Stuart was one of my housemates for six months. Despite starting well together, we fell out very bitterly. Normally I will go out of my way not to offend the people around me, but in my account of the whole relationship below, I have tried not to shy away from my part in the dissolution of communications.

Living together

Stuart was older than most of the candidates we had seen, and we had interviewed a lot, there being 7 of us we found it hard to reach a decision. Nevertheless, he seemed lucid, affable, and his age counted in his favour. Being single, and a TEFL teacher, previously a nurse, he was surely housetrained. He'd come up from London to meet us, and he seemed to carry some of the agitation of the capital with him. He would be glad, he said, to leave the place - it was a bit much after a while. We asked whether he was a weed smoker, since some of that activity inevitably went on in our house. He replied that he wasn't really at the moment - he had on and off periods, but nonetheless participated with us. He told us a story about when he'd been travelling and busking with a friend, and they camped one night just outside of Plymouth, unbeknownst to them, right in the middle of cottaging territory. Some lads passed by at dusk and gave them a dirty look, and when they returned after dark looking ugly, the two musicians dived into the bushes and hid for their lives until daybreak, long after the gaybashers had stopped taunting and gone home. So Stuart and his goldfish were welcomed into the house.

It's always a bit of a fiddle getting a computer onto a network, especially a network as fragile as ours, so I put some time into sorting him out with a card, laying the wire, and configuring the machine.

"You're a good man", he said to me, in the midst of it all; but when he said it again, I begged to be excused his judgement, for in my mind this was a glaring example of the taboo form of interpersonal judgement, not to mention the dubious epistemological implications and on the basis of such a short relationship too! I've done bad things he didn't know about, and I hoped that didn't equally make me a bad man the moment he found out about it. Then I would be very confused! Gandhi said it better:

"Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be."

"Hey, I'm not good, I just do what I want" I told him gently, but before we were done for the day, he had praised me in identical terms. He seemed quite literate, and understanding though, and I didn't push the point.

He had come from a tough working class area up North, but had adapted well and was now on his second middle class career. The goldfish, the jazz, the Dylan, the books, all helped to give a debonair impression.

One Saturday, though, he invited me to come to the football with him and a colleague in his new language school.
"Well I'm in a new town, its a good way to settle in, to go and support the local team - and what else is there to do on a Saturday afternoon?" I must confess here that as a middle class intellectual, I have always felt contempt for football and a total lack of empathy with those who lend it their emotions. Maybe he foresaw this but as he spoke I had an odd impression he was justifying himself, and I agreed, it might well be a good way to spend an afternoon with a colleague in a new town.

I felt the same sense of justification though when I found a tabloid newspaper lying around. "I like to check out what the masses are reading from time to time." Again this was fair enough, even if he did go so far as to hand over money to these bigots and scandalmongers - but that's just my opinion, of course.

Even though we had seen a woman in Stuart's room one night, and he mentioned incidents with women now and then, the rest of the house was still speculating that Stuart might be gay. I put the evidence to him one day. He's in his 40s, single, been a nurse (there aren't many straight male nurses) and has a certain air about him, of always having been and always will be single. He wasn't effeminate or camp, but . . . He took it very well. He understood that we didn't want to judge him, but that we were still wondering. He actually confessed that people have told him this before, and he found it easier, and perhaps more amusing to let them think he's gay. But actually, he was straight, he assured me. He had an 18 year old son from a previous relationship. I said okay

One Sunday I decided with Tasha to do a house meal - some meat and veg. for a pound. It was a bit hectic, with people coming in and out, and Stuart's invitation was delivered by Tasha, who forgot to mention the pound. While dishing up we realised, and I knocked on Stuart's door. "Sorry, Stuart, Tasha forgot to mention that we're asking for a quid to cover costs for the food."
"That's not on. First you offer it me for free and then you charge for it!"
"It was just her mistake, she meant to have tell you. Everyone else is paying and it works out really cheap." I was starting to feel like a conman.
"No forget it. You can't spring things on people like that" He muttered, looking really sullen. I returned a moment later with a plate of food
"There you go, mate, don't worry about the quid. We counted you in, and we're not going to withdraw the offer of food just because of a misunderstanding."
"No I don't want it now. It wouldn't be the same. Give it to someone else." It seemed there would be no reconciliation. I wondered how such a little misunderstanding had lead to such ill feeling. Had I touched some nerve? Things smoothed out over the next day or so, and I decided it would be best to forget it. Anyone can have an off-day, can't they?

We had received notice that the contract would be terminated and we would shortly have to vacate the house. We spent the whole of the two months looking at houses and trying to split ourselves into two groups. Stuart didn't seem desperate to join this game, which was fair enough, but I started getting reports from other people that he was indeed playing some funny games, being alternately friendly to people and then denigrating them to others. Several people decided they didn't want to live with him, especially after he had a blazing row with Lindsey, who seemed to need a conflict grumbling on just to keep her interested - but that's another story. Stuart had apparently said bad things about me but I decided to suspend my judgement until I saw his duplicity with my own ears since. If I had to justify any judgement against him, hearsay evidence would not be enough. All I saw though, was an attempt to be friendly to me though, and no slagging off. He came to my room one evening apparently just for a chat about books. I detected it was part of a game, or a testing process, but he was friendly so there was no problem. Towards the end of the tenancy when we all had to move out, Tasha managed to get Claudia's support to eject Nick from our provisional house, on the grounds that Nick was a young slob with teenage friends. I found myself outvoted. Nick found himself back on his friends sofa for months after that. And the door was wide open to Stuart. The four of us had a celebration drink, but I didn't feel like celebrating the amount of manipulation that had gone into forming the group, nor celebrating Nick's plight. Nonetheless after months of wrangling at last it was settled. When it came to moving day, we were all praying that all the bank and personal references would come though in time - we had cut it a bit fine. By the afternoon of moving day we learned from the agency that everything had come though but Claudia's bank reference was in German, and therefore couldn't be accepted. We got her on the phone and she told us that it would take her bank several days to present the statement in English. The agency insisted that it had to be in English before they would hand over the keys. Stuart got home from work and together we went to the office to see what could be done. I was the official head of the house so I took the lead. "We really need to move today, and to sort this out before you close. Is the problem you can't read the document? Does no-one in this business speak German? Can we get it translated?" The girl behind the desk was determined to stick to the rules, however unreasonable they seemed.
"No, I'm sorry, the statement needs to come directly from the bank in English. No we can't get a translation agency to do it. Nor can you."Stuart intervened, his voice taking on a nasty edge I had never heard before.
"Look, we've got to move in today. There must be a way. This is completely insane. I want to talk to your boss. I'm going to sit here until we sort this out." The girl picked up on this input of menace, and no longer felt safe behind her desk. She said it was time to leave and if we didn't go she would call the police. I managed to take the reigns and said with a great deal of self control and forced politeness.
"Are you absolutely sure that even if we pay to have this document translated, you still wouldn't give us the keys to move in?" She replied in the affirmative. "Would you mind checking that with your boss as soon as possible?" She replied that the boss wouldn't be accessible until the morning. I thanked her icily and we departed without the police having been called.
"Crikey Stuart, you turned the heat up a bit in there, didn't you!"
"Yeah well its the only way to get things done. Fucking cow thinks just because she works in an office she has the power of life or death over whoever walks in the door."
"Well I'll handle her tomorrow while you're at work . . ."

Things were good for a while. We were good about sharing milk and bread and sometimes offered each other food and watched TV together. Stuart stopped smoking, but found his cannabis intake uncontrollable. In order to avoid the tobacco, he would take it through a bong, daily. While we were still settling in, September 11th happened. Stuart got pretty excited and loved to stay up late speculating how it served the Americans right, and what Bin Laden was going to do next. There was always something to discuss, and spectacular pictures of Afghans or twin towers or military hardware to use as desktop pictures on Natasha's machine, which lived in the kitchen and acted as server. Natasha started to get a little irritated at the way these pictures and other settings on her machine always changed, but it was fun to use the computer in the kitchen that way, so I let it rest.

Although I had stated my intention to leave the house in a few months, I seemed to be the person in charge of paying all the bills, since that had been my job in the previous house and I was therefore best at it. It was assumed that Stuart would take over responsibility after me, but he insisted that my name go on all the bills and his role would be to check the figures. He turned out to be very good at reminding me to hassle the gas company, or to set up a direct debit on the council tax. I noticed one day a sinister edge to his reminder. As if something evil might happen if I didn't sort it out in the next ten minutes. I was taken aback by his tone, which seemed to imply an unnamed threat. I found it made me want to not co-operate, but I took it in the most civil tone I could.

One day Stuart came home all a buzz and recounted to everyone with relish how he warded off a drug addict who had already wondered into the school and stolen people's bags. How he had cornered him in a room while the cops were being called, and how, when they had had to let him go or fight, he had summoned his best London aggression and whispered a sinister and violent threat as he left the premises. Stuart had indeed saved the day!

We had found someone to fill the fifth room, even though he wasn't a very exciting housemate, we were okay Towards the end of his trial month, Stuart had a quiet word with me. "Look, Helder isn't really the housemate we wanted. He works too hard, he has a girlfriend elsewhere, and he hasn't once come and watched the telly with us," he reasoned, "Perhaps we should ask him to leave and get someone else." I agreed if the others agreed, which they did, and Helder agreed to leave. Then Stuart started saying he'd got a mate at work who was looking for a room and this one would be ideal - but only if everyone in the house liked him. Of course we should advertise and pick the best person, but his colleague was abroad so we would have to wait an extra week to meet him. We said okay, and set up an evening of four or five meetings. Tasha was out. Claudia lost interest, and Stuart left the last meeting, which was going well, to watch Eastenders - another working class obsessions of his, which he would deride to our faces, yet participate in religiously. Just as John moved in I realised that this was what Stuart had planned right from the beginning. But why hadn't he just said: Listen Helder's not much fun, but my colleague Jon would be ideal. Why had he insisted that we waste a lot of people's time by going though the proper processes? We were not subject to the equal opportunities commission? Why had he put us to all that trouble to conceal his plan, when there was nothing shameful about it?

The house started to polarise socially. Claudia was kept herself to herself, Tasha and I spent some time together while Stuart and Jon were best buddies. At work, Stuart and Jon were hoping that their boss would leave. Then Jon would take her place, and Stuart would take Jon's place - hopefully. It was all a bit touch and go.
"At work they think I'm so laid back and progressive! If only they knew! They might not want both me and John in management - they might want to keep it staid." I certainly knew that he wasn't as calm as his workplace veneer might indicate. When the boss left for a week, Jon did her job, and showed Stuart how to do his. This was ideal. It meant that Stuart was most primed of all possible candidates for this promotion. Meanwhile Jon who was real middle class, and who did enjoy football, was getting on really well with Stuart. It was the most social relationship in the house. They had another friend from the school, a sharply intelligent John and a serious social drinker. On at least two occasions, he consumed all my beer, laboriously lugged by hand, by me, from the supermarket, in heavy little bottles, which I drank only occasionally. Stuart reprimanded John the first time, and the second time, but no-one replaced the beer. I decided it was best to be Stoic.

I had bought a dodgy second hand phone for upstairs, because after all, my bedroom was my office. The phone seemed to have a fault. Sometimes it didn't ring, and sometimes when you picked it up there was a pause before it connected - so I would answer the phone and my "hello" would not be heard. One day the phone rang and Stuart and I picked it up at the same time. The caller could have been wanting me or him, so I waited a moment in silence as they said their how are yous, before making a surprise interjection. The next day I put the phone down as soon as I didn't recognise the voice, but after the call Stuart stomped up to my room.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't sneak in on my calls, like some sort of spy!" I was much taken aback. And explained briefly about the fault in the phone, and said I could only recall these two instances which hardly counted as spying. I obviously wasn't convincing enough. "Yeah well just don't let me catch you doing it again, or there'll be trouble." I couldn't believe my ears. This man was actually threatening me because he believed his own paranoia? I decided it was time to write to him. Some things are best written down for the sake of clarity, and because they can be carefully phrased and carefully read.

"Dear Stuart, I was very much upset by your accusation and subsequent threats over what I believe to be a perfectly innocent misunderstanding. I had no idea that you had anything to hide in your private life. And its not the first time your tone has seemed to me unnecessarily antagonistic. Several things you have said to me have had such an undertone of force that my whole instinct is to resist, and I expect I'm not the only one. I do not wish to get involved in power games with you, since I find them a waste of my energy, and destructive of the whole environment. Besides, I find your strategy crude, and your vulnerabilities gaping. Please take my assurance that I'm not interested in spying on you, leave me alone, and we'll say no more about it."

I see now that in trying to put myself above his level in this letter it could have been read as a challenge. I guess Stuart had no ideas what vulnerabilities I was talking about, and even now, I can't remember what I had in mind, but it all became apparent with my next letter. Anyway we said no more about it, and there was an uneasy but tolerable peace for maybe a few weeks after that.

One night, when John was here, but not really visiting Stuart because they had fallen out. He was visiting Jon, I think, then he was at a loose end and decided to go to a party with Tasha. I did them the kindness of making some toast. Next day Stuart announced that I should buy my own bread and not use all his. The problem was that I never managed to finish my own loaf of bread before it went off, and I told him that I was happy to keep the milk stocks high. But there was to be no compromise. Since I was leaving soon, I decided a grand gesture should do it. I bought about four loaves of bread and put them in the freezer.
"Stuart," I declared, "I've bought all this bread, much more than I will ever use while I'm here, so I want you to use it as much as you like, but please don't mention bread again." He looked like this was a game he didn't want to play. I never bothered to speak to him after that unless it was strictly necessary. I didn't want the competition, the suspicion, or any engagement of any kind. Sure enough though, about three days before I finally evacuated, there was a note on the bread:

Do not use this bread!

I couldn't resist sticking an answer to my milk, the last drain in the carton,

Don't even think about it, Stuart!

The reply to that was my milk being ejected from the fridge. I went to replace it and the fridge really was full. Another carton of milk had been opened. Touché, Stuart, I didn't say.

The level of antagonism was such that when on my last weekend, Stuart decided fairly enough, that I hadn't done my share of cleaning and that I should do the bathroom, and when he demanded of me the next day whether I had followed his orders, I lied and said I had, from sweet spite. And I knew that he knew. It was open rebellion! I had indeed been sucked into his game, as my note said I wouldn't be. But, I puzzled, how could I have avoided it? He was playing equally stupid games with Natasha. Like when her mother came to stay and she asked him to conceal his smoking from her, so he left Howard Marx's "Dope Stories" in the bathroom for the duration of her stay. This is man of forty!

After the incident with the milk, I really wanted to sit down with Stuart and work it all out, so we could part on good terms. A number of bongs would be needed to soften what I had to say. This never happened though. I would not have survived the number of bongs it would have taken to prime him for what I wanted to say.

At last it was time for me to leave. We made the following financial arrangements. When a replacement for me was found I would receive my deposit back, less 10%. The final council tax payment of the financial would come from my account since it was on direct debit, and that amount would be paid to me by the house account at that time. All the other expenses were settled and agreed. Stuart would transform all the utility accounts into his name and open a new bank account in his name to pay them. I was so glad that game was over.

Living apart

After a couple of weeks in India, I still felt the need to have this talk with Stuart. I was still disappointed that our relationship had deteriorated so far, that I had been sucked in. I felt he still lacked the self knowledge to understand what had happened between us and why. And I wanted him to know - for his sake. He could go through his whole life and never know why his relationships were unsatisfactory, how he fell into bitter conflicts, and now I was in a perfect position to tell him. I resolved to do it without malice, to forgive him everything before I started, and to write with love, yet I also knew that there was no way he would take what I had to say well, and that by telling him I would be getting a load off my chest, because this stuff needed saying.

So I sat down in a cyber cafe one day a wrote a long letter. It started off well as I explained that I wanted to point a few things out, how by commanding me not to correspond with my replacement housemate he had overstepped the mark in trying to wield power over me, that such a command had to be deliberately disobeyed, because not to write him would be to submit to tyranny. But it wasn't long before my own hurt started to speak, and my desire to be clever and make my point on many levels. Citing his paranoia about my alleged spying and his eagerness to interrogate me when once I spent a night out, I pointed out that these were signs of insecurity and powermongering. "What if I told you what John said about you, or Bernardette, or Michelle," deliberately summoning his paranoia. These are all his chosen friends, but not his best friends, and I imagined him reading with horror and fear that these people might have slagged them off behind his back, when in fact I only know of one of them calling him a woman hater.

I criticised his relationship with Jon, saying that it surely had a tactical element. Why else was Jon the only person in the house who spoke to Stuart, if Stuart wasn't granting him special tolerance for the sake of his promotion? I said, sensing it would hit the mark, that I suspected him of being a closet homosexual, the tragedy of which was that no-one else cared, but that he was beating himself up about it. Likewise with the class thing - who was he trying kid? Himself or the rest of the world - and why?All of what I said had some truth. It's not for me to say how much. If I accuse a man of being selfish, I expect to be more or less correct. The wise man will know and accept that all beings are selfish to some extent, and that my statement is true. The foolish man will respond as if he has been found out and attacked, because his selfishness has been a secret source of guilt.

I summarised by saying that if he was distressed by my wisdom, then I had done him the favour of exposing his vulnerabilities, without actually attacking them, and suggesting in the future that he try harder to keep the peace. I predicted that even though a letter like this should clear the way for a constructive discussion, that he would take it as his paranoia dictated - in the worst possible way.

I had nothing to lose by writing this letter. As I said before, I was invulnerable to him, especially so at this distance, and I hit the send button thinking it was a job well done. I didn't keep a copy since this was personal. The reply was a few lines long. It was sarcastic, retaliatory and vulgar. I was "the most inadequate person he had ever met" It had been written in a blind rage. It contained one pertinent piece of information, that I would be mutilated next time we met, and that I was cowardly not to have said these things to his face. He denied nor discussed anything I had said.

Having said my piece once and for all, I tried to be placatory assuring him that I was not his enemy, and to prove it I would delete these written threats rather than say, pass them on to his employer but the reply came back just as furious and inarticulate. He promised to junk any future correspondence from me.

"If things don't work out in India, you can always commit suicide." he suggested and concluded "I look forward to our next meeting - ha ha!"