Apartment 16 (12 page)

Seth was led down the aisle and back towards the fruit and veg. Another two black men also wearing blue ties and trousers joined Fabris. Between the four of them they should find the soup.

‘Now, what a crazy place to put it. By the bloody newspapers,’ Seth said. ‘The tinned stuff is usually way over there. How weird.’ He waved his free hand in the air.

Fabris gently took the basket from Seth’s fingers.

‘No. It’s OK,’ Seth said, touched by the gesture. ‘I’ll carry it. And you don’t have to call me sir.’

Fabris insisted and took the basket.

Fabris and the other two men, who were now smiling and trying not to laugh – it must have been his observation about the ludicrousness of putting the soup by the newspapers – formed a tight semicircle behind his back and led him with firm hands past the papers and the cigarette kiosk. It was only when Seth felt the cold on his face sweeping through the main entrance from the dark street outside that he realized what was happening. There would be no soup. Fabris and his colleagues were throwing him out of the shop.

Wheeling around to face the three men in the mouth of the door, he suddenly noticed a large crowd watching him. Three women on the checkouts had paused in their scanning of products across the little red eye to observe his ejection from the building. ‘What? Why?’ he said.

It was then he saw the mother-of-three with the long yellow teeth and moustache standing beside a manager in a suit and tie, by the frozen orange chickens that smelled of antiseptic. She must have complained about him.

The sense of injustice boiled. ‘What? Because of that fat bitch with the fucking beard, you’re throwing me out?’ Fabris and his allies stared at him, straight-faced. ‘She slammed her trolley into me. Outrageous. And the condition of the food in here! You’re bloody lucky anyone comes in at all.’

Fabris took a step closer. ‘I’m gonna ask you to leave now, sir.’

‘Fuck you!’ Seth shouted, and his voice carried a note of triumph he hadn’t intended. He left the supermarket with a dramatic swish of his overcoat and barged his way through the crowd outside to get away from the burning white lights.

By the time he reached the main road he was laughing in the rain. Uncontrolled belly laughing that hurt and made him think of suffocation. For a few moments he felt totally free and weightless.

Shaking from the confrontation, Seth walked to the nearest cashpoint. He withdrew a ten-pound note. A beggar sitting inside a cardboard tray asked him for change.

The rain was coming down harder and he needed soup. With money he could go to the twenty-four-hour minimarket; it was nearly all tins in there. Expensive, but what choice did he have? And he was close to passing out. From now on he would have to bestow his patronage on local shopkeepers.

In the cold and rain he found it hard to believe the episode in Sainsbury’s had taken place. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. He was well behaved, well brought up. But it was the city. It did terrible things to people: made their hair greasy and their skin blotchy and grey. Everyone around him had that pallor, induced by old air, exhaust, dust particles, bad milky water from Victorian pipes, rotten food at high prices, stress, isolation, pain. Nothing worked here: lights, phones, wires, roads, trains. You couldn’t rely on anything. And this darkness, the eternal night of soot and black air. His chest went tight. It was hard to breathe. Where were all the dogs and cats and pink babies in pushchairs?

In the mini-market the shopkeeper never slept. A Bangladeshi man with coal-black skin and half-open eyes operated the cash register without looking at his fingers on the keys. ‘Than you, sssur,’ he said all day and night by the light of the fluorescent tubes overhead. He sold vodka to teenagers and cigarettes to children. ‘Than you, sssur.’ It was too dangerous around here to say no to anyone. The empty bottles were smashed outside the Green Man and in the bus stop.

‘Do you have soup?’ Seth asked.

‘Yes, sssur.’ He pointed to the back of the shop. Seth squeezed around the old Irish men who tottered and swore by the two-litre bottles of dry cider. They stank. Today everybody stank. Didn’t people have time to wash?

As well as six tins of soup, Seth bought hard crackers that must have been compressed to a wooden consistency by a large machine. He added bleach and a bottle of water to his purchases. The bill exhausted all of the ten-pound note.

His face hidden inside the round darkness of his hood, but slightly raised and cocked to one side in anticipation, the boy was waiting for Seth as he jogged across the wet mirrored pavement towards home. This time things were different. Contact was unavoidable. The boy had moved to his side of the road. Seth smiled to himself. Maybe speaking to the real version of this figment of his crazy subconscious mind would dispel the spectre from his sleep.

He stopped running and stood beside the wall of the pub. The boy waited on the pavement near the kerb. Rain had turned the khaki of his coat black.

Seth looked up at the sky, an impenetrable murk of ink with flashes of silver water falling across the sodium of the street lights. He wiped a hand over his face. His overcoat felt heavy and sodden but underneath his body was warm. His muscles loose, his skin hot, he had gone past the point of tiredness and hunger and fatigue. He looked down at the boy who waited and watched quietly. ‘Seen you round here a bit. You in trouble?’

There was a long, mute pause followed by a shake of the head. In the bottom half of the hood Seth thought he caught a hint of something red, but wasn’t sure. ‘You lost? Homeless or something?’

Another shake of the head.

‘So . . . what? Why are you here? I mean you can be here if you want. There’s no law against it.’

The boy didn’t speak.

‘But it’s wet.’ Again Seth looked at the sky.

‘Don’t bother me,’ the boy said with a shrug. The voice was strong enough to let Seth know he wasn’t scared.

Seth smiled, but felt his smile didn’t penetrate the hood, which seemed to be a silent and empty space. ‘And cold,’ he mumbled.

The boy shrugged again. One of those kids who can stay up late, call adults by their first name, never go home, ring doorbells when families are sitting down to eat, and look blankly at anyone who shouts at them. He sensed something hard and insensitive inside that cowl, but not callow, not mean, not delinquent. Just lost and able to bear it without question or feeling self-pity. ‘So your parents are inside the pub?’ Seth asked, and immediately felt both foolish and wary at the way the question sounded. It was the kind of thing he imagined white-haired men saying inside the warm interiors of cars as they leant across the passenger seat to invite someone else’s child into the vehicle. He didn’t want this kid to think he was a nonce.

The boy shook his head and then looked down the street. There was something hopeless about the way he confronted the road.

‘You should go home where it’s warm. Watch television.’ What could he say to connect with the boy? ‘Why hang around here? It’s a dump.’

Still no response. He thought of offering some money for sweets or cigarettes, but realized he had none to give. With a sigh Seth turned to go.

‘I seen worse.’

‘At least stand under the porch. You’ll get soaked.’

‘Don’t bother me.’

‘Your mum won’t be pleased if you get pneumonia.’

‘Don’t got one.’

‘No mum? Your dad then.’

‘Live with me mate.’

Was this some rehearsed ploy to extract sympathy? ‘Well you better take off. It’s no night to be out.’

Two girls walked by without raincoats. Their blonde hair was pulled back tight from their foreheads and Seth wondered if the rain was able to penetrate the smooth hair. It always looked wet in that style. They wore training shoes without socks, tight black leggings and baggy sweatshirts with Reebok logos hanging in the loose folds at the front. A cigarette was passed between them. The taller girl held a bottle of Bacardi Breezer in her ring-encrusted fingers. They both looked at Seth and giggled. Both of their freckled faces suggested something dog-like – wet and snouty and ill-disciplined. ‘What you doing out then?’ the one with too much green eye make-up said, mimicking his voice.

‘What?’

‘You should take your own advice, mister,’ the one with the bottle said.

‘I wasn’t talking to you.’

The girls stopped. ‘Who was you talking to then?’

‘Don’t, ’Shell,’ her friend said, giggling at the same time.

‘To this lad here.’ He gestured towards the hooded boy.

The girls turned and looked at where he was pointing and then laughed in a hard, humourless way.

‘Piss off,’ Seth muttered. You couldn’t stop on this road for long before someone bothered you. You had to keep moving.

‘Piss off yourself,’ the taller girl said. Her breath smelled of pineapple. They carried on walking and laughing and chewing gum.

‘Don’t worry about them,’ Seth told the boy.

‘Don’t bother me. Not no more.’

Seth turned towards the pub, his interest in the children of the night exhausted. ‘Anyway, I better get on.’

‘Can’t do nothing to me.’

‘Eh?’

‘Them girls. Can’t do nothing. Boys neither.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Seth walked away.

The boy followed him to the entry of the Green Man. Seth groaned to himself, realizing the terrible mistake he had made in talking to this character. He should have ignored him like everyone else. Now he could be stuck with the kid every time he left the building. The boy came closer until he was standing inside the entry with Seth, the hood bowed so the hidden face could peer down at the dog shit by his chunky heeled shoes.

‘Sorry. You can’t come in. Get yourself home.’

‘Ain’t got one.’

‘Eh?’

‘Go where I like.’ The boy removed a hand from inside a pocket. A collection of burnt and deformed fingers were revealed.

Seth was meant to see them. ‘Do . . .’ He had to clear his throat. ‘Do I know you?’

The hooded boy nodded.

‘From where?’ Seth moved out of the entry and back into the rain. It was better to stand in the cold and wind than with the stench of sulphur and burned meat that lingered in the confined space of the entry.

‘Seen you a few times.’ There was something cocky about the voice and the angle of the head now. Inside the blackness he guessed the child was grinning. From head to toe Seth prickled with static.

‘Told you fings was going to change, didn’t I?’ the boy said.

Seth shook his head and closed his eyes. Then opened them. The boy was still there looking up at him in the wet street. ‘You seen it in the shop before they chucked you out.’

Seth could not speak or swallow. He retreated back up the main road. The boy came after him. ‘That’s just the start. It’ll get bad, Seth.’

‘You know my name.’ Seth broke from his stupor. ‘Is this a joke? This is a fucking joke.’ His voice was a whisper.

The boy shook his head. ‘It’s what you wanted. You takes your chances.’

Seth stepped into the path of an elderly man carrying an umbrella. Somehow he found his voice. ‘Excuse me.’

The old man looked startled. His whole flabby face quivered.

‘This kid?’ Seth pointed at the hooded boy, who turned to face the old gent. ‘You can see him, right?’

The old man dipped his head and walked around Seth, only to stop once he’d gone a few feet to look back at him with a mixture of boredom and curiosity.

‘Him!’ Seth yelled and pointed into the chest of the boy. The man turned and hurried away.

The boy giggled inside his hood.

Seth forced himself to smile politely at a West Indian woman who struggled past with a cluster of shopping bags. ‘Excuse me, ma’am.’

‘Yes?’ she said, her face on the verge of a smile but held back by instinctive suspicion.

‘This boy here is lost.’

‘Eh?’

‘This kid here. He’s lost. I want to help him.’

‘You is lost?’ she said. ‘Where you wanna go?’

‘No. I’m fine. I live here. But this kid. Here. This one. Do you know . . .’

She looked to where he was pointing and then screwed up her eyes to stare at Seth, puzzled for a moment and then wary. After a moment of silence she said, ‘Come out of it. I got to go home. I got nothing.’ She waddled away from him.

Seth looked at the boy and swallowed. ‘No,’ he said, and then ran back into the doorway of the pub. He dropped his shopping bag to fumble a key into the Yale lock. Scooping up his bag of tins and bleach, he fell inside the building and slammed the door behind him.

ELEVEN

Sometimes I believe I am marked and scrub my skin red raw. How else is he able to follow me? I cannot countenance the idea that he can read my thoughts and guess my intentions in advance. And does he leave the building when I do, after sitting outside my door like some cruel dog, patiently waiting for me? Or has he been inside here with me since the last time we saw him? Now I’m beginning to sound like you, my darling.

Apryl sat in bed with the second journal and skimmed through another series of aborted trips and paranoid fantasies. More crazy stories about how Lillian and her friends in the building were being terrorized. Haunted even, by someone she had yet to name.

When she spoke to her mother an hour after midnight, she didn’t mention Lillian’s madness, or her own unease in the apartment. And to her mother’s delight she even hinted that it might be possible after all for her to return to New York on the date previously planned. She then rang off and cuddled back under the eiderdown with a mug of camomile and honey tea, promising herself she would only read the beginning of the third journal before getting some sleep. The antique dealer was due at ten the next morning, and an auctioneer at noon, so her alarm was set for eight thirty.

But two hours later, after delving into the third volume, she realized the last thing she would be able to do was sleep in this bedroom:

My darling, these past two weeks I have tried to get away from here through the parks. But things have changed there too. If the sickness and the sudden confusion is not enough I believe he has now positioned sentinels to keep us inside here.

On Monday I set off at five, at first light, wondering if this would make any difference to my chances of getting out. But I began to feel nauseous halfway along Constitution Hill. Determined, and so upset I had only made it thus far to be suddenly stricken with the sickness, I set off north instead through Green Park with Piccadilly in sight. It was then I spied a woman who should not have been in the park. Not at that time of day, or at any time if I am to be honest.

Seeing her gave me such a shock I didn’t leave the flat again until Sunday morning, and I had the porters do what shopping I needed.

Even after all I have endured I am still ready to be shaken to the marrow by the strength of
his
influence. I still question what I saw, and still leap from denial to acceptance on an hourly basis, but I must accept these new sightings are a change in the strategy he employs to keep us in.

In my nervous state of mind I was ready to dismiss the individual in Green Park as some kind of actress. Perhaps they were filming nearby. Or maybe she was one of these strange youths I read of in the papers who are so fond of dressing up. But from her appearance I would have placed her with the Victorians and not the current ‘swinging’ Londoners, or whatever they are now.

She wore a long black dress that swept the path, and a bonnet on her head which concealed her face from me. And could I have imagined all of those ribbons in a detailed frill around her bonnet, as if she were in mourning? It was the details that convinced me this silent and unmoving figure was real. But she was so tall and so unhealthily thin beneath the dress that stretched up to her throat, she made me suspect I was seeing a person on stilts playing some prank on whoever was about at that time. And she was pushing a black perambulator out in front of her. A big old-fashioned thing with wheels like a cart.

I turned away and pretended to ignore her. But, as I proceeded to go on, she just seemed to come quickly out of the mist that was clearing from the base of the trees, and she approached along the path I needed to cross to reach Piccadilly. No matter how much I slowed down or sped up it seemed impossible that we would not meet at some junction ahead.

I veered to the right but she kept pace with me, so I cut directly upwards and tried to avoid a collision I instinctively felt would be unpleasant for me. By this time I was stumbling. Losing my balance because I felt so wretched. My hair had come loose and fallen across my face and I was in such a state, darling, but I tried. I really tried.

She was there when I reached the path. Waiting, not more than a few feet away. Almost at my side. So silent, but determined to greet me, I felt. I only looked at her quickly, but could not see any evidence of her features inside that bonnet. It was angled down, but still, I thought, where is her face? Though what I did see in that solitary glance were her hands, clenched upon the handle of the pram. And I could not take another step after observing the state of them.

They were all bone. Brownish and mottled, not white as you’d expect bones to be. And in that moment she reached out and spread these hands over the top of the pram. As she unhooked the black veil from the hood and reached inside, her fingers made a clatter as if she were wearing lots of loose wooden rings on her thin fingers. I thought this sound more dreadful than the sight of them. And what she raised from the pram made me scream. I remember hearing my voice as if it came from someone else. It simply didn’t sound like me.

I must have fainted, because when I woke, the sun was warm on my face and the woman and her horrid pram were gone. A tramp stooped down and asked after me, but he frightened me too and I staggered all the way home in tears.

A week to that day I tried again. First, to reach the trains to Brighton at Victoria, and then to push across the river by the Albert Bridge where I had been unable to get through some years before. But there were more of them. Waiting for me.

Near Victoria I was greeted by something hunched over and wearing a flat cap. The face under the peak was all chattering yellow teeth. And on Cheyne Walk, three days later, my heart nearly stopped when I was surprised by the sudden appearance of three little hairless girls with the strangest misshapen heads, all long and thinnish. They were wearing surgical gowns tied at the neck and they did a horrible little dance on their stick legs, right there on the pavement before my eyes. Under the gowns I think their bodies were stitched together. But it was the way they moved . . .

I tried to run around them and get across the Albert Bridge but saw something caught up in a tree. I thought it was a kite, but it was fleshy. A face, in fact. With small pox scars on the skin and no eyes. Just hanging there alone in its own grief and pleading with me.

It was as if I was being held down in a nightmare and unable to wake. I doubt I shall ever try and go south again. Down there, it is worse than anywhere else.

Of course I am losing my mind. I know it. As you did at the end, my darling. But we both know where we saw such things before. He brought them here, into the building and into our homes. We never got rid of them. Not after all that burning.

Apryl closed the book. It had gone two and she couldn’t bear to read any more. Lillian was a schizophrenic. But how had it gone undiagnosed for so long when she was seeing so many doctors? Maybe it was Alzheimer’s. Didn’t that make you see things too? Did they even know what it was in those days?

There were no cars at all in the square outside the building. She missed the swishing sound of their tyres on wet tarmac. They were the only company she had as she lay alone with the lights on. Lights that were so dim they barely lit the room. She was no longer sure how she felt about the big wardrobes either, and wondered if she should go and turn the keys in their doors and make sure they were locked.

She looked at the ceiling. The paint was cracked around the light fitting. Three times she felt herself swoon into sleep, but forced her eyes to open each time. She was desperately tired but wanted to stay awake, because when you are asleep you can’t keep watch. But the next time her eyes closed they never reopened to lift her from sleep.

Until, in the faint far-off world outside her sleep, she heard a door open and close. A door inside the apartment. And after that came the sound of feet moving swiftly across the floorboards of the hallway.

Then she was awake and sitting up with her heart in her throat and her body stiff with fright. And as her eyes travelled to the doorway they passed over the mirror still facing the wall and the painting of Lillian and Reginald. But she didn’t look at the bedroom door for long because she was compelled to return her gaze to the painting. There were now three figures in the picture where there should have been only two. And the one standing in the middle, between her aunt and uncle, was terribly thin.