Mhairi McFarlane 3-Book Collection: You Had Me at Hello, Here’s Looking at You and It’s Not Me, It’s You. Mhairi McFarlane

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      The embezzling payphone in our student house wasn’t the first sign our landlord was a south Manchester Fagin. Our detached des-res in Fallowfield had been advertised as a three bedroom – we were without Ivor, who was on a year out in industry.

      At the end of the viewing Caroline asked ‘What’s in here?’, trying the handle of a door downstairs. The landlord looked as nervous as if she was a new bride trying to breach Bluebeard’s tower.

      ‘That’s Derek’s room,’ the landlord said, as if every deal came with a Derek. ‘He’s staying on. That’s why the rent’s so low.’

      The three of us exchanged a look. Not that low.

      ‘Derek.’ The landlord rapped with his knuckles. Derek produced himself – a hulking, greasy kind of character, and grunted a hello. He was an astrophysics post-grad, which was supposed to cover why he had a telescope on his windowsill.

      We made our excuses and promptly left, and over lattes at the nearest café, agreed there was no way we were moving into a house which came with a loner perma-lodger. Then we got more lattes, and carrot cake, and started discussing how spacious the rooms were, how many damp-smelling terraces we’d trudged round, and that Derek didn’t seem that objectionable, if you broadened your mind and held your nose. We called the landlord back and said we’d take it.

      Luckily, Derek seemed to lead a largely nocturnal existence and spent most weekends visiting his family in Whitby. Where Dracula landed. No further questions, your honour.

      He was away on the night of our first noteworthy social event after we moved in, a Halloween party at the university union. I’d spent the day with a stomach bug, throwing up on an hourly basis, getting a chance to closely examine all the corners our cleaning rota didn’t reach in the bathroom. I felt deeply aggrieved that I’d not drunk any alcohol to get in this state, and the bug was about to prevent me trying.

      Downstairs, a sexy vampire and a brown-skinned witch in stripy tights, balancing a bumper-sized plastic bottle of scrumpy on her hip, gazed at me as I limped into the hallway to say goodbye.

      Caroline put the back of her pleasantly cool, black nail-varnished hand against my forehead.

      ‘Yoor absholutely burwing ug.’

      ‘What?’

      She removed her plastic fangs. ‘You’re absolutely burning up. Want me to stay?’

      ‘No, I’ll be OK.’

      ‘We’ll have one for you!’ Mindy said, hoisting the cider and adjusting the brim of her witch hat.

      I felt my gorge rise.

      ‘Fanks,’ I said, thickly, as if I was speaking through false teeth too.

      An hour or so later, there was a knock.

      ‘Who is it?’ I shouted, without opening it.

      ‘A bloody cold cold caller,’ came a familiar voice.

      I opened the door. Ben was buttoned up to the nose in his coat. He yanked it down to chin level so he could speak. ‘How are you then?’

      ‘Phenomenally wank,’ I said delicately, standing back to let him in.

      I was self-conscious about being seen in my voluminous cotton comfort pyjamas. The somewhat psychedelic pattern depicted farmyard animals with slice-of-melon smiles playing musical instruments.

      ‘Where’s your costume?’ I asked Ben, to divert his attention.

      ‘Fancy dress is a terrible way to ruin a good party. Funny, everyone there is got up as ghoulish and scary, and here you are looking more like death than any of them.’

      ‘Did you stop by to tell me this?’

      ‘No, I’ve come to check on you. What’ve you taken for this flu?’

      ‘Two paracetamol, a while ago.’

      Two loose paracetamol I’d found at the bottom of my make-up bag. I had to pick a stray hair off one of them. I felt my gorge rise again.

      ‘Right,’ Ben said. ‘I’m going for supplies. Save me a space on the sofa.’

      ‘Ben, you don’t have to do this.’

      ‘Oh, I know.’