“I heard you scream.”
Adam glanced around, taking everything in as though for the first time. Trying to piece together everything that had happened. Where he was.
“We thought you could do with some air, so we brought you out here.”
Two figures stood before him, only they were like shadow rendered in watercolour. They had no definition. No features. One was larger than the other, fuller. The other was rakishly thin. They leaned over him and for one panicked moment he tried to stand and couldn’t understand while he was unable to, until his hands pushed agains the rims of his chair.
Of course you can’t stand you idiot.
“Are you okay? Adam, isn’t it?”
Focus. Clarity. The shadows converged and then dissipated over solid forms. The sun was too bright. It hurt his eyes. They were standing between the sun and him, that was all. He looked at the ground, at the shadows they cast, until his eyes brought everything into sharp focus. A hand on his shoulder, squeezing, comforting, or attempting to. He looked again. Nearly there.
There.
An elderly man. Whippet thin in a pair of brown corduroy trousers and checked shirt. Open a t the neck. Grizzled features, more lines than smooth parts of his face. His eyes weren’t unkind, his smile showing that he either still had all of his own teeth or he wore an expensive set of dentures. Adam returned the smile despite himself. Despite the fear that gnawed away at the frayed edges of him. It was this man that comforted him. He smelled familiar, of summer meadows. His detergent probably. His hair was the colour of bleached bone and combed in a side parting that belied the attention he spent on it, and himself.
“I don’t think we’ve ever properly met. My name is Fletcher, apartment two?”
Adam could only nod dumbly. As sober as he was, his speech had yet to deem it fit to return.
“Denys here was passing in the hall and heard you, from inside one. He came to get me to help as you had…” He leaned back, removing his hand from Adam’s shoulder, glancing at Denys.
“You had fallen Mr Adam. Adam. Off your chair. In that place. We are not meant to go in that place it is…I don’t know how you say. Codnamed?”
Condemned, Adam thought.
“Yes, that’s correct. If Mr Ivanov hadn’t heard you I’m not sure how long you would have been in there. It’s not safe. There is mould. Bad mould. All types of airborne toxins. It’s been shuttered since before I can remember. I don’t know how much of it you would have inhaled. So please, breathe deeply. Take in some fresh air.”
Adam did as he was bid, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes and taking a few deep inhalations. His throat burned a little. He looked at his hands, his filthy fingers, and unconsciously wiped them on his clothing.
“Why had you gone in there?” Denys now. Adam tried to shake the comparison to a pair of television detectives and found he couldn’t, which made him smile despite himself.
“It was open. Why were you in there?”
The confusion on Denys’ face seemed genuine enough, and Adam had to give him credit for that. He glanced at the man who had recently introduced himself as Fletcher, then back to Adam again.
“I was not? In there. I was not and have not been.”
Adam found he didn’t have the strength to argue. It didn’t matter anyway. None of them should be in Apartment One, and none of them had any business to be in Apartment One. He shrugged, and smiled his most winning and - hopefully - normal smile, looking from one man to the other.
“Then I really don’t know why I was in there Denys, but thank you for helping me, and you Mr Fletcher.”
He was hot. Too hot. He wanted to go back inside, to his apartment. He wanted to close the door and get himself a glass of water. Scratch that. He wanted a beer. He needed a beer.
Where is this fucking food delivery?
And then something to eat. He couldn’t recall the last time he had actually made himself something to eat, or even looked in his cupboards. Days were bleeding in to one another. He was sure that there used to be a boundary between them. You went to sleep at night, you awoke in the morning and carried out your daily tasks. You socialised, you worked, you ate, you even took a shit, you washed, and you went to bed. Routine. Everyone needed a routine. He wasn’t sure he had one any more. Iris Fleet visited, at some point in the past. She was getting him ready to walk on his prosthetics again. To get him to this exhibition. He didn’t want to go and yet he did it. For him or her (of her), he didn’t know. She told him it would take weeks, but he had time. Yet it was just the other day. She had visited recently. This week. Then he was at the gallery. The smug self satisfied face of Vemier Mamoulean as he chugged back single malt. The taxi ride. He had even been upstairs. In Denys’ damn apartment, only he hadn’t been. He had been in the basement. Then Apartment One and then
home
out here.
“What do you want to do? Are you feeling okay? You want I call someone for you?”
Fletcher had gone. Denys stood alone. Adam must have tuned out. Again.
“Did he go back inside?”
“Back inside, yes, I’ll help you get back inside.”
Denys stood behind Adam’s chair, misinterpreting what he had said. His large hands on the bars of the chair, turning him and pushing him towards the door.
“No, worry,” Adam put his own hands on the rims of his wheels. “I mean did Mr Fletcher go back inside. The other guy. I didn’t notice him go. I wanted to thank him as well.”
Denys pushed the chair, hard, either not realising it was Adam’s hands that had impeded his progress or doing so anyway. Adam winced and pulled his hands away before they got caught up in his chair. He lurched forwards, banging into the door and forcing it open. The hallway was still in darkness, the hot midday sun on his back now, casting his and Denys shadows as an elongated monster on the door. As the other man pushed him inside, it grew and reared up before him, as though ready to pounce.
“Denys,” Adam repeated, trying to turn around, “where did he go?”
“Get you inside. I’ll help. Let’s get you back home. You will have had a shock. Please don’t go int here again. If I am not passing I cannot help you. It was only because I heard you scream.”
“No, Denys, but you didn’t hear me…” They passed the doors of apartments one and two. Both were shut. Both looked as though they hadn’t been opened recently. There was even some duct tape along the edge of the door to Apartment one. It looked old, but intact, forming a seal around the door. There was no mud on the floor. Nothing looked as it had done. He felt something as Denys pushed him past the doors. Eyes on him. Or just one eye.
His gaze pierces cloud, shadow, earth and flesh.
He couldn’t recall where the quote was from, but it seemed apt then. Where had Fletcher
Fletch
gone? Had he been there at all.
“Let us go home, you have had a long day.”
He tried to resist again before letting Denys push him to the elevator. The large man pressed the call button and they waited in silence. Adam tried to make small talk but gave up after a couple of noncommittal grunts from his neighbour.
The elevator pinged and he was pushed roughly in, facing the far side. He noticed that all his painting things in the box was still there, and waited until they reached his floor before he broached the subject, trying to frame the request as delicately as he could, not knowing the response he would receive.
“Can I ask another favour?”
“I get you home first yes?” Denys began to push him out of the lift, down the hall. Adam glanced ahead just in time to see a small pale oval duck out of sight into Denys and Yana’s apartment.
I’ve just about had enough of this.
“It’s just that box, there.” He pointed to his effects.
“That rubbish? You want me to put outside? It just crap yes?” He kicked it with his foot.
Adam gritted his teeth.
“No, Denys, I need it with me in my apartment. I brought it up, or tried to bring it up, from the basement.”
“When were you down in the basement?”
“Earlier on today.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean?” Again, there seemed to be genuine puzzlement as far as Denys was concerned and Adam found that the small hairs on the nape of his neck were standing on end and tingling slightly. “I was down there earlier. I had to get this box of things and bring it up. I went part of he way up and then for some reason the lift stopped on the ground floor. The door opened and I saw that apartment one was open. The door was literally wide open. So I took a look in. I thought you were maybe in there, or someone else. Then Whatever happened happened and I was outside with you and him from apartment two. Now we’re here. So I was in the basement this morning. Why is that so hard to believe?” He as getting defence and angry as a result. He knew he should keep his temper but his belly ached
I’m so fucking hungry
along with his head. He had obviously taken some kind of turn in apartment one and he just wanted to go back to his place, with his fucking things.
“The basement is flooded. It flooded two weeks ago and no mans have been out to see it. I’m afraid everything is ruined down there and lift not go there any more. You would not be able to. See?”
Denys reached past Adam and jammed a thumb on the button marked B. The elevator didn’t move, and the doors stayed open.
“Button disconnected. I did this. For fear of lift taking someone to basement and water.”
“I…” Adam tried to think of what to say. “But my stuff.”
“This box, rubbish. Been in lift two weeks or more. I put outside.” Denys kicked it again.
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes up tightly. He just needed some fucking clarity.
“Can I,” he kept his voice as calm as possible as he spoke slowly, as though to a child. “Can I please take it in with me anyway? If it’s rubbish then I am happy to dispose of it.”
Denys noticeably screwed his face up and sighed.
“Okay well I take you to your door and come back for it.”
Adam had a sudden - possibly unreasonable, possibly not - panic that Denys would take him to his door and than just go back to the lift and take his things to the bins out back after all.
“Thank you Denys, but I can get myself to the door. What would be a massive help though, even more than you’ve done already, of which I am very grateful, is if you could carry the box with me please.”
Denys nodded and sighed as he bent over to pick up the large box full of Adam’s things. Once he was sure he wasn’t about to hit the ground button once he pushed himself out, he moved towards his front door, unlocking it with he key he thankfully still seemed to have on him. Denys was right behind him, huffing and puffing with the box. Adam let himself and waved Denys in behind him, before motioning for him to put it down in the small alcove between his door and the living room. Denys did as he was obliged and didn’t move. Adam felt strange about opening the door into this living room with Denys still there so instead turned himself around to see what the other man was doing. Denys was standing there holding the glass jar up to his face, scrutinising it. The lid was almost completely off now, pushed out by the contents that was now completely black and spilling down the side of the jar.
“Ah!” Denys looked at Adam and grinned. “You still have it! It will be good now. You taste it yet?”
Are you out of your fucking mind?
“Not yet.” He smiled. A tired smile. He felt exhausted.
Denys then shook the jar slightly until the lid came off, falling to the floor. He then raised his free hand, extended his pinky and dipped it in to the jar. He scooped up a great black globule of what looked like an old blood clot, and held it on the tip of his finger, moving it under his nose.
His tongue darted out, and in one quick moment it was gone. He swirled it around his mouth for a moment and then swallowed.
He looked at Adam again, placing the jar and it”s black contents on to the small shelf.
He winked.
“Hits the spot. You should try.!
“I will, later, it looks lovely.” Adam tried to keep himself from being sick.
“Okay, bye!” Denys waved cheerfully, too cheerfully. Like he was a children’s TV presenter signing off from a programme. Moments later he was gone.
“Fucking hell,” Adam breathed. Pushing open the living room door and stopping.
The room was bathed entirely in green light. He could see why.
Looking towards the large window.
That was covered in ivy.
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