead, they’d stumbled into a trap.
“Maybe we should look for another place?” Emily ventured.
“With what?” Margaret pointed to the stack of bills. “Look. Rent, utilities, your medicine. We’re barely scraping by.”
Emily flipped through the papers and whistled.
“Blimey. I had no idea it was this bad…”
“You weren’t meant to. That’s my burden.” Margaret gathered the bills. “Now you see why we can’t just up and leave?”
Her daughter nodded silently. Then, softly:
“Mum… do you regret leaving the cottage?”
Margaret didn’t answer at once. Did she? Of course she did. The cottage had been small but cosy—a garden, familiar neighbours, everything *theirs*. Here, they were strangers in a strange world.
“I do,” she admitted. “But what’s done is done. The cottage is sold. We’ll manage.”
“Maybe we could reason with the landlady?” Emily offered. “Offer to fix some things ourselves if she lowers the rent?”
“Fix what?” Margaret scoffed. “Have you *seen* how much needs doing? We’d go broke!”
Just then, the lights went out.
“Oh, brilliant!” Emily cried. “Fuse’s blown again!”
Margaret checked the fuse box—nothing. The wiring, then. She sighed and fetched a torch from the cupboard.
“Mum, we can’t live like this,” Emily said quietly in the torchlight. “It’s not the Dark Ages.”
“What do you suggest?” Margaret asked wearily.
“Dunno. A solicitor? Or report her to the housing inspectorate?”
“Report what? We signed the lease willingly.”
“But she *lied*! She said everything worked!”
“Prove it. She’ll say *we* broke it.”
Emily fell silent. They were well and truly stuck. No money, no alternatives, and each day harder than the last.
The lights flickered back on as abruptly as they’d died. Margaret put the torch away and went to make dinner. The cooker, mercifully, worked—though only one burner.
“Mum,” Emily said suddenly, “remember our first day here? You said we’d finally live properly.”
“I remember,” Margaret nodded, stirring soup.
“I thought you were right. Nice flat, city centre, everything handy. Felt like a fairy tale.”
“Fairy tale,” Margaret echoed bitterly. “Just the wrong kind.”
“Maybe… we just don’t know how to live here?” Emily mused. “In the cottage, we did everything ourselves. Here, there’s rules, the landlady…”
“*What* rules?” Margaret snapped. “We know how to use a tap! The flat’s a wreck, and the landlady’s stingy.”
“So what do we do?”
Margaret turned off the cooker and faced her daughter.
“What do *you* think? You’re grown. You can decide too.”
Emily thought. Then, slowly:
“Maybe we gave up too soon. There must be another way.”
“Like what?”
“A better job. Or extra work. Save up for a decent place.”
“Emily, you’re still recovering. You can’t overdo it.”
“Mum, I’m not an invalid! I could do something light. And you could take up sewing again—remember how the neighbours asked you to hem dresses?”
Margaret considered it. Back in the village, she *had* earned a bit mending clothes. Maybe here too?
“Alright,” she said. “We’ll try. But step by step. First, this flat.”
“How?”
“Gather evidence.
