The Devil Upstairs

by Anthony O'Neill

  In truth, she lacked the energy to concentrate. She had taken to drinking at least five cups of coffee a day. She had sacrificed nearly all of her exercise regimen. Her muscles had loosened. There were loose hairs on her pillow each morning. Dark circles under her eyes. And a subcutaneous pimple on her chin. Though she disliked the idea that she was vain, Cat had always been proud of her clear skin, her lustrous hair, her general fitness. Now she felt like a frump.

  She had tried fitting gel plugs into her ears every night. She had experimented with earmuffs and headphones. All-night music on her clock radio. ‘White noise’ to harmonise with Moyle’s racket. Prescription sleeping tablets from the NHS. She had even tried spending the night in every room in her flat barring the bathroom. She’d slept on the living room sofa. On the floor beside her desk. Even, on one especially torrid night, on the kitchen table. But there were no easy answers.

  Clap clap clap, went Moyle’s boots on the sixty-six steps.

  Kee-waaah! went the pneumatic hinge.

  Ka-LUNK! went his front door.

  Creak creak creak, went the floorboards.

  Kawissssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, went his toilet.

  Whump! went something dropped on the floor.

  Nnnnnnnhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrr! went a chair he’d dragged into position.

  Twang, went his electric guitar.

  ‘Aaaaarrgggggghhhhh,’ growled the man himself

  And all this at 11.30 p.m., at 12.12 a.m., at 1.22 a.m., at 2.06 a.m., at 3.35 a.m., at 4.01 a.m., at 5.26 a.m.

  There was simply no getting used to it. Cat decided that, paradoxically, it was not the sounds themselves that were so disruptive. It was Moyle’s blatant disregard for her welfare. The seething rage that accompanied every one of his louder noises precluded the possibility of just shrugging it off and sliding back into sleep. She couldn’t treat him like a noisy songbird or a barking dog or something else that could not be controlled. Nor could she convince herself, as much as she tried, that it was just part of the local culture – something she needed to acclimatise to, and quickly, if she wanted to fit in. Even her willingness to entertain the idea that she was punishing herself with some form of neurosis – because in her heart she didn’t believe she deserved full happiness – failed to help. And the sporadic nature of the noises meant that there was no point trying to sleep until Moyle himself was at rest – and typically that was not until four or five o’clock in the morning.

  Again and again homicidal fantasies ranged through her delirium. She saw herself painting his door handle with a deadly toxin. Climbing from her window to the top of the building, in the middle of the night, and somehow weakening the roof so that it collapsed on him while he slept. ‘Accidentally’ dislodging her window box, from forty feet above, just as he arrived at the stair door. She even saw herself buying a Magnum – this wasn’t America but she figured she could get one if she really tried – and blowing him away as he came up the steps.

  Each of these imaginings offered nothing but a fleeting catharsis, and again and again she awoke recoiling with shame. But the problem never faded.

  Frantically warding off fond memories of Miami – the palm trees, the art deco architecture, the melting pot intensity – she started studying the Edinburgh real estate websites again. Alas, there seemed no apartments remotely in the same league, and certainly not the same price, as the one she already owned. And any change of premises would mean a substantial hit to her finances – stamp duty, agency commissions, moving costs, and so on. Besides, she simply couldn’t tolerate the idea of palming the problem off to someone else. Some innocent buyer like herself, full of hopes and dreams, eagerly moving into the flat only to discover the horror of the guy upstairs. It would be like selling a house you knew was riddled with termites or destined to be demolished in a freeway extension. No amount of rationalisation – trying to convince herself that Europeans are more tolerant of neighbourly intrusions – could satisfy Cat’s conscience on the matter. Nor could she imagine leasing the place out, quite apart from the fact any self-respecting tenant would quickly pull out, or complain constantly of the conditions, or cancel the lease entirely (she was unfamiliar with the relevant Scottish regulations).

  In desperation she wrote to the department of Building Standards and Public Safety, seeking proof that the separating floor had been soundproofed to existing standards. But in response she received only a muted letter stating that the department’s power was limited ‘where there is no risk to public safety’. They had, however, written to the registered owner of the property ‘outlining their obligations as per Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004’. Cat was further dismayed by the coda: ‘Should we fail to receive a reply, you may find that the most satisfactory conclusion involves legal action.’

  Cat baulked at the prospect of summoning lawyers. She could live with toxic atmospheres – had done so during the crime syndicate investigation – but was reluctant to play the role, in her very first year in Scotland, of the litigious American.

  She devised an alternative strategy whereby all the building’s tenants would sign a letter to the owner of the flat – Moyle’s aunt – matter-of-factly noting her nephew’s unsociable habits and imploring her to have a stern word with the lad. The spectre of an ASBO would be insinuated. But though Maxine and Michael agreed to be co-signatories – somewhat sceptically, as they seemed to think the aunt would take little notice – the gay guys in Number Three were in Majorca for a couple of months, the woman in Number Two didn’t want to get involved, and the Romanian couple renting Number One were standoffish, claiming they hadn’t heard any disruptive noises.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Cat said to them. ‘Your place is right beside the stair door here. You must have heard him come home at all hours?’

  But the couple, clearly averse to hostilities for whatever reason, looked away and would not reply.

  Starved of the numbers necessary to constitute a rear guard, Cat elected not to send the letter after all.

  She sought out a quotation from a soundproofing firm.

  The avuncular tradesman who showed up to measure her ceilings asked her – in a wonderful brogue, full of ‘naes’ and ‘oots’ and delightfully rolling ‘r’s – exactly what sort of noise was coming through: ‘Airborne or impact?’

  ‘Both,’ said Cat.

  He scratched his stubble for a while and told her the only real answer was suspended ceilings for the whole flat, ‘Tho’ that’ll take a guid four or sux unches off yer cillin, and yer cillins are low enough noo.’

  Cat thought she understood. ‘You’re saying that you’d need to hang a new soundproofed ceiling under the existing ceiling, and fill the cavity with soundproof insulation or whatever?’ She’d done her homework.

  ‘Aye,’ said the tradesman, impressed.

  ‘And how much would that cost, exactly?’

  ‘For the hull place?’

  ‘For the whole place.’

  He stroked his chin again, and narrowed his eyes, and looked almost apologetic when he said, ‘Ah couldnae do it for less than ten thoosand, lass, and that’s jest for the cillins.’

  Cat grimaced. ‘Why do you say “just for the ceilings”?’

  ‘There’s the wulls as well.’

  ‘The wulls?’

  ‘Aye, the wulls. Sound leaks doon the wulls as often as it comes through the cillins.’

  ‘I see,’ Cat said, nodding. ‘So you think I’d need to soundproof the walls as well?’

  ‘It’s the only way to be sho-ar.’

  Cat nodded. ‘And that would add another ten thousand to the bill, I assume?’

  ‘Ah could do the wulls for five.’

  Fifteen thousand, thought Cat. It would carve a sizeable chunk out of her diminishing savings. Then again, the purchase price of the place had been a steal. Maybe she could combine the two amounts and try to convince herself she had paid the proper price after all.

  But she hated the idea of lowering her ceilings – as the tradesman himself had
noted, they were already conspicuously low – and she couldn’t really be sure that the added strain on the joists wouldn’t make the floor above even more prone to creaks (one of the potential drawbacks of suspended ceilings, if what the Internet forums said was true). Moreover, she dreaded the possibility of discovering – after defacing her own property and parting with a gruesome amount of money – that Moyle was preparing to move out anyway. That’d be just her luck.

  ‘I just need to be sure of one thing,’ she said. ‘If I go ahead with all this stuff – suspended ceilings and what have you – you can guarantee that the noise will be reduced, right? Enough for me to get a decent sleep?’

  Now at just that moment – before the tradesman could even answer – Moyle erupted from hibernation in the bedroom upstairs. It was as if he’d been eavesdropping on their conversation, awaiting the right cue, and was intent on proving that any measures against him would be futile.

  Creak creak creak, went the floorboards.

  PLONK, went something dropped on the floor.

  Nnnnnnnhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrr! went a dragged chair.

  Kah-lunk, went a door.

  Looking to the tradesman, Cat discovered that he had gone as white as his overalls. He was shaking. Because he was mortified.

  ‘Lassie,’ the man said hoarsely, swallowing and licking his lips, ‘you’ve got yerself a prrrrrrrrrrroblem.’

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Cat’s breaking point came in October, just as the autumn air was whispering of winter. Her quest for an adequate sleep had become so desperate that she was now spending at least a couple of nights a week in a local hotel – the same hotel, ironically, that she had used prior to moving in (she couldn’t imagine what the desk staff thought about it). Sometimes she was assigned the very same room she had occupied on her first visit, the one where her flat was visible from the windows (she wistfully remembered a lost age, not four months earlier, when the building had seemed like a castle awaiting its princess).

  Then, a miracle. Driving up to the building on the evening of Tuesday, 3 October, Cat noticed that Moyle’s black Peugeot hatchback was missing from its designated space. But she was fatalistic: this usually only meant that Moyle would be coming home later. She went inside and did her chores – cooking, washing, ironing – with her ears tuned to his inevitable return. It was shocking, when she thought about it, how much time she spent monitoring his movements – being tyrannised by his very existence. But Moyle did not return that night. She lay in bed, wide awake until after midnight, waiting in dread for the growl of his car’s mistuned engine, the insistent slam of the driver’s door, the cacophony of his entry into the building, the stomp of his boots on the sixty-six stairs. But when she woke up, to the trill of her alarm clock, she was amazed to find that she’d been blessed with a full seven hours of uninterrupted slumber – the first such stretch, not counting her nights in the hotel, that she’d enjoyed since first becoming aware of his existence.

  He was absent the following two nights as well. And Friday.

  She expected him back for the weekend, along with a drinking buddy, perhaps, but Saturday night was clear also. And Sunday.

  The change in her well-being was immense – a tantalising glimpse at life as it should have been. Walking home at night she took the long route, down to Stockbridge and up through the Water of Leith gorge, glorying in the beauty of autumnal canopies, burbling water, lichen-coated walls and steel-blue twilight flecked with gold and amber leaves. Oh God, it was so beautiful. She dared imagine a full week, or even a month, during which she could revel in such a life again. She even entertained the possibility that Moyle might be away frequently, for sustained periods – on tour, perhaps – giving her ample time to regain her energy and wallow in the charms of her chosen city.

  But on Monday evening, just as she was settling in for a bowl of peanut noodles, Moyle returned to his lair. Bang, clap clap clap, kee-wah, creak creak creak, twang tawang tawang. Cat’s heart sank. Then again the following night. Bang, clap clap clap, kee-wah, creak creak creak, twang tawang tawang. And Wednesday night as well. Bang, clap clap clap, kee-wah, creak creak creak, twang tawang tawang. The new ‘normal’ was back.

  Cat was contemplating another night in the hotel – she had a daunting examination the following day on Scottish legal procedures – when, on the evening of Thursday, 12 October, she finally snapped.

  The first sign that some new horror was imminent was the sound of a vacuum cleaner humming and scraping across his floors. She’d never known Moyle to use one. Then she heard him dragging furniture around. Opening windows. She wondered if, by some miracle, he was preparing the place for inspection.

  But then came the muffled buzzing of his intercom. The voice of Moyle himself – ‘Yeah, come right up!’ The kah-lunk of the stair door being released. A symphony of clap clap claps as three people, at least, whirled up the spiral stairway. The jingle of bottles. The kee-waaah of Moyle opening his door. The booming laughs and welcomes as he ushered the newcomers inside. The infernal clatter of four or more people walking backwards and forwards, in boots and dress shoes, on wooden floors.

  To Cat it seemed incredible that Mr Moyle had any friends, let alone two or three. What on earth did they see in him? Charm? Generosity? Compassion?

  There followed such incessant movement – she could barely hear the TV news – that she assumed the group was getting ready to go out for the evening, perhaps to a pub or party before returning for more drinks.

  A prospect that was itself deeply unappetising. But the reality proved even worse.

  BZZZZZZZZZ, went his intercom.

  Kah-lunk, went the door release downstairs.

  ‘Just leave it open!’ came Moyle’s voice – he was shouting down the stairwell.

  Clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap, went footsteps on the stairs.

  Hey ha hey ha hey ha, went people being welcomed inside.

  Then:

  BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ again.

  And: ‘Come right up!’

  And the CLUNK CREAK CLUNK PLONK of a growing crowd shifting around the small apartment.

  Hey ha hey ha hey ha. And some guy with a particularly obnoxious laugh, like a braying donkey: HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW. And some girl with a hyena’s giggle: HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE.

  And then the party really started.

  BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

  Moyle was playing music. At the sonic limits of his sound system. Cat’s whole flat was shaking – the crockery in her kitchen was rattling.

  BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

  Hard rock. Way out, hell-for-leather stuff. Cat couldn’t identify any of it – the Very Best of Hounds of Hades, probably – but it sounded horrific.

  BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. And THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK. And FARK YOU FARK YOU FARK YOU FARK YOU TOO!

  Music so aggressive that it almost drowned out the klunks and clinks and plonks and creaks and blams and hahahahas and hawhawhaws and heeheehees.

  Cat sat rooted in place for half an hour before changing into her Lycra and heading out for a run – her first in weeks – hoping that the party might have moved on by the time she got back. But halfway up a hill in Ravelston, just a couple of miles from home, she came to a stop, bent over, hands on hips, her leg muscles refusing to drive her further. Vitamin deficiency, she figured, exacerbated by lack of sleep. She trudged home, shivering from chilled sweat, just in time to see a Hyundai pull up behind her VW.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, when the driver got out, ‘you can’t park there.’

  Tall and straggly-bearded, wearing a Hounds of Hades T-shirt, the driver looked down at her with squinted eyes. ‘Who are you, hen – the traffic warden?’

  ‘I live here,’ Cat said.

  ‘Aye?’ he said. ‘And you got a problem with our car being here for a few hours?’

  ‘It’s blocking my space. The other spaces, too.’

  ‘Not planning to head out, are you?’

  ‘How would I k
now? There might be an emergency.’

  ‘What sort of emergency?’

  ‘You can’t park here,’ she barked.

  He stared at her for a few moments, as though perfectly willing to continue the argument, but finally turned back to his friends as they spilled out of the car.

  ‘Back inside, lads – Shania Twain here has spoken.’

  With a few colourful expletives the crew piled back into the car and reversed recklessly down the street, looking for another place to park. Cat, still livid, had only been back in her apartment a few minutes, peeling off her running pants, when she heard them trundle up the stairs. Yet more clap clap claps and hey heys and ha haas and come in, come ins and BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

  Clearly the party was going to go on for a very long time.

  She packed her overnight bag with clothes and toiletries, stuffed her work notes into a folder and marched around the corner to the hotel. But the place – for the very first time in her experience – had no vacancies. Cat nodded resignedly and said she’d try somewhere else. Melanie, the friendly desk clerk, shook her head: ‘I doubt you’ll find a room nearby tonight, Ms Thomas – there’s an evangelical convention in town, you know.’

  Cat thanked her and tramped back to her flat. Upstairs, they were playing ‘Black Betty’ and people were jumping up and down in time to the music.

  BAM-DA-LAM. BAM-DA-LAM. BAM-DA-LAM.

  Cat could see her ceiling rising and dipping. She feared the joists might break. She wondered if the whole party might crash down on top of her in a hail of plaster and splinters. She decided to shift out of the way, move into her kitchen, just to be sure of her safety.

  Her mobile phone chimed with a message from Maxine.

  Wow!!! What are you going to do about it?

  Indeed, what was she going to do about it? To this point Cat had refrained from confronting Moyle in person, keenly remembering the sting of his pejorative ‘American’. But when the party rumbled on well beyond eleven-thirty and, if anything, seemed more boisterous than ever, her inhibitions crumbled.