by Will Carver
‘Small, I guess. I’m not sure. But we have thick walls and I can still hear Mrs May’s music, so I’m sure they can all hear this racket.’
Some kind of rock music, death metal, screaming, guttural noise. Blair guessed it was a young kid whose parents weren’t at home. It was crazy that neighbours weren’t banging on the door and telling the owners to have some damned respect.
The sound was an assault. Blair and Abe had to speak up to hear one another, and somehow it added an edge to what they saw before them. It was dark. Perhaps she imagined the dampness. Suddenly it smelled different. Cinnamon, perhaps. Some kind of spicing, at least.
‘Can we go, Abe? This doesn’t feel comfortable here.’ It felt like something was going to happen. Something she didn’t want to witness.
Abe shut the door and Blair shut her eyes.
The lift moved upwards.
‘Not up, Abe. Let’s just go.’
‘This thing is old. Let’s just get away from this floor, see what’s up there and we can come straight back down if you like.’
The noise faded as they moved through the fifth floor, which looked the same as level four. Blair was convinced that there would be no difference to the floor above that, and they could press the button for the ground and walk back to their well-lit, spacious, separate dwelling.
The sixth floor was silent.
Blair didn’t want to say it but the corridor looked narrower and longer, though there was still the same number of doors on each side. The paint was peeling. She felt cold.
Abe took off his jumper and gave it to her.
‘Put this on. I feel fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course.’ He rubbed her shoulders affectionately, like he was showing her that he would protect her. He would keep her warm and safe.
Abe asked if she wanted to get out, but Blair declined.
‘This is where it happened, you know?’
‘Where what happened?’ Blair didn’t know if Abe was teasing.
‘Some time in the eighties. Mrs May was running the place even back then. A couple were in that apartment,’ he pointed to the fourth door along on the left, ‘nobody knows what happened, but they both ended up on the street six floors down.’
‘What? Why are you telling me that?’
‘Because it’s the truth. It’s part of the history of the building. Apparently they seemed like a happy couple – though you can’t tell what’s going on behind these doors, right? The window wasn’t smashed. There were no signs of a struggle. They found an ashtray on the windowsill outside. So the thought is that they were smoking out there and fell.’
‘Or they jumped.’
‘Wow, Blair. That’s dark.’
She could see he was trying to lighten the mood.
‘Says the guy who takes me on a date to a haunted house.’
Before either can laugh it off or question the validity of the date, two people can be heard arguing and somebody exits the door, which is fourth down on the left.
Tall and angular, he spouts some profanity, slams the door shut and makes his way towards the lift.
‘We need to go,’ Blair whispers. ‘We need to go now, Abe.’
‘Hold the lift,’ the figure calls out, picking up his pace.
Blair pulls Abe into her and wraps her right arm around him as if in a romantic embrace. With her left hand, she feels behind her and hits the bottom button. The lift judders and squeaks.
‘Hey, hold on.’ He’s running towards the door now, but Blair keeps her focus. She speaks into Abe’s ear. ‘Don’t look up.’ Then to the lift, ‘Come on, come on, come on.’
She doesn’t want to but she thinks of God.
The lift starts to descend.
The man above them thrashes at the cage door that he can’t open and calls one of them a motherfucker.
Blair prays that nobody tries to get in on level four as the sound of the music picks up again. She sees somebody walking around in the dark on the conference level. And when they get back to earth, they run. They run back out the door they entered. They get to the corner and turn left and they do not stop until they get back to their own entrance.
Abe doesn’t have the same fitness level as Blair and arrives shortly after her on the porch and is surprised to see her giggling hysterically.
‘That was fucking crazy. Please, can we just go to the cinema next time.’
Abe tries to catch his breath.
Blair continues. ‘When we first saw there was a penthouse, I wondered why Mrs May wouldn’t want to live there. I mean, she owns the entire building, right?’
Abe nods, his hands resting on his knees.
‘But it’s obvious now we’ve been up there.’
‘Yeah. She’s not very good with stairs.’
They laugh again and Blair unlocks the door.
Home, sweet home.
The good side.
THIRTY–TWO
Sythe had destroyed his apartment. Abe could tell that Mrs May had never been inside because her reaction was exactly the same as his.
There were tubes of acrylic paint, that part had been correct, but most of the canvasses were on the floor. Some with giant holes through them made with a stomping foot or fist, or the sharp end of a paintbrush.
There were buckets. Filled with water and mixed with paint. And there were mops. Coloured mops, strewn across the wooden floor of what should have been a lounge but was obviously a studio.
The mops had evidently doubled up as giant paintbrushes, and the walls of that room in The Beresford had been used as the blank canvas. It was expressive and angry and, Abe thought, utterly enchanting and beautiful. The guy had talent.
Mrs May could not force herself towards the beauty through the shock.
‘What has he done?’ She sounded weak. Abe had never seen her like that. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t tell her that it was striking. He stayed silent. Looking around, he manoeuvred himself back out into the hallway towards the bedroom. (Or what would be the bedroom. It was the mirror image of Abe’s place.) He found himself wandering away from the old lady, mesmerised.
Each of the apartments on the lower two levels of The Beresford had one bedroom. Walking through the front door, it was the first room. Spacious. Plenty of natural light. Opposite was a smaller room that most residents used as a study, home office or for storage. Many treadmills had gone unused in those rooms. For Sythe, it was an oversized supplies closet.
What should have been a bedroom was the same as the room that should have been Sythe’s lounge. Eight feet of splashes and dots and angry mop strokes. There was a broom in there that he had used to create a scratched effect on the paint in one corner.
There’s a thin line between passion and madness, and it was difficult to tell on which side Sythe had found himself while doing this. But the fact that he had attacked Abe with no provocation led him to believe that the man had boiled over into a very dark place.
A place that produced breathtaking art that nobody would ever see. And a place that got him killed.
Mrs May was muttering outside. Something about not having any furniture and how could someone live like this. And how he’d got his big break. She trailed off. Somewhere between anger and resignation.
She appeared at the door.
‘Oh, here, too. Of course. Every room. Every goddamned room is covered in his scribbles. There’s mops everywhere. Paint on every surface. I was only ever nice to him. I helped him. Why would he do this to me?’
Abe wasn’t sure if she was asking for his opinion or it was confused catharsis. But he kept his mouth shut.
‘I’ll have to get someone in to clean this all up and repaint the walls…’ She walked off, still mumbling.
Abe followed.
In the kitchen, there were three canvasses resting against the wall. Each one was around four feet by three feet in size. Abe pulled them apart, realising that they formed a triptych – the picture on the right was t
he only one signed in the bottom corner.
Mad swirls of brown with splashes of yellow ochre and pale-blue rectangles. He had no idea what it was or what it meant but Abe loved it. Mrs May caught him mid-admiration.
‘You like this stuff?’ she asked.
‘I know it’s not the time but I do feel drawn to it, yes.’
‘Take it.’ She waved a hand in good riddance.
‘Sorry?’
‘Take it. There’s no chance of him coming back here, is there? You’ll be doing me a favour. It’s one less thing to be removed.’
‘But it’s his property.’ This was Abe’s natural reaction before remembering that Sythe definitely would not return to collect it.
‘This house is my property. He has gone against his contract. So now he is gone, and it belongs to me. It can cover the rent I’m sure I’ll never see. Let’s just say that. Take it. Please.’
‘If you’re sure.’ Abe knew she was sure. And he had an unseen piece of art from the late Sythe. Could be worth some money in the future.
‘Yes. Take it, and let’s get out of here. I need a drink.’
THIRTY–THREE
They went to the cinema after experiencing the other side of The Beresford. Abe can’t remember a thing about the film. He and Blair shared an arm of the chair. Their bodies were so close he felt paralysed, terrified to move in case he touched her and gave off the wrong impression.
They had touched before but it had ended in laughter. Blair seemed to giggle when she was nervous.
Although she had pulled him, quite forcibly, into her in that lift, her form pressed against his. Was it so that the man on the sixth floor would think that she hadn’t heard him calling for the lift, or was it a ruse to get closer to Abe?
That had also ended in laughter.
Tonight they were having a night in. That meant popcorn, wine and a movie at Blair’s apartment.
It never happens at Abe’s.
He doesn’t want Blair at his place. That’s where he did what he did to Sythe. What he had to do. He didn’t want to. It was an accident. He’s not a killer. A stupid mistake. But Abe just wants to get past that.
As Blair is providing the accommodation, Abe is left in charge with snacks and drinks. Two bags of popcorn: one sweet, one salted. A packet of chocolate-covered sweets. And two bottles of red wine. The first to be savoured, the second to help bolster his courage.
‘Good evening, sir. Won’t you come in?’ The ever-playful Blair. Masking her feelings with awkward humour.
Abe felt like Blair’s flat was lighter than his. Even though the rooms were almost identical in layout and size, it seemed bright and homely. The way flat two had felt when he had first moved in. Blair was only one level up from him, it wasn’t that much closer to the sun. Abe’s place used to be like that. Beaming with a sense of possibility and promise. Now it looked more and more like the corridor up on the sixth floor.
The walls decaying at the same rate as hope.
Blair had chosen the film. 10 Rillington Place. She said she wanted to see if it still creeped her out after what happened upstairs or whether she was much braver now.
Courage was a problem between them. Both of them wanted to take a risk with the other. She didn’t act through a lack of experience, while he liked her too much to throw it all away by making a false move. Neither was chasing the thing that they wanted.
A quarter of the way into the film, Blair is startled and fidgets on the sofa, her arm nudging into Abe’s and somehow falling onto the sofa between them with Abe’s hand on hers. She looks at it and laughs softly.
‘Oh, God. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…’ He pulls his hand away and thinks about getting up to leave. He’s blown it.
‘No, no, no. Don’t be silly. I just wasn’t expecting it. Come back. It’s okay.’ She looks him in the eyes. ‘I like it. It’s nice.’
Grandmas are ‘nice’, Abe thinks to himself but he follows her lead.
They watch the rest of the film, hand in hand. Nothing more. Neither of them attempts anything braver than that. A step closer.
More than friendship.
Blair wants more.
Abe has decided that this is the woman for him, the one he is supposed to love.
THIRTY–FOUR
Very reasonably priced, 1 BED flat in large apartment building – The Beresford. City location. One mile from nearest train station. Available immediately. No long-term agreement required. Separate kitchen, lounge and spacious Victorian bathroom. Unfurnished. Communal library and large garden.
Mrs May was particularly proud of her garden and felt like it should be mentioned. The ‘library’ was an overstatement but also something she was pleased to offer.
As every wall – and two of the ceilings – in Sythe’s apartment would have to be repainted, she decided to add ‘freshly decorated throughout’ to her description.
She wasn’t worried about filling the room, they always got filled. And, now that the dust had settled on her discovery of the unknown art project, she was no longer worried about Sythe. He could be covered in petrol and on fire in a ditch somewhere after what he did.
The old lady felt no remorse for feeling this way. She was tolerant but Mrs May was no hypocrite. She did not believe in turning the other cheek to her enemies. She had no faith that they would be judged by God, and, if they were, that would not be enough for her.
Mrs May was kind. She had experience. And she knew what it was to love. But she would not love blindly. She would not love indiscriminately, because it lacks nuance. It takes away a person’s ability to be selective. It is unnatural. As is penting up your hatred towards people.
She believed that it caused ailments in the body and worse still, the mind. She would express her hate freely so that she had the room to love with everything. There was no confusion.
Those who deserved love, received love.
And those who brought out hate would also get what they deserved.
She was raging. And much like her exhausting plea for the protection of and compassion towards young Abe Schwartz, she put everything into her prayer for wrath and violence towards the young, ungrateful artist who had so disrespected her.
Every day for her was a ritual. Cold coffee in the morning. Siesta in the middle of the day. Garden care in the afternoon. Glasses of wine spliced throughout. And her prayers were also followed habit.
Darkness. A candle. Fondling the bell charm on her bracelet. And if she was praying for somebody or about somebody, she would either picture them vividly or have some kind of item that she could focus on that belonged to or reminded her of the person in question.
Mrs May had let Abe take one of Sythe’s abandoned pictures, but she had gone back and kept several for herself.
The entire apartment was black but the candle flame. A gulp of that full-bodied red wine. A solemn gaze at the picture ahead of her; she hung it on a spare nail in the wall. The prayer could begin.
She spoke with a spite and venom and malicious forethought.
She spat thunder and wrath and weeping.
She spewed scorpions and sulphur and poison.
It sounded as though she were recalling every putrid word or malevolent image in her mind before puking it out in a stream-of-conscious hate babble.
She roared thunder and earthquakes and agony.
Mrs May looked at Sythe’s painting and she imagined him being struck down by the world. Her next swig of wine was aggressive.
She’d had a lot of alcohol throughout the day and had woken from her afternoon nap still with a spirited buzz that she would swiftly top up.
Whether angry, drunk or passionate, her hatred spilled over.
She shouted. She shook. And with the same ferocity that her eyes wept with hope for Abe, her mouth foamed and tensed for Sythe.
Mrs May sat until her heart rate dropped to a normal level then finished her wine.
She would post her new advert for the room once the painters had finished.
>
PART TWO
ONE
It was the same routine. He’d go out for a ‘few drinks’, say he’d be home by ten and she would wait up for him until a couple of hours after the bars had shut. He’d fumble with his keys for a minute until finally letting himself through the front door, demanding a sandwich and insisting that he wasn’t drunk.
No apology.
She would tell him to go to bed.
He would tell her to ‘fuck off’.
He’d call her a bitch.
She’d make him the sandwich and watch in disgust as he ate it.
Then he’d start in on her again. About how she sits at home and does nothing. How he provides for her so should be allowed to have a drink when he wants and with whomever he wants. And he expects to come back and not have to argue about a sandwich.
He’d bring up her looks, her mother, the way she is with other men. How she treats him badly. Eventually, he’d have her pinned by the throat to a wall. And he’d scream in her face so loudly that it made her ears ring. A couple of times he’d spat in her face. Once, he used the other hand to rub it into her eyes and mouth. Then he’d laughed as it made her gag.
If she didn’t back down, which she never did, he would hit her. The last time, she was on the floor and he raised his foot as though he was going to stamp on her head.
Never again.
She had tried going to bed whenever he went out drinking, but it wouldn’t be the sandwich he wanted when he got in. After letting him do that for so long, she decided that it was better to take a beating than be fucked by that animal.
He had come home from work and not even showered before going out again. Just a spray of deodorant and a clean shirt was enough. He kissed her goodbye at the door, told her that he loved her and said he’d be home around ten.
She had to stop herself from wondering why he couldn’t just be like that all the time. It was the reason she always came back, and she had to break the cycle. Seeing his foot raised above her face, ready to smash down on her skull was the push she needed.