"Do It Yourself" by Valerie O'Riordan

[Robert McEvily]

I couldn't afford to paint my room, so I staple-gunned coloured cotton sheets to the walls instead. I hoped it would take on the erotic appeal of a hareem boudoir, rather than the damp peeling must of the lair of a low-earning shoe salesman. I brought a girl back one night, pretty drunk, and I lit a few candles to disguise the laundry stink from under the bed, and the sheets caught fire. Flames whoosed up the walls and the girl, singed with soot raining onto her hair, scrambled out with her shoes in her hands and her bra still undone. I flapped about and threw a kettle of water and a bottle of coke at the flames and kicked at the embers until it all died down. The room was okay, structurally, since the plasterwork was too damp to ever properly burn, but I got evicted anyway.

6S

Valerie O'Riordan can be reached here.