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Róisín Lanigan’s new novel, ’I Want To Go Home, But I’m Already There’ tells the story of Áine, who has just moved in with her boyfriend Elliot in an affluent neighbourhood in London.
Áine should be happy with life, given her new home is in such a good area, surrounded by bakeries, yoga studios and organic vegetable shops. They even have a garden. And yet, from the moment they move in, Áine can’t shake the sense that there’s something not quite right about the place…
Here, the author shares her thoughts on rental buildings and all the experiences that come with those — good, bad and mildly terrifying — and includes a chapter from her new book…
THE MOST REPEATED writing advice is ‘write what you know’. I know landlords. Like most people my age, I can delineate the phases of my early to mid-adulthood as a series of landlords.
I left home a little over 10 years ago, and I can’t count on two hands the number of places I’ve lived since. I’ve rented single rooms from agencies, studio flats and bedsits, slept in bunk beds and on sofas. My buildings have been plagued by carbon monoxide leaks and stabbings, windows that don’t shut, and doors that don’t lock. I’ve finally started to believe in sage smudging when I move into somewhere new.
After a while, constant renting, moving all your earthly possessions from one address to the next at the whim of those landlords and with little to no information about the owners themselves or the safety of their properties, is something that becomes normalised.
In a sense the landlord himself becomes the only constant in your life, your life being a non-stop carousel of new addresses, unfulfilled deposits, dwindling hopes of security, homes that are only allowed to be a home for a little while, as long as you behave yourself for the owner and don’t make any changes you can’t undo when you leave. Once that’s normalised, it’s normalised too to begin demarcating your life based not in years, but in tenancy agreements. Where we live matters because it affects our day-to-day emotional state, our frame of mind, but also our relationships.
Just as I measure out my own life in tenancy agreements, I can chart the course of my ups and downs with boyfriends and friends, with flatmates who became enemies and then strangers, or strangers who became friends or lovers, in 12 or 18 or six-month periods, however long I was contractually allowed to stay. This — thinking of your life in the terms of capital given hand over fist to someone else that you might never even meet — is normalised, but it’s not normal.
Once I began to pick apart that expectation of normality, I realised that what was underneath it was rotten and grim. It seemed to me that the only way to properly describe renting — and the feeling of being wretchedly trapped in a situation you feel you can’t ever properly escape — was in the context of horror. After all, every haunted house story is essentially about the financial burden of owning property and being unable to escape it if you think something is not quite right.
Áine, the protagonist of I Want To Go Home But I’m Already There, is not a typical horror heroine. She’s neither a wife nor a mother (and of course, neither a homeowner nor homemaker), but then the book is not a typical horror. She only moves in with her boyfriend, Elliot, in the first place because her best friend and flatmate, Laura, decides that the time has come to move on and move in with her own boyfriend.
Áine is left adrift and uncertain about her own life and where she wants to live it – and more importantly, who she wants to live it with. She could flee her life if only she knew where the door was to let her out of it. The characters in this book could leave if they wanted to, if they really believed they were being haunted. But where would they go, and who would they live with? How can you really escape if all you’re running to is the next landlord?
***
EVER SINCE UNIVERSITY, Laura and Áine had a tradition called ‘Sad Wednesdays’, where they’d pause mid-week if they were stressed or miserable and bring all their bedding down in front of the sofa.
They’d watch the worst that their YouTube algorithms could offer – woman reviewing soap, eight hours of elderly Japanese craftsmen making shoes, smoking inside and drinking canned gin and tonics. Afterwards, the flat would reek of tobacco, but they would feel, despite the hangover, cleansed, light, free of misery.
Laura thought it was a good idea to compartmentalise sadness like that, so you could get on with the rest of your week without the heaviness leaking into all the other days. Now, Áine worried about the myriad of emotions bleeding out across her weeks and months without Laura to contain them. Previously, she’d always had Laura there to check whether she was overthinking something, whether she was correct or in the wrong. She could test out all her spirals on the person who knew her best and had seen them already.
Sometimes she didn’t even have to ask. She’d have a week where she didn’t shower for a few days, where she stayed up all night watching reruns of Family Guy on her laptop in the living room, surviving solely on pick ’n’ mix, and then sleeping 17 hours a day to make up for it, and Laura would notice and ask if everything was okay. Sometimes Áine didn’t even realise things weren’t okay until Laura asked. She missed her friend, but her friend was standing there. It was complicated and it wasn’t.
“And now you get to live with Elliott!” Laura was saying. “It’s going to be so exciting.”
“So exciting,” agreed Áine.
She finished the fizz and put the tinsel in their recycling bin, and thought about how long it would take before it disintegrated into the earth. A long time. Maybe never, actually.
It was exciting to move in together. Laura was always right about these kinds of things (things that implied happiness, positivity, personal growth). They constituted many of her specialist subjects, along with the best small plates restaurants in a five-mile radius and the exact length of time to leave between messages to lovers, colleagues, distant relatives and friends in order to appear the perfect amount of ‘breezy’.
Áine was not breezy. Elliott, however, had an air of genuine breeziness that she enjoyed. Together they achieved perfect temperance, she liked to think. And she liked the way he texted her good morning and how they felt the same way about several important things – the necessity of having creative outlets, the unfairness of the British class system, the fact that wrestling was a sport – and that they could argue about things they felt differently about – art-house movies being pretentious, rom-coms being art-house, ready salted being the best crisp flavour, whether it was okay to listen to earlier Smiths songs even though present-day Morrissey was a racist – without heat.
They were arguments where the stakes were so low, nothing was really at risk. They weren’t real. They were safe. And she didn’t like that he lived a 30-minute train ride away and sometimes more if there were leaves or a dead body on the line, and she didn’t like his two flatmates, anonymous-ish recruitment consultants he’d linked up with via a Facebook ad when he needed somewhere to live.
They’d had lots of experimental and kind of bad sex when they first met, with mixed results, and now they had sex less regularly but with more success because they both knew what the other person liked.
They were in love, she supposed. This was what love felt like. Maybe. And people in love were supposed to live together. People in love were meant to keep moving towards some sort of tangible end goal, or they’d fall apart. Sharks, Elliott once told her, had to keep swimming, or they would die. Cool, Áine had said, although it was a fact she’d already read on the internet.
I Want to Go Home But I am Already There, by Róisín Lanigan, is available now.
Most badly managed lottery – not won since June 6th, rollover capped so low, when it’s won jackpot starts at €2 million…it’s finished
@Jack Russell: How is it badly managed? Its a game of chance. Numbers haven’t clicked, simple as. In spite of the lack of jackpot winner there has been increased lower prizes. That in my mind ensures more people get more money.
@Ger Murphy: increased lower prizes ?? Have a day off, the increase is pathetic in comparison to the what the jackpot is supposed to be increased by every draw if it’s not won. This is plucking criminal, where is this money going ??
@Malachi Shanks: check your facts before you spout. Then we can have a rational discussion.
Jackpot not won. Plus 1 not won. Plus 2 not won. 5+ bonus ball not won in all three draws. There must be a lot of Canadian teachers due to retire shortly.
ODDS are stacked High against YOU winning the Jackpot Folks ,Time to try 2/3 numbers in bookies 60/1 + 100/1.
@Larry Rawson: your odds are completely wrong 40/1 and 330/1
@cillian: You’re both wrong. 60/1 for 2 numbers and 700/1 for 3. 45/1 and 400/1 if you include the bonus.
The highest prize won out of all the draws was €29,000 hah
@Gary: yeh and that’s hard to get, odds are still low.
50 no wins is very very unlikely, given the odds. I’m sure there’s nothing untoward though
@Gary: that was just the highest prize won in the last draw. There’s been winners between 500k t 850k regularly enough the last two months. Lotto still making a mint though
@slfc21: There is meant to be €2 million rollover ever week. It’s capped at €19 million. They said if the jackpot wasn’t won they would give higher winnings to the next top winner. They didn’t! The only one getting rich is the Canadian investment group.
@john smith iv: There were some interesting figures out during the week that said the odds of the Irish lotto rolling over 50 times are about 1,500:1. It’s unusual but by no means extraordinary.
Chances of an individual draw rolling over are about 85%.
Meanwhile the odds of a single line matching all 6 numbers are 10.7million to one. Statistically speaking, playing the lotto is an absurd thing to do. Don’t waste your money to begin with – if you’re not in, you can’t lose…
@Gary: my comment was just replying to your comment where you said that 29k was the most won out of all the draws. It wasn’t . You didn’t say any of that the first time.
@Kevin Collins: 2 euro at 10.7 million to one doesn’t seem terrible to try to win 19m when you factor in there are also smaller prizes
@Mickety Dee: 4 euro minimum
@Eoin Sweeney: Still, that’s for two lines.
Boycott
Boycott it.
FG Td crying over spilt milk when his party sold it in the first place!
@Niall Power: Was howler-labour who actually was behind it but of course cheered on by FG
We’re funding the Canadian teachers pension fund. Oh and good causes
Shambles, the ad constantly saying it’s a jackpot but never mention nobodies won it in ages. Needs investigating.
Why has it been capped?? Is there a reason why, legally??,are they allowed to cap it??..Anyone got an answer..Would like to know.
@Cian Omahony Snr: Yes, because if it goes above 19m in theory someone or some group could buy all the combinations for less than the jackpot amount and make a profit.
Withdraw their licence.
Is anyone playing it even
Why bother capping it at 19, Euro millions is capped at 180 so an Irish person could win that
@Peter Tutty: The Euromillions is currently capped at 230m and when the cap is reached and in turn won, the cap increases 10m each time that arises, Unlike the lotto
51st rollover so a TD asks for for TWO numbers to be withdrawn.That should fix the issue. The majority doing the Lotto since day on have most likely stuck to birthdays so adding on over the years has only helped the Lotto!
The Lotto concept encourages the idea that winning big money grants a status higher that of his or her fellow humans, a flasher faster car, a bigger house, more exotic holidays etc. it promotes the idea that wealth equates with happiness.
On the hundredth anniversary of our independence, we can do better as a people than fumble with bad taste scratch cards and coloured balls to get our kicks. The concept the Lotto espouses is damaging to our dignity as individuals and the self-respect of our society. The pandemic has demonstrated what is important in a society and what is not, it is time to end the Lotto.
@Fergus Quinlan: I’d love to win tho lotto jackpot or more so, the euromillions. I would be extremely happy. I’d even stretch to buying you a pint to cheer your miserable self up!
It’s a tax on the mathematically challenged.
Should avoid buying tickets, until the odds of winning are fairer
Just spend your money doing the lottery with your local club.
Greater chance of a bird slipping on a banana skin, breaking its leg and getting covid
I have been playing the lottery since i was 13 years and now i am 32 meaning i have been playing the lottery for 7 years. The biggest amount I have ever won in my life was 1500 bucks. But one day my story turns to history after I find this man’s name on the Internet that he is the best when it comes to winning the lottery. This man is a very strong voodoo Dr John who gives out the lottery winning numbers that can never fail. After all my years of laboring and struggling to win the lottery i finally won ($12,000,000) Dr John, is the name, EMAIL him now: Whatsapp Him : +1 (803) 820 2671
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