How she was going to get her huge suitcase upstairs? The thought of lugging it to the first floor, her body already bone-tired, made her feel rather blue. Impossible not to think about the first time she’d come here, with him, impossible not to think about how it had been, the day they’d moved in, over three years ago, in deepest winter. Then the pigeonholes had been over there; they’d moved around now. Kate peered inside the box marked Flat 4; two catalogues, five pizza delivery leaflets, four minicab cards, three Chinese takeaway menus, and a plethora of random letters addressed to assorted names she didn’t know, and some bills, addressed to her, greeted her. Flat 4’s pigeon-hole had obviously become the storage depot for everyone’s unwanted post; and Gemma the tenant had only moved out last week. Lovely.
Kate looked down at her bags, and decided she’d deal with the post later. She stuffed the letters back in their box and pulled her suitcases across the hall. She was not usually given to moments of girlish weakness, but she was suddenly overcome with fatigue. Up till now coming back to London had been anonymous, impersonal. The taxi driver, the man at customs, the lady on the passport desk; they didn’t know her. Now she was here and she was in the flat where people knew who she was. This was when it started to get … messy. Somewhere above her a door opened; she heard voices. Kate shrank back against the wall, like a prisoner on the run. Perhaps this was a mistake, a big mistake, perhaps she should just turn around and …
Suddenly there was a loud noise, a thudding sound, and boots on feet thumping across the landing, coming downstairs, several pairs of feet, she thought. Kate pushed her bag up into the nook by the bannisters and peered up. There was muffled cursing; they were obviously carrying something heavy, and she heard an old, familiar voice say,
‘Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll see you later then.’
Kate peered up through the bannisters. There was a coffin coming down the stairs. A coffin. She blinked, and to her alarm an hysterical, horrifying urge to laugh bubbled up inside her, before she swallowed it down, frantically scrabbling to push her suitcase out of the way.
‘Can you open the door, Fred?’
‘No mate,’ Fred answered. ‘You’ve got the front, you take it.’
‘It’s heavy, remember?’
They were turning the last corner, outside her own flat, just appearing at the top of the stairs, and Kate called up,
‘I’m down here. I’ll hold the door open.’
‘She’s down there,’ said the other man. ‘There’s someone down there.’
‘Thanks love,’ Fred said. ‘We’ve got a coffin here, you know.’
‘Yes, a coffin,’ the other man added.
‘Yes,’ said Kate gravely, wondering if she were being filmed as an extra in a hidden-camera Pinter play. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll stay here.’
She leant against the door, holding it flat open, and frowned at the driver, who had left the engine running, which always annoyed her. Questions ran through her head. Who was it? What did you say in the way of pleasantries to undertakers? And how did you tell someone to turn their engine off without sounding self-righteous? She caught the thought escaping into the dim recesses of her mind that she didn’t think like this in New York.
It was, indeed, a coffin, sleek and brown, borne gently by its bearers to the bottom of the stairs, held only at a slight diagonal angle. She stared at it as they reached the bottom step and gingerly readjusted their load.
‘Been on holiday?’ Fred said politely. He nodded at her suitcase as they walked towards the front door.
‘I’ve been away,’ said Kate vaguely. ‘Just got back, yes. This is – er – sad.’ She gestured pathetically at the coffin. ‘Who – who is it?’
‘Old lady who lived upstairs. Had a husband. Nice fellow.’ Fred jerked his head up, indicating where in the labyrinthine view they might live. Kate followed his gaze.
They passed through the front door and left her standing there on the threshold.
‘Second floor?’ said Kate, her voice faint.
‘Yep,’ said Fred, nodding kindly at her.
‘Mrs – not Mrs Allan?’
‘Yes, love,’ he answered her. ‘Sorry. Not the best welcome back for you, is it now?’
Kate loved him then for apologizing, as if he were personally responsible for Mrs Allan’s death. She smiled at him and shook her head, as if to say please, don’t worry. She followed them onto the pavement as they slid the coffin gently into the hearse – she hadn’t realized it was a hearse.
‘There he is,’ one of them said under his breath to the other. ‘Ah,’ and they looked up. There in the window, two floors above Kate’s, an old face looked out through the glass. She recognized him then, of course she did – it was Mr Allan. Mr Allan pressed a hand to the glass, looking down at the street, his face impassive. He was much older than she remembered.
The car drove off. Kate raised a hand in greeting to Mr Allan, not sure whether to smile or not. Once again, she wasn’t sure what to do, how to behave. What did you yell up to a neighbour in circumstances like this? ‘Hiya! How are you! Haven’t seen you for ages! I know, I moved to New York. So, what’s new with you? Apart from your wife dying?’
She hadn’t spoken to them since she’d left. They’d written to her in New York. Kind, sweet Mrs Allan had sent her newspaper clippings, articles she thought she might like, but Kate hadn’t written back, and the communication had dried up. Mr Allan’s face now looked down at her, grey and yellow through the sun on the glass, and she waved again, uncertainty flowering within her, and looked around to realize she was standing on the pavement alone. She pointed in, towards the flats, as if to say I’m back, and looked up – but he had gone.
‘I’ll –’ she started to say out loud. I’ll see you later. Climbing up the steps, she shut the front door behind her, picked up her heavy bag and dragged it upstairs.
The lock that clicked in the door, the floorboard in the hall with the big hole in it, where you could see the Victorian pipes underneath; the sunny little sitting room down the corridor with the bay windows, the radiator in a fretwork covered box. The bookshelves, still filled with her books, gaps where he had taken his books away – all these things, stored somewhere in her memory, forgotten till now. She didn’t remember leaving her flat for the last time. She remembered scenes within it, though. She remembered coming here for the first time with Sean, the first Christmas here … waking up on a Sunday morning, in bed together, the papers, friends for lunch … as Kate stood in the living room, keys in her hand, and looked around, she smiled grimly. Every bloody couple cliché under the sun, like an advert for a sofa workshop or a kitchen sale.
The recent tenant, Gemma, was about her age, and while she’d left everything pretty much as it should have been, for a furnished flat, she’d moved the armchairs around. Frowning, Kate pushed them back to where she’d had them before, one next to the sofa, the other in front of the window. She leant against the window sill and breathed in, memory flooding over her with the smell of wood, of lavender, of something indefinable, dusty, earthy, cosy, the smell of her flat.
Funny that it should be so comforting to be back here. Funny. She put the keys quietly down on the table, almost as if she were afraid of disturbing someone, and took off her coat, putting it gingerly on an armchair. She went into the kitchen, noting with pleasure that the pots and pans hanging on the hooks she’d so lovingly put up a couple of months before she’d gone were still there. On the tiny little balcony that led off the kitchen door, no more than doormat-size, really,