Literary Remains

by R. B. Russell

  ‘Are you okay?’ David asked. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you seem unwell.’

  ‘Since Alice left me,’ he eventually called back, but did not continue the sentence.

  ‘We can return later,’ David repeated. ‘You’ll need some time to remove your things. Have you got people to help you move?’

  ‘No, no people,’ he admitted, appearing in the doorway, dressed. ‘I’ve only got a few bits and pieces here anyway. A bed, a wardrobe, these chairs and a table. Obviously I’m not going to take them back home… Do you want them?’

  ‘Well, not really. I’ve got a new bed being delivered tomorrow.’

  ‘Cancel it. Save yourself the money. Have everything here for nothing. I’d only have to pay to get rid of it.’

  ‘Well, if it helps…?’

  ‘It will,’ he assured David.

  Julie put her box on the table and while David still held his she looked around the kitchen admiringly.

  ‘I’ll leave my key with you,’ he said, offering it to David, who now had to put his own box down before accepting it. ‘Please, return it to the landlord for me? I won’t be back.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to leave everything?’ David asked.

  ‘Quite sure,’ he said. ‘I hope you are happy here. There were times when I certainly was.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you,’ David started to thank him, but this was dismissed by an impatient gesture of the hand.

  ‘Goodbye,’ the man said, then turned and went down the stairs.

  ‘Goodbye,’ David called and listened as the door was opened at the bottom of the stairs and then shut.

  ‘Blimey,’ he said, incredulous.

  ‘Don’t complain,’ Julie insisted, and pushed past him, back into the front room. He followed her and watched as she ran her hand over the end of the bed: a substantial and expensive-looking example in steel and brass. David watched her looking at the few tasteful pictures on the walls, and nodded towards the discreet hifi system in the corner of the room.

  He walked over and looked into the drawers of the nearest bedside cabinet and found them to be empty.

  ‘This is really odd,’ he said. He assumed that he had also taken over what looked like expensive linen on the bed. The dark blue bedspread was heavy with a faint paisley pattern and he ran his hand over it appreciatively. Pulling it back he could see a dent in the mattress and wondered if that was quite as good quality as the sheets, which he would have to wash and use himself—his own were probably too small for the bed.

  ‘He’s left all of his clothes in here,’ Julie pointed out as she looked through the wardrobe. ‘And some shoes.’

  David was having to take his time and consider the implications of what had happened. He watched Julie pad excitedly back to the kitchen.

  ‘Did you notice that he couldn’t see without his sunglasses on,’ she asked.

  ‘They must be prescription glasses: tinted.’

  ‘There’s a fancy coffee-maker in here,’ she called through. ‘And a juicer, and a microwave. He’s left everything. You’ve done rather well,’ she assured him. ‘Oh, and there’s a couple of bottles of champagne in the fridge. Perhaps we should open one to celebrate your good fortune?’

  When they had finished exploring, Julie with excitement, and David with some wariness, not quite believing what had happened, they moved his boxes in from over the road. Later that morning his new bed arrived and he turned away the disgruntled delivery-men. For lunch she had brought sandwiches and they shared a bottle of the champagne before he took his time arranging his few possessions. She amused herself by discovering those left behind by the former tenant.

  ‘Tedor Pienkowski,’ she announced. ‘It’s written on a business card here on the windowsill. Sounds Polish?’

  ‘It could be. Did you think he had an accent?’

  ‘I don’t know, but he had money. All these things he’s left behind are good quality and barely-used.’

  ‘It was a love-nest,’ David explained, taking his turn to look into the wardrobe at the expensive clothes that made his own look rather tawdry. He eased on a very smart, comfortable jacket.

  ‘I can’t help but think he’ll see sense at some point and come back,’ he explained his uneasiness.

  Julie admired the jacket, straightening the lapels and saying that it suited him. She brushed it down and noticed that there was something in the pocket. She fished out what appeared to be a piece of torn blue silk, and inside it was a gold ring.

  ‘You’ve got to get this back to him,’ she said. ‘This looks personal.’

  ‘I suppose that the landlord might have a forwarding address,’ he agreed.

  But the landlord had no address for Tedor Pienkowski. He simply had a business card like the one left in the flat with a name and mobile phone number on it, but there was no other information and the number was inoperative. David tried directory enquiries, to no avail, and the following day asked at the City Hall, but they could not locate anyone with the name Pienkowski living in the city. Widening his search he obtained the phone numbers of several Pienkowskis in the country, but none admitted to knowing anybody with the first name Tedor.

  David had unpacked some of his boxes, but he liked the uncluttered feel of the flat that the man had left behind him. The new tenant set up his computer and most of his possessions in the small back bedroom and allowed the large bed to remain dominating the front room. When Julie visited some weeks later she told him that he had kept the place unchanged out of guilt, or fear, that Tedor Pienkowski might return. He disagreed, but had to admit that he was in some ways modelling himself on an idealised version of the former tenant. A part of him was uncomfortable doing so, but he felt better for using the man’s exercise bike to get into shape, wearing his expensive shirts, trousers and jackets, and he gained in confidence as a result. It had been very strange to wear somebody else’s clothes at first, but he soon thought of them as his own. When he next went in to the office he even had the self-belief to mention a project that he had been working on privately and somehow managed to persuade them to take it up. A half-hour meeting stretched over the whole afternoon and he came away with an offer of a full-time, permanent position, a very good salary, and his own room in their offices.

  Julie admitted that he was a changed man, more assured, and she was obviously taking an interest in him. He was not inclined to reciprocate, but her feelings towards him further added to his confidence. He had long thought that she was the plainest woman he had ever met, but he wondered if with such a blank canvas for a face, something might be done for her with the careful application of a little more make-up?

  It was a month later, when he returned home from work, that David met Alice. For perhaps the first time since he had moved into his flat, David had not thought of Tedor Pienkowski at all that day. He had spent the morning worrying about a meeting that he was having with his bosses, but that afternoon his ideas had been well-received and he knew that they would be acted upon. He had walked home looking at himself in the shop windows and not even glimpsing a slight reflection of Pienkowski in the image that he now presented. Remembering the other bottle of champagne in his fridge he decided that he would open it on his return and perhaps ask Julie around to share it with him. The only reason he could think of for not doing so was the fear that she would see it as an encouragement to her obvious feelings for him.

  As he let himself into the flat and bounded up the stairs he was considering how to re-start his social life outside of the new friends he had made at the office, where he seemed to be well-liked. The idea of the champagne was in the back of his mind as he wondered whether he wanted to meet up with his old friends at all, or start completely afresh. He threw the keys on the kitchen table, took down one of the champagne flutes he had inherited from Pienkowski and removed the bottle from the fridge. Starting to open the foil around the top, still lost in thought, he turned and nearly dropped the bottle when he saw that somebody was standing in the ki
tchen doorway.

  ‘I had to come back,’ she said disconsolately, her head down as she stared intently at her sandals. She was wearing a shirt patterned all over with rosebuds, and a pair of jeans.

  David didn’t know what to say. It took him a second to recognise her. She looked up slowly and started when she saw that he was not Pienkowski.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, her hand on her heart, backing away.

  ‘I live here.’

  ‘But where’s Tedor?’

  ‘He moved out about a month ago.’

  ‘But all of his stuff is still here.’

  ‘He left it all behind when he went.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t leave a forwarding address.’

  ‘You’re even wearing his suit,’ she noticed, incredulous, her retreat halted.

  ‘As I said, he left all his things.’

  David put down the bottle and she stood glaring at him, which he found disconcerting. She had no right to be there, in what was now his home, and yet he felt that he was the intruder.

  ‘You still have a key?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, he gave it to me. I assumed he was still here.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ David said. ‘But there’s something he might nothave meant to leave. It might be yours.’

  She frowned.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ he insisted, and she backed further away onto the top stair as he walked towards and then nervously around her into the front room. On the bedside table there was the piece of blue silk in which the ring was still wrapped. She had not followed him in so he walked back and handed it to her.

  ‘Is it yours?’

  She looked down at the piece of silk without opening it and her face crumbled. She almost groped her way past him to the bed before falling on to it, weeping uncontrollably.

  It was not a situation to which David had any idea of how to react. He did not know this woman, and she was, after all, in his flat. He decided to take off his jacket and hung it up in the wardrobe. Then he took off his shoes and put them out in the hall. When he returned to the woman she was still sobbing.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked.

  She sat up, unwillingly, and wiped her eyes on the sleeves of her shirt. Eventually she replied:

  ‘You were opening a bottle?’

  He agreed and went back to the kitchen, grateful to have something to do. He wasn’t sure if the champagne was expensive or cheap, but he had been about to open it anyway. The cork came out quietly and he filled two flutes, which he then took back into the front room.

  ‘I assume you’re Alice?’ he asked, handing over the glass.

  ‘Yes, Tedor told you about me?’

  ‘He said that you were in love, but you broke up?’

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t meant to come back. I promised him. And now you have no address for him?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry.’

  ‘He was an extraordinary man,’ she said, quietly. ‘It wasn’t like any other love.’

  ‘He said that.’

  ‘I really do believe that he loved me with a passion, and an intensity, that no man has ever had for a woman before.’

  The suggestion that their love was somehow better than anybody else’s annoyed David.

  ‘Why did you break up then?’ he asked, antagonistically.

  ‘Because it was too intense.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he replied, changing his tone to one of sarcasm, although she did not seem to notice it.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she said simply. ‘When I first met Tedor he acted so oddly,’ she explained. ‘He seemed to like me, to seek me out, but then he would shun me. At first he said that we couldn’t have a relationship because I was married. I said I’d leave my husband for him, but he insisted I shouldn’t. This went on for a while and nothing happened between us. Can you imagine what it is for two people to be so attracted to each other, and to not even touch?’

  David shrugged, knowing she wasn’t looking at him and wasn’t really interested in his opinions.

  ‘And then one night we gave in. We could never remember who succumbed first, or whether we both did at the same instant.’

  After a pause she sipped her champagne and looked up at him. ‘I am sorry. Is this embarrassing you?’

  ‘No,’ he said, and then added, maliciously, ‘It doesn’t really interest me.’

  She could not fail to understand his tone this time. She put her wine on the bedside table and stood up.

  ‘No, and why should it interest you?’ she asked. ‘You’ve just taken over the outside, surface appearance of Tedor. You could never understand the man that he was.’

  She was waiting for a reply, and she gave David time to consider it. He took a moment to imagine how the former tenant would have acted. After all, he was no longer the rather bitter failure who had once been the old David Riley, but was the rather more confident successor. This woman was in distress, in his flat, and he should be acting more sympathetically. He remembered something of what Tedor Pienkowski had said to him and repeated it by way of explanation:

  ‘No, I don’t understand the man he was. He was obviously in love with you and it just isn’t possible for another person to understand the love that somebody else feels. They might say they understand, relating it to their own experience, but being in love is unique, and sometimes terrible.’

  He spoke slowly and calmly and at the end she was nodding. He decided to embellish the truth a little.

  ‘Tedor and I discussed love. We discussed the exultation you feel when in love, and we discussed the awfulness of it when it all goes wrong. He said that the feeling in your stomach is as though you’re falling, forever from a tall building…’

  She looked puzzled: ‘But you said you were not interested?’

  ‘I apologise. That wasn’t the word I should’ve used. I should have said that I could never understand, or appreciate, what happened between the two of you, because it was so intensely personal. Just as you couldn’t hope to understand the love that I have felt at times in my life. You talked about external appearances, and yes, perhaps that’s all we ever understand of anyone, no matter how close we get to them.’

  ‘That’s what Tedor used to say,’ she agreed. ‘He insisted that we were closer than any two people had ever been, and yet we could not fully understand how the other felt.’

  She sat back down on the bed and reached for her glass. David sat beside her and she didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘I’m married, with two children,’ she said. ‘I’ve always thought of affairs as seedy, distasteful things that people have when they’re bored with their husbands or wives and don’t have the courage to do anything about it. But I do love my husband, and I would do anything not to upset my children. But my love for Tedor… It sounds like I’m making excuses, justifying myself, but it isn’t…wasn’t…like that. What we had was beautiful, special…’

  ‘And you offered to leave your husband for him?’ David asked, as sympathetically as he could.

  ‘Yes. I was willing to explore the idea. But really, ideally, I wanted everything. I was unrealistic, I knew it then and know it now. I want my family and I want him. I want them both at the same time.’

  ‘But if you had to choose?’

  ‘Then I would choose Tedor. I should have chosen him while he was here. Now it’s too late and I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘But when you told him you would leave your husband, he said no?’

  She took another sip of her drink and then nodded.

  ‘Why was that?’ he asked, quietly.

  She sniffed: ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He said something to me about his family.’

  ‘He had a family, but I don’t think he had a wife, children…’

  ‘But you’re not sure?’

  ‘He said that he didn’t, and I believed him.’

  ‘So why didn’t he want you to leave your husband?’ David asked as patiently as he could
.

  ‘Because he said he was no good for me.’

  ‘Not worthy?’

  This time she took a sip of her drink and then shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean yes, you’re right. Not worthy…’

  David got off the bed and walked out to get the bottle from the fridge. He was interested to learn more of Pienkowski, although a little ashamed at himself.

  With her glass refilled Alice turned and drew her legs up under herself on the bed. With her free hand she smoothed down the bedspread.

  ‘Tedor said that if I tried coming back to him he’d be gone.’

  She looked around the room.

  ‘Actually, I love the fact that you’ve changed nothing in here. It’s almost like he’s still here. You’ve even kept the blue lights.’

  ‘Yes. I ought to change them. They’re not bright enough, but they create a nice atmosphere.’

  ‘It was because of his eyes. He couldn’t stand certain higher wavelengths of light. But you’re right. The blue gives the room a kind of calm. And he chose things for the room that went well in that light.’

  ‘It was very generous of him to leave it all.’

  ‘He was always very generous. This shirt I’m wearing is one that he bought for me when we were first together. Even these jeans, these shoes… They were all very expensive, and I had problems explaining these gifts to my husband. I always told him they were cheaper than they were, or that I’d bought them in charity shops.’

  ‘And how did you explain the ring?’

  ‘I never showed him. And then I gave it back to Tedor when we parted.’

  ‘But it is rightfully yours. You’d better take it.’

  ‘No, as I say, I gave it back to him. If he passed everything on to you then it is yours.’

  ‘I would like you to have it,’ he said, believing that it was the right thing to do.

  ‘No. It was very expensive. I could accept it from him as an expression of his love, but not from you.’

  And then David felt angry. Did she think he was trying to give her the ring as an expression of his own love? He didn’t know what to think, but she was obviously comparing him with Pienkowski and finding him wanting, deciding that he was the lesser man.