Memoir: Jules Almost Gets in a Fist Fight

Right after Christmas ’03 I went to Bournemouth — a beach town on the south coast of England. I would be there for several months on a school exchange, studying BBC-style journalism and traveling around Europe with my classmate, Briar.


BOURNEMOUTH BEACH

Despite the fact that we weren’t friends yet, she and I decided to live together near the university. Briar checked out the student accommodations website and responded to an ad placed by a girl who needed to sublet 2 bedrooms in a 4-bedroom house for one semester. Stephanie and Hannah were Welsh nursing students who claimed that they were going to Salisbury on a work placement, and our trans-Atlantic phone calls with the girls were consistently peachy. We would be living with 2 boys (also students) named Adam and Ray, the girls told us. Yes, the landlord knows you’re coming. Uni is 10 minute walk through the woods. We’ll pick you up from the train station when you arrive in Bournemouth, and drive you to the house. How lovely, I thought, to make friends with some real Welsh people!

Briar and I arrived in Bournemouth and sat on our luggage as we waited for the girls to arrive. Then there they were.

First clue: They looked like hookers' daughters. Fake blonde hair, fake tans, hard makeup, stilettos inappropriate for train station pick-ups. (I later realized that everyone in Bournemouth dresses like a tart, so these two were just par for the course. But still.)

Clue 2: The girls had a bunch of shit in the boot of their car. With no room for our luggage, Briar and I took a taxi to the house.

Clue 3: Upon arrival, the Welsh didn’t offer us tea or make obligatory small talk about our journey the way socially adjusted people would. Rather, they moved the shit out of their rooms and shoved it in their Peugeot. Some shit didn’t fit (stuffed animals, broken stereo, pink lamp) so they left it in a storage room upstairs.

Clue 4: The house had been unoccupied for a few weeks during Christmas vacation. Adam was home in Bristol and Ray was back in London. Consequently, the house hadn’t been heated. The Welsh pointed at the gas meter and told us that it would probably come on soon.

Clue 5: They took our cash deposits ($500 CDN per room) and hastily mumbled that we’d get the money back at the end of the semester if the rooms looked good. Goodbye.


SCENE OF CRIME

Briar and I nearly froze to death that first night because the heat didn’t come on, as promised. We were also without electricity. The phone was missing. The door to Adam’s room was locked. Our attempts to get things working were fruitless, so we got Chinese takeaway (which nearly froze on our plates as we were eating it) and I cried myself to sleep on the smelly mattress. The next day, the man at the convenience store told us about the top-up card, which is a kind of credit card that you place money on, and then insert into your gas meter. Of course the Welsh had left no money on the card, and presumed that people all over the world heat their homes using plastic fucking cards.

On the first day of school, Adam and Ray came home. They were surprised to see two young redheads in their house. Stephanie and Hannah had told them that we were fat, 30-something Swedish women. The boys had asked the girls for our contact info so they could touch base with us before we arrived, but of course the Welsh gave them fake numbers, and the whole thing was forgotten as everyone retuned to their hometowns for the holidays. And now the shit was hitting the fan.

The same day, the landlord, Mr. Harvey, came to pick up the rent cheques and was shocked to find two Canadians at the door. The Welsh hadn’t told him we were coming after all. They had broken their lease by subletting the rooms. They took our money because they had given their deposits to Mr. Harvey, which they wouldn't be getting back from him, so they opted to break even by tricking some foreigners. As for Mr. Harvey, he wouldn't give their deposit money to us and correct the whole situation, no no no, because then he would be out of pocket. But we CAN stay for the semester…that’s the Welsh for ya, a bunch of pikey sheep shaggers, ho ho.


FOOTBALLERS IN PARK BEHIND HOUSE

At the bar that night, the boys orated a laundry list of atrocities that the girls had committed, including not paying their £200 phone bill, and that’s why Adam locked the phone in his room. We all got so worked up that it suddenly seemed like a good idea to call Stephanie, drunk at 3 a.m., and demand that she and her slag friend Hannah come pick up the shit they left in the storage room.

The next night, the Peugeot pulled into the driveway. I immediately called Mr. Harvey and asked him to please come by and help us sort out the situation, now that the Welsh were here. They clopped upstairs and collected their stuff (all but the broken stereo, pink lamp, and a smelly duvet, which I had locked in my room as collateral). I had also locked the back door and hidden the key in my cleavage. I approached the girls on the driveway and calmly told them that the landlord was on his way, so they shouldn’t leave until he arrives. “Well we’re leaving now,” said Stephanie in a snotty tone, re-entering the house with Hannah. Adam, Ray and Briar were in the lobby, leaning on the walls and watching the Welsh try to get away with it.

“I’ll have to ask for my money back.” I said, trying to sound nice.
“Well I haven’t got it,” she sneered, stilettos clopping upstairs.
I closed the front door and stood in front of it.
The Welsh descended and approached me as though I was supposed to get out of their way. I stood my ground.
“Excuse me,” Stephanie said.
“You’ll have to stay until Mr. Harvey gets here.” I replied.
“Get out of my fucking way!” she ordered, like I was about to take orders from a pikey tart. After I elbowed him in the arm, Ray mentioned the unpaid phone bill.
“Move!” she demanded.
“Give me my money back!” I said.
“Move or I’ll have to move you!”
She grabbed my arm.
“I don’t think so.”
And neither did she, apparently, because she turned around and tried the back door. When it didn’t open, she claimed she would break the fucking window.
She returned to the lobby where everyone else continued to stand around and watch this shit like it was a movie, starring me blocking the door.
“I’ll have to punch you, then.” And she held up her little manicured fist behind her little peroxide head. I looked at her like, go ahead bitch. Let’s see.

And then there was a knock at the door: Mr. Harvey.
He came in and halfheartedly chastised the Welsh for breaking their lease. They claimed they didn’t have the money to pay us back. So I got a sheet of paper and we drew up a contract on the spot, which said Stephanie and Hannah would pay us back by the last day of the semester. Dated, signed and witnessed. I followed them back out to the driveway and wrote down their license plate, just so they would know to NEVER fuck with me again.

In the end, Briar and I didn't get our money back. The Welsh didn’t answer our emails or phone calls, end of semester came and went, and the University was unwilling to punish the girls or even give us their addresses in Wales. With advice from a campus lawyer, we submitted the contract and our initial emails about the sublet to the Bournemouth court. Of course we won the case and the court ordered them to pay, but they never did. As I discovered by opening the bitches’ mail, they had no intention of paying anyone back. They were veteran rip off artists, of the blondest variety. Stephanie’s Visa account was frozen because of £550 in unpaid charges. Then her blank chequebook arrived in the post. I wanted so desperately to forge myself a cheque, adding another $500 in interest and emotional damages, but I didn’t want to risk getting caught. As for the British justice system, the time and money required to hire a collector to chase the bitches down was too much for us to afford.

But the story has a happy ending, regardless. As much as it sucked to be ripped off, I learned the very important lesson of crossing Ts and dotting Is. In rental situations, always sign a contract. Assholes might not honour those contracts, but at least you won’t look like a pushover who doesn’t know the legal system from your elbow. And every once in awhile, get in a near-fistfight with some bitch who thought you were a pussy just to show her — and everyone watching — that you’re the farthest thing from a pussy, even if you have one between your legs. And even if you do get fucked over, try to relax and enjoy the walk through the wonderfully lush woods to uni in the morning, listen to BBC radio on a broken stereo, learn to love dance pop and vodka redbulls, date a proper alcoholic Englishman, get some tarty pink stilettos, see Europe, become great friends with two British roommates, and get to know and love another feisty redhead.

This is for you, Briar.


US, EXTRA RED DUE TO BARCELONA SUNBURNS



THE WALK TO UNI



ME ON BUS INTO TOWN