Our House - Someone's Living In Our House

In Can Picafort there is an old house. It has been there for fifty years. It was one of the first "new ones" to be built, before the hotels came, along with the bars and even roads. It belongs to a family who can't agree what to do with it. No one has lived there for some twenty years. At least, that's what was thought.

The house has not been completely abandoned, just that it's not habitable - or so it was thought. There are no utilities, that's for certain; no electricity, no water. Someone had been given permission, for some reason, to store certain things in the garden. That was ... how long ago? Then someone else said, not so long ago, that there was a person living in the house. This someone is a little crazy, people say. He is, but he doesn't imagine things. He had spoken to this person, he had been inside the house, this house that belongs to his family, to this family who can't agree and mainly don't speak to each other. He, this someone who is a little crazy, had gone with the key, the key to the front door. It didn't work, he said. That's impossible, others thought. So these others went themselves, some time later. They had not been to the house for ... how long could it have been?

The key didn't work. He had been right. They looked around, tried to see inside, and then he appeared. Another he, a little crazy maybe. The alcohol on his breath could be smelt. Who are you? They asked of each other. We are the owners, some of them, they said. What are you doing here? I live here, he said. Live here!? That's not possible. Yes. For how long ...? Ah yes, he remembered. Six years it had been. Six years he had been living in this house. But how, they asked. He had been allowed to. By whom? By the man with the key, the one with the stuff in the house. The man with the key? Who is he? A man, the one who puts the stuff in the house.

They went inside. They could only just get in. There was furniture and junk everywhere. Piled as high as the ceiling. He lived upstairs. He didn't want to show them. They didn't really want to see. But there is no water, no electricity. It's ok, he said. I have friends where I can wash. And in the mornings I take a coffee and go to the toilet, and then again in the evenings. Where are you from? Not from here. He wasn't. He was from another country, from their country. He has been in Mallorca for how long? Fifteen, sixteen years perhaps. But in this house for six. He cannot go, go back, well not unless he gets some sort of papers. No passport, no anything. He is from nowhere now, except this house. He can work, yes, he does work, now and then, but only nearby. No car, no bike. The bike is no good when it rains, he says. Before, years ago. How long ago? Years ago, he worked elsewhere. In Alcúdia. That's impossible now.

Are you selling the house? No. We can't. No one can agree, not everyone speaks to each other. What do you want of me? Nothing. Not of you. It's ok. You can stay here. In this house. Ok. Then he remembered some more. The lady, he said, the lady who is one of the owners. Which lady? He couldn't really recall her, but she had been there with a man and she had this car, it was distinctive, yes he could remember the car well. But she never said anything to us. She knew you were living here? Yes.

They left, left behind the man in their house, the man who had lived there for six years. Did she ever tell you about the man in the house? Me? No, never. She spoke about the house quite often, but never said anything about someone living there, only that it was in a poor state now, only that none of you could agree as to what to do with it. Does it matter though? He lives there, he stops the house being taken over by kids having a party or something. Maybe it's not such a bad thing. Maybe. But, even so, how can someone live in that way? And how has our house come to be like this? When we think of how it was, our summer home from those years ago. How long ago?


QUIZ
Today's title - "Our House". Which one of the four wrote it?

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