**The Guest Who Overstayed**
Marina Stevenson stood at her kitchen window, watching as a beat-up Ford Fiesta pulled into the drive. A tall lad in a crumpled T-shirt and jeans climbed out, unhurried, then hauled two oversized backpacks and a duffel bag from the boot.
*So, he’s arrived,* she muttered, drying her hands on a tea towel before heading to greet her nephew.
Tim had certainly grown. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been a lanky fourteen-year-old with ears like jug handles. Now, here he stood on her doorstep—a proper grown man, albeit a bit lost-looking.
“Aunt Marina?” he asked uncertainly as she opened the door.
“Of course it’s me! Come in, come in, Tim! Good heavens, look how tall you’ve got!” She hugged him, catching a whiff of motorway service stations and cheap aftershave. “Go on through, make yourself at home. You must be knackered?”
“Nah, I’m alright. Cheers for letting me crash here. Won’t be long, just till I find a job and a flat,” Tim shifted from foot to foot, glancing around the hall.
Marina nodded, though a niggling doubt had already settled in her chest. Words were one thing—actions quite another. Her sister, Tim’s mother, had always been full of grand promises that evaporated quicker than morning mist.
“This way,” she said, gesturing to what had, until yesterday, been her snug little study. The desk, bookshelves, her favourite reading chair by the window—all had been relocated to her bedroom to make space.
Tim paused in the doorway.
“You sure I can’t just kip on the sofa? Don’t want to put you out.”
“Nonsense! A young man needs his privacy,” she said, though something inside her clenched. Twenty years she’d spent arranging that room just so—every book, every pen with its place.
Tim dumped his bags, eyeing the space.
“Where’ll you work now? You had a desk in here.”
“Moved it to the bedroom. No bother,” she said, forcing cheer into her voice, though it wobbled.
Tim didn’t seem to notice, already unzipping a rucksack.
“Mind if I sort my stuff? Everything’s creased from the drive.”
“Course not! I’ll get dinner on. Any preferences?”
“Not fussy. Though, Aunt Marina, don’t go to trouble—I’m dead beat. Early start tomorrow job-hunting.”
She nodded, retreating to the kitchen as the sound of furniture being rearranged drifted in. Clearly, her suggested layout hadn’t met his approval.
While frying up sausages, she recalled that morning’s chat with Margaret next door.
“You *sure* about this?” Margaret had asked, side-eyeing Marina’s flat. “Youth today—today a nephew, tomorrow a pack of mates, next thing you know, he’ll be hosting his stag do in your lounge.”
“Don’t be daft,” Marina had waved her off. “He’s family. My brother’s boy.”
“Family,” Margaret had snorted. “Where was this *family* when you were laid up after your hip op?”
The words had stung. Now, listening to Tim thudding about in her ex-study, they rang uncomfortably true.
“Aunt Marina!” Tim’s voice called. “Can I move the telly in here? Better angle.”
She froze mid-stir. That telly had sat in the lounge since the dawn of Freeview. She liked watching the news from her armchair, thank you very much.
“How will *I* watch it?” she asked carefully.
“You could use your bedroom telly. Or pop in here—we’ll have a laugh!”
Her grip tightened on the spatula. Asking *permission* to enter her own room? Watching *Corrie* propped on pillows like an invalid?
“Let’s leave it for now,” she said, sugar-coating the refusal.
A disgruntled sigh floated back, but the matter (for now) was dropped.
Over shepherd’s pie, Tim outlined his plans: labouring work, decent pay, a flat-share within weeks.
“What about college?” Marina asked. “Your mum said you were doing a BTEC.”
Tim grimaced.
“Dropped out. All talk, no action. I’d rather get stuck in proper.”
“Pity. Qualifications open doors.”
“You’ve got your CIMA, but what’s your take-home? I’ll earn your monthly wage in a week on site.”
Marina bit her tongue. Explaining she *liked* her job—that it wasn’t just about money—would be lost on him.
After dinner, Tim vanished to his room. Marina washed up, then settled with her Agatha Christie. Or tried to—muffled drum and bass seeped through the walls. She nearly knocked to complain, then relented. *First night. Let him settle.*
Dawn brought a fresh grievance: Tim commandeered the bathroom at *six-thirty*, her usual getting-up time. His “five minutes!” stretched to twenty. She raced to work half-dressed, toast uneaten.
“You look peaky,” remarked Linda from Accounts.
“Nephew’s moved in.”
“How long’s *temporary*?”
Linda’s chuckle said it all.
Returning home, she found Tim hadn’t budged. Dirty plates lurked in the sink; breadcrumbs and an empty baked bean tin decorated the table.
“Job hunt go well?” she asked pointedly.
“Slight headache. Hitting it tomorrow.”
She swallowed a sigh.
Later, he “helped” by requesting cash for a lightbulb (“Thirty quid should cover it”). He returned with the bulb—plus fags and a Red Bull.
“Your change,” he said, handing her a fiver.
“And the rest?”
“Needed smokes, didn’t I? You don’t mind?”
She minded *very much* but bit back the lecture.
The bulb installation involved creative swearing and complaints about her “wobbly” step-stool. Marina steadied it, ignoring his expletives.
Dinner was civil, even pleasant—until Tim’s “chill-out tunes” and midnight phone calls resumed.
Next day, “job-hunting” meant hosting a tracksuited mate named Gaz, who offered “delivery work” (details suspiciously vague). Marina’s objections were dismissed as her being “proper paranoid.”
The weekend crowned it all: Tim’s girlfriend Chelsea arrived, helped herself to Marina’s Jo Malone, then paraded in knickers eating her yoghurt.
“Put some clothes on!” Marina snapped.
Chelsea blinked. “It’s *home*, innit?”
“*My* home.”
Tim rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind her—Auntie’s old-school.”
That evening, Marina wept quietly in her bedroom. She’d become a stranger in her own flat.
Tim knocked later, apologetic. Chelsea hadn’t meant offence, he insisted—just “free-spirited.”
“I want you both gone,” Marina said quietly.
“But we’ve nowhere—”
“Not my problem.”
They left in a huff, Chelsea calling her a “miserly old trout.” The slam of the door was *bliss*.
As Marina restored her study—picking up crisp packets, scrubbing fag ash off her desk—the phone rang. Her sister shrieked about “heartlessness.”
“He’s twenty-two,” Marina said. “Time he stood on his own feet.”
A week later, Margaret nodded approval in the lobby. “Told you—young ones today think the world owes ’em.”
Marina smiled, sipping tea in her rightful chair. *Silence*—what a luxury.
