In a moment, just a few words told Harry that his life was over. Rejected by the woman he loved, homeless and lost. He called in sick and stayed off sick for ages, spending his days in bed with the curtains closed. The only phone calls and the only messages were from work. ‘Where are you? What’s going on? When will you be back? Oh, and are you okay?’

After weeks of this, he woke up in his shabby new flat one Saturday morning just after 5.30. He hadn’t wanted to wake up or to open his eyes and lay on his back looking at the single, naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling and the tapestry of cobwebs that surrounded it. He looked at the paint peeling from the door, the threadbare carpet and his dirty clothes that lay scattered where he had thrown them. His mouth was dry, his skin was itchy and scratchy, and he was stinking; he hadn’t changed the bed for weeks.  He could hear little children’s voices and adults shouting from the flat on one side, crying babies from the flat on the other side and scurrying, scratching sounds from the loft above.

In the bathroom he stared at his puffy, unshaven face in the mirror, 

‘Jesus, Harry,’ he said to himself,’ Jesus Christ.’

His first shower in weeks. He stood, eyes closed brushing back his hair with his hands as the hot water ran over his head and his face. His let his mind go numb as he slowly washed his body, trying to let the water rinse away the dark thoughts of the past few weeks. He didn’t want to go out but everything in the flat was filthy. His sheets, his shirts, his socks and his pants were rank. Setting off for the launderette and feeling a little better for his shower, he wondered if a cup of coffee might help. He stopped at an independent looking café which didn’t feel too intimidating. He looked around as he walked to the counter. There was an old man with long grey scraggly hair with a cup of coffee and a notebook, fiddling with his pen. There was a young couple on their obviously first date, sitting at a polite distance apart and chatting courteously but their eyes intently analysing every single feature of the other. He stood at the counter waiting to order, head down, aimlessly playing with his phone and nervously glancing around at the people with their friends and the families in the café.  There was a middle-aged woman with grey hair in front of him. She reminded him of the social worker who had told him, aged nine, that his elderly foster parents were ill and they couldn’t look after him anymore. He spent years after that moving between short term foster parents, some kind, most uninterested and never having a proper home. He had an urge to grab the woman and shake her, ask her why she couldn’t have found him real foster parents. But he knew the woman was not the social worker, and this was all too much for him now; he had to escape.

He had met Paula at Warwick University. He was studying economics and management, and she was doing a degree in film studies. She had seemed so happy with her new boyfriend. Even now, he couldn’t avoid thinking about her and how wonderful things had been when they first met. She was pretty, slim and petite with shoulder length strawberry blond hair which she never tried to and didn’t need to control. He was immediately caught by her charm. After university, within just a few months, he’d moved into her place, and they seemed the perfect couple. Then for no obvious reason, or no reason that was obvious to him, things started to fall apart. She seemed to want to argue about nothing in particular and would ignore him with such intensity, with days, weeks of stony silence. She was always out but at the same time demanded to know where he was and what he was doing almost every hour of the day. Even when he was out for a pint with his best mate, Pete, she would turn up uninvited, stop for a drink then later give him a hard time. He had noticed that she seemed quiet and overly polite when they were with Pete. He didn’t find out till much later that they had started seeing each other behind his back. 

Pete was a friendly guy with a big smile and a booming laugh. He worked with his hands, plasterer, carpenter, builder, whatever was needed, and he would always help out friends and family. He never seemed to take anything too seriously including his string of girlfriends. Harry had always thought he could trust him above all others.

The launderette was only a short drive from his flat. He was able to park right outside and got out of the car but there was a bunch of women, smoking, laughing and coughing in the doorway. He stared at them, hoping they would get on with their business and go away but they just carried on gossiping, oblivious. He got back into his car and huddled there for some ten minutes watching them. Eventually there was no choice but to try and make his way in with his washing. He watched the women’s faces as he approached the door. He didn’t know why they seemed so calm. He had never been in a launderette before; he was a stranger and a man. He wasn’t pretty sure they would even let him in.

To his surprize they smiled at him and said, ‘Hello, love. Come to do your washing?’

‘Yes,’ he said quietly, his eyes blinking, his lips barely moving . There was still no sign of hostility.

‘Lucy!’ one of the women, who seemed to be in charge, shouted into the shop, ‘come and give this new customer a hand with his machine.’

Lucy was the fresh, new assistant at the Spruce Goose. She was in her early twenties, slim with a striking curly bob haircut, great big gen Z glasses and big, loopy earrings. She had just completed a Psychology degree and was keen to start working, but this and a couple of other part-time jobs were all she could get at the moment. Her Aunty Jean ran the launderette and was happy to take her on for a while. Harry quickly registered on her radar.

‘Need any help, sir?’ she said, as she had been instructed, stumbling over the ‘sir’. ‘God, who calls anybody sir these days, especially in a launderette?’ she thought.

She put her coffee down on one of the washing machines and smiled at him (she didn’t need a degree to do that). Harry was staring blankly at one of the ten washing machines, at the dispenser drawers, the knobs, the coin slot and the display. His face frozen, his mouth gaping open, his white knuckled hands tightly gripping his bin bag full of washing.

‘Sir?’

He glanced at her sideways as though he hadn’t seen or heard her, looked back at the washing machine then looked at her properly.

‘Alright, sir? So, first we check our washing. Separate the whites and the coloureds,’ she said, demonstrating as she talked him through the process.

‘Then we check all our pockets for tissues, coins, keys, pens,’ sensibly omitting the condoms in the back pocket joke.

‘Place a pod in the drum, put in your washing and add fabric conditioner in the middle dispenser drawer. Pay with coins or contactless and choose your programme, usually mixed fabrics and press start. There y’go. Easy as that.’ She gave him a big ‘well done’ smile. The programme started; the drum rotated; Harry watched the machine.

‘What happens now?’ he asked quietly.

‘Well,’ said Lucy, improvising, ‘you could go for a nice cup of coffee at the cafe just across the road and come back when your washing’s done in about fifty minutes.’

She looked at him, expecting maybe a smile, but his face was pale and frozen, his eyes wide. He put his hand over his mouth and mumbled, ‘No. No. I can’t sit in a cafe on my own. I just can’t.’

By now he was beginning to shake a little. Lucy took a step back, her confident smile gone. She looked round to where the women congregated for guidance, for help. 

‘Would you like a cup of tea then, love?’ said Aunty Jean raising her voice just enough so he would hear her, without shouting.

She looked at him, at his slim young body. ‘No sugar, I guess?’ she joked, kindly.

He stared at her for what seemed ages, then said solemnly, ‘Yes please but no, no sugar.’

Then, remembering his manners, ‘Thank you.’

He made the trip to the launderette again two weeks later. He took two bags this time, and had carefully packed one for whites, and one for darks but had agonised over things like socks that had both white and dark colours. He’d been to Sainsbury’s to buy his own pods and fabric conditioner, knowing that lots of people went to supermarkets on their own so he didn’t feel that awkward. He picked a free machine, got on with his washing and sat, head down to wait for it, trying to focus on the task in hand, but at the same time fidgeting and furtively glancing around. 

Aunty Jean was standing by the back wall next to a patch of damp where some paint was peeling off. Her arms were folded, and she was talking quietly but earnestly with her two friends, Elsie and Rose as they watched Harry while their washing was going round. She didn’t have anything much to do but she started making a point of checking the empty machines, especially the ones near to Harry’s. Eventually she got to his machine. She hovered over him, standing a little too close for his liking, smelling of a combination of perfume and tobacco, peering into the drum. She picked up his fabric conditioner and put on the glasses that hung on a cord around her neck, pretending to check the label. She put it back down and moved even closer, into his space.

‘Everything alright, love?’ she said, knowing that nothing was alright.

He unconsciously shifted away a little as he turned his face towards her. He couldn’t look at her directly without his eyes darting around, as though scanning for danger. He noticed her badge that said, ‘Jean, Supervisor’ with the word ‘Aunty’ scribbled in blue biro in front of ‘Jean’. She was a rather thin older woman, wearing a lot of make-up to try and hide her skin that had been blotted and wrinkled by cigarettes and by the years. Her gaudy red lipstick served only to emphasise her old, yellow teeth.

‘Yes. Fine. Thank you.’

‘Okay,’ she nodded. ‘Getting the hang of the machines then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. You’re getting to be a regular now,’ she laughed. ‘Cup of tea, then, no sugar? We like to look after our regulars.’

‘Yes. Thank you,’ he replied with just a hint of a smile.

Elsie came over with his tea.

‘Here you are love,’ she said, ‘I’m Elsie. What’s your name?’

He wanted to say, ‘Why? Why do you need to know my name?’ 

But after just a brief pause, he replied quietly, ‘Harry.’

‘That’s a nice name,’ said Elsie, beaming. ‘And this time you get a biscuit,’ putting down a funny little blue willow china plate with a single chocolate hobnob on it.

‘Thank you’ Harry said with a little laugh, not sure whether it was the biscuit that made him happy or something else.

The trip to the Spruce Goose became a routine over the next couple of months. Aunty Jean, Elsie and Rose were always there, and they always gave him tea and a biscuit. At Christmas he even thought to bring them a fancy box of Scottish shortbread. 

The first time he came in after New Year, something was different. The place was busier than usual, probably because it had just reopened after the holidays and people had party dresses, wine-stained shirts and festivity-sex knickers to wash. There was a huddle of young women all talking very loudly all at the same time and there was a young couple who looked like they had slept in their clothes, feeding salt and vinegar crisps to each other. But it wasn’t any of them causing the atmosphere, it was a young man, a big man, in working clothes, standing up shouting at his machine. Elsie and Rose were trying to help him, but he was waving his arms and gesticulating and the veins on the right side of his neck were throbbing. He was spitting his words out at them as though he’d drunk a pint of sour piss and he had them pinned against the wall. 

Harry stood up, needing to see what was going on, concerned that there might be a problem for the women. From where he was, he could only see the back of the man’s head, but he knew his voice. He moved closer to get a look at his face. He couldn’t quite work out what was happening; this was out of context. It looked like Pete but why would he be here, and why would he be acting like this?

‘Pete?’ he said.

Pete glanced in Harry’s direction, then looked again, realising who it was.

‘Harry? What are you doing here?’

By now the launderette was quiet; the gaggle of girls had quickly and carelessly gathered up their washing and fled, leaving a green sock and a pair of tiny red pants behind; the young couple had eaten all their crisps and were looking at each other whilst trying to shake the last few crumbs out of the packets; their washing had long since finished. 

Harry stood open-mouthed, frozen, bleak memories flooding back, but said, so quietly that Pete could only just hear him, ‘It’s a launderette. What d’you think I’m doing here?’

Pete just stared at him

 ‘Is that really all you’ve got to say to me, Pete?’

Pete took a little step back.

“You can’t just come in here and harass my friends like this,’ Harry went on, staring at Pete, ‘these women are good people, just let them help you for Christ’s sake”

“Try a different card, love,’ Rose intervened, biting her bottom lip and choosing her moment carefully.

Sullenly, and with a heavy sigh, Pete threw his backpack down onto the bench, dug out his wallet but managed only to drop his cards onto the floor. He snatched up his Co-op and Nectar cards and flashed his Chase card against the washing machine. It started. He shook his head, covered his eyes then rubbed his hands over his mouth and rough, unshaven chin. He so badly wanted to shout but managed to take a breath, then another. ‘Sorry, ladies,’ he said, ‘I’ve had a tough few weeks.’

Then he looked at Harry, ‘Sorry, Harry. Just sorry,’ he said, looking down and shaking his head. ‘I screwed up. I seem to screw everything up these days. I know I shouldn’t have done that stuff with Paula. You were my best mate.’

‘So, how is Paula then?’ said Harry curiously but pretending to just show some form of interest.

‘Dunno. She dumped me; more or less straight away,’ he said, looking at the floor then out of the front window. 

 Harry managed to keep his face as straight as he could, lips pursed, shoulders twitching, but when Pete turned back towards him, neither could help but laugh out loud.

‘Jesus! We’re hopeless, aren’t we?’ said Pete. 

‘Girls, eh?’ said Harry.

‘Look, mate, let’s go for a pint and catch up?’ suggested Harry.

‘Yeah, let’s. It’s been too long,’ said Pete, then, laughing again, he said, ‘but better do our laundry first.’ 

Aunty Jean was watching all of this from the back of the shop, looking at them over the top of her glasses, like an exasperated primary school teacher. Then, with a with a little shake of her head, and an almost imperceptible smile, she said to the others, ‘Boys, eh? Boys!’

And they all chuckled fondly.