Sal is always moved by my response to dinner. A cooked meal! I'm always amazed. A whole chicken, steaming on the table! I become quite delirious. I can barely contain my excitement. It's as if I'd never eaten before. She can only imagine what kind of life I lead.
She refuses to visit my flat, of course. It's too squalid. And there's rubble in the shower. How do I wash? Do I wash? And there's no food, of course. Nothing. I can't have food in my house, I've told them, because I eat it all. I binge. I stuff myself. I make myself ill almost immediately. So there's no food.
Then, too, I've no fridge, and nowhere to store food. There's no electricity in the kitchen, and besides, it's dismantled, ready for another round of damp-proofing. The walls are so wet! it's like touching the skin of a frog. It's clammy.
Sal can imagine a terrible plague spreading from the flat. A new kind of illness, which travels by damp spores. And the flat's so dark! It's like being buried underground, staying at the flat, she says. It's like being buried alive. And you haven't told her about the rats yet, W. says.
Lars Iyer's Blog 