A knock followed. Punctuating the shrill mechanical sound of the doorbell. It would be heard from outside, there was no need to knock, it was obviously working. Whomever had their finger pressed against the small white button on the other side of the door was either paying no heed to the sound, or merely chose to augment it. One knock first, then brrrrrrng. Now two knocks.
brrrrrrng
A frenzy of knocking.
“For chrissakes,” Adam moaned, forcing his eyelids apart. Sleep kept them momentarily.
The doorbell again, more knocking.
“Adam, are you in there?” The voice from beyond the door was muffled but recognisable, heavily accented.
Adam moaned inwardly and forced himself to sit up, reaching for his chair and pulling it beside the bed before pushing himself up from the mattress and on to the chair in one well versed swoop. The chair coughed noisily as his weight bore down on it and the metal framework creaked slightly. He glanced briefly at his prosthetics and decided against it. He didn’t know what time it was, but he was bloody tired and once he had seen his visitor away, he would be going back to bed. Sleep could claim him once more and for however long it wished, he had no urge to fight it today.
He wheeled himself through the discarded clothes on the floor through into the hall, moving toward the front door that almost seemed to vibrate with the force of the fist bearing down upon it from the other side. His dream was all but forgotten, the harried knocking and ringing sending it clean from his mind as soon as he awoke, yet tendrils of
ivy
clung on to him nonetheless. As he neared the door, he suddenly became afraid, yet could not pinpoint why. The hairs bristled on his arms as he wheeled the chair forward, and rose visibly on his bare thighs, up to the material of the loose fitting boxer shorts that had worn to bed. He paused before the door, his eyes fixating suddenly on the end point to his legs, as though seeing them for the first time. Both missing from above the knee, doomed to rot in some clinic waste disposal before being incinerated, part of him already ash. The thought invaded his mind without warning, and he could taste the cheap wine that he had drank the evening before, his gorge rising.
“Mr Adam, are you there please?”
He shook such thoughts free from his mind and drew back the chain on the door and pulling down the handle before moving himself back in order to open it. He looked up at the figure standing in the hallway. It was as he thought. The big benign face was peering down towards him, eyes enlarged by the thick lenses of the clear frames glasses he had perched atop a wide nose, above a thin smile that looked like nothing more than a surgical scar in other soft and featureless flesh. There was not a single hair on the vast head of the man that must be in his late fifties, at least ten years older than Adam. He was wearing dark brown dress trousers over his rubber sandals and a checked flannel shirt that had seen better days, with two buttons missing and presumably never intending to be replaced. This resulted in the shirt flapping open a the waist, exposing pale flabby flesh that was too close to Adam’s eye line for comfort.
“Hello Denys,” Adam ventured, attempting to return the smile, despite the rage that was building within him. Just let me go back to fucking bed. He made a show of glancing at his watch.
“Mr Adam,” Denys said, smiling and looking down. He was doing it in such a way that Adam felt uncomfortable, glancing at where his legs hold be and then up to his face, an indulgent smile. “I heard, noises,” he continued. “From in here, I think? I wanted to see if you were okay?”
“It’s just Adam,” Adam said. “It’s not Mr Adam.”
Denys frowned, and made a show of leaning back and looking at the out side of the door.
“It’s just the formatting of the plaque,” Adam continued, “surname first, then first name.”
Denys looked down at Adam again. “Your name not Campion Adam? It’s Adam Campion?”
Adam smiled as widely as he could, inwardly telling himself to be patient. “That’s right.”
“Sorry, I not used to…any of this.” Denys smiled again. “It’s new, for me. The nuances.”
“You’ll get it,” Adam replied, moving back into his apartment, getting ready to shut the door.
“I have no doubt,” Denys replied, the smile replaced by a look of concern that Adam couldn’t quite gauge the authenticity of. “But you are, okay?”
“I’m fine Denys, honestly. Whatever you heard, I don’t think it was coming from in here, from me.”
Denys nodded slowly, disbelievingly. “I was sure I -”
“If you don’t mind, I’m in the middle of some work so…” Adam moved further back, his hand on the door, beginning to pull it shut.
“Yes, of course, working.” Denys’ gaze shifted to Adam’s body again, his clothes. Unless he was working in his bed, then Adam knew that Denys in no way believed him. It didn’t matter either way, the end result was the same. “I leave you to it Mr Adam, I mean, Mr Camp-e-on.”
Another benevolent smile and then he too stepped back into the shadow of the hall and was gone as Adam was finally able to pull the door shut.
He exhaled slowly, relieved to be clear of his neighbour. Denys and his wife Yana had moved in three weeks ago, fleeing their war and taking up residence in the apartment six down the hall. The walls were thin, and Adam would quite often hear them arguing at night, and more. He had only spoken to Denys once in passing, and had yet to catch sight of Yana, although he had heard her. From what he had gathered in his initial meeting with Denys was that they had had two sons, yet both had been killed on the frontline a short time before. Now it was just Denys and his wife. Nice enough, Adam had thought, and very amenable and patient given he circumstances of their residence in the building, yet not anyone with whom he would actually wish to seek out the company of. He had asked Denys what he had worked as, and Denys had just frowned, pretending that he didn’t understand the question. Adam had let it slide, only being passably interested, and was asking to make conversation more than anything. Whatever he did before, he was doing something now, and Adam would hear the apartment door slam shut in the early hours of the morning, Denys’ heavy footsteps moving down the hall towards the elevators and only returning later on that night.
Adam heard those same heavy footsteps now, and surmised that whatever Denys had heard, or thought he had heard, he had done so whilst leaving for the day. Leaving his wife at home. His wife Yana, who never came out the apartment, at least, not as far as Adam saw.
Then again, he didn’t leave his apartment either. Not any more. Not unless he had to. Shopping was delivered via courier, work was conducted online. If it hadn’t been for the occasional other appointment or commitment, he would never leave.
That would suit him just fine.
He wheeled himself over to the small table below the window in the living room, pulling open the curtains before reaching up for the blind cord and tugging down on it to open the slats. Weak morning sun intruded into his world, casting pale shards across the floorboards, the rug, the ancient couch. It had only just managed to pull itself free from the skyline of brutalist architecture that passed for his view, and Adam guessed that this, coupled with the fact that Denys was only just away to do whatever it was he did with his day, meant that it hadn’t yet gone seven. He would be fully justified, he thought, in going back to bed for another few hours sleep. After all, what was the point in getting up early behind habit?
Despite that, he found himself in the kitchen, with the kettle on and a spoonful of instant coffee granules in the chipped mug on the work surface. On the front of the mug was a bear holding a handful of balloons. It’s eyes were hidden behind long grey fur and it wore a blue t-shirt that read WORLD’S BEST DAD. The printing was faded but still discernible. The inside of the mug was heavily stained, and after the kettle had boiled, Adam filled it up to the brown tide mark inside. He fixed it into the cup holder that he had made himself in the arm of the chair, and wheeled carefully back through to his living area.
He thought about putting the television on and realised that there would be nothing good on, there never was, and so instead brought himself up to the table where he could look out the window as he continued with the crossword in yesterdays’ paper. As he slowly filled it in, taking intermittent sips from the hot bitter liquid, his eyes was suddenly drawn to something just outside the single paned glass. Something that caught the morning light. Vivid green, small and insignificant, yet something that definitely hadn’t been there previously. A small leaf, just encroaching upon the window sill from somewhere below. He couldn’t even see the whole leaf, but the shape of the part he did see was unmistakable.
Ivy.
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