Her mother had always kept a nice house, had taken pains to make it feel welcoming and homey. They’d had yellow walls in the hallway and lounge, so it would always feel like the sun was shining even when it wasn’t, her mother had said. But Claire couldn’t picture that when she remembered standing there, frozen with fear, outside the living room door.
Her memories were bleached, making the light weak and pale blue, like the morning after a snowfall. Even now the thought of that cold light made her shiver.
The longer she’d stood there hesitating, the more the image of her father behind the door had grown in her mind, large and imposing, like one of those statues of Lenin she’d seen in a history book, until he and his stupid armchair had filled the room.
Eventually, she’d pushed the door open with her fingertips, secretly hoping it would stick, but it had always swung open; he’d been fastidious about DIY. Getting the walk and the expression on her face just right had been of the utmost importance. Too bright and bouncy and he’d think she was being flippant. Too dour and slow and he’d say she looked guilty.
She closed her eyes and shook her head as she dealt with the top lock. He wasn’t there any more. Not in that house where she’d grown up. Certainly not in her life. He really shouldn’t still be here, deep inside her skull. A rush of warmth tingled from her fingers up to her face. She was angry with him for making her think of him when she’d erased him from her consciousness so completely. Angry with him for contacting her. For pretending for even the tiniest millisecond that he cared.
Anyway, festering about the past was not the way she’d chosen to live her life. She’d learned that much from Doris Day at least.
She pushed her glossy black front door open and moved to step inside, but it bounced back and smashed her in the face.
Ow.
She frowned, rubbed her nose and tried again, this time keeping her distance. Once again the door sprang back towards her. Seriously? Had there been that much junk mail since this morning that it was blocking her progress into the hallway?
It was possible. She only owned the upstairs of the Victorian terraced house. She and the downstairs owner shared this front door and the decent-sized hallway. Her neighbour didn’t know the meaning of unsubscribing from a mailing list, and because he really just used this flat as a crash pad, she was always having to hoover up his unwanted mail and shove it in the recycling. What did ‘Mr Dominic Arden’ want with five different subscriptions to geeky-looking magazines about cameras and microphones for anyway? Surely nobody could be that sad?
And then there were the takeaway leaflets. Not just the ones that came through the door if you wanted them or not. He was such a good customer when he was here, obviously, that every greasy kebab or curry shop in the whole of north London had put him on their mailing list and sent him regular vouchers and leaflets about special deals.
She took a deep breath to steady herself and gave the door one final hefty shove. Whatever it was that had been blocking the door moved, but it felt a whole lot sturdier than a wodge of glossy leaflets advertising fifteen per cent off home delivery Chinese.
Frowning, she stepped into the hallway. She’d have to clear up whatever it was, otherwise she’d just have to fight her way through it again in the morning. She reached for the light switch beside the door, cheering herself up by imagining shoving all the junk mail through his letterbox from that day forward, letting him deal with the recycling Everest when he finally returned home.
Her fingers, however, never made it to the switch, because no sooner had she got one foot inside the door she tripped over something. Something hard and metal and rubbery at the same time. She came crashing down on her knees, her hands shooting out in front of her to stop her face hitting the black and white tiled floor.
She stayed there on all fours, shaking slightly and trying to make sense of the usually ordered universe of her hallway. Slowly, she reached out to the right and felt for whatever it was that had caused all the trouble. She found thin metal rod and then a sturdier strut, and by the time her fingers had gripped the blocky rubber tread of a wheel she’d got the whole thing worked out.
It was a flipping bike! His flipping bike. Mr Downstairs. Mr Come And Go As I Please, Not Minding Anyone Else Arden. Claire hauled herself to her feet and, without moving them for fear of being felled again, leaned towards the wall and switched on the light.
The bulb promptly exploded.
Of course it did.
The hall was plunged into darkness once again, but for a flickering moment she’d glimpsed the hulking bike lying across the hall floor, sprawled across a heap of brightly coloured leaflets and polythene-wrapped magazines. She would have kicked the stupid thing if she hadn’t been scared she’d tangle her toes up in the spokes and injure herself further.
Carefully, she felt around for the frame of the bike and then lifted it to stand against the wall, where it had undoubtedly started off the evening. However, her neighbour had thoughtlessly parked it too close to the front door, not caring that she wouldn’t be able to enter, and then had gone off to bed or God knows where without a care in the world. It was totally and utterly typical of him.
Honestly, she didn’t know how her grandmother had put up with him for so long! Claire had inherited both flat and bothersome neighbour after Gran’s death and even though she’d lived here for a year now, he’d probably only been in residence for a couple of weeks of that time – a few days here, a few days there – but she was already hoping he’d just up sticks and move abroad for good one day and stay permanently out of her hair.
Thankfully, she knew this hallway like the back of her hand and, with the help of the dim glow of a street light across the road, she made it to her flat door without further incident. Once inside, she exhaled and slumped back against the closed door. For a moment, she just concentrated on breathing.
There was no point in getting all het up about things she couldn’t change, was there? Que sera, sera and all that. She doubted her Neanderthal of a neighbour was ever going to amend his behaviour. What she needed to do was take a leaf out of Doris’s book and smile in the face of adversity, have a ‘thumbs-up’ attitude rather than a ‘thumbs-down’ one. After all, Doris had had a lot more tragedy in her life than an inconsiderate downstairs neighbour. According to her autobiography, the men in her life had done far worse to her than that.
First, she’d mentioned the musician husband who’d beat her and even once threatened to kill her and their unborn child, then her sadness at the failure of her second marriage after only eight months. She’d adored him, but he hadn’t been able to handle her growing fame. Then, according to Doris, husband number three had kept an iron grip on her career, becoming more of a father figure than a life partner. After his death, it transpired his lawyer had embezzled more than twenty million dollars from Doris – almost the entire fortune she’d spend her career building – and had left her half a million dollars in debt. Years later, she’d still never been sure if her husband been totally duped by the lawyer or if he’d had some hand in the shady dealings. Marriage number four hadn’t ended that happily either.
In the light of that, Claire could surely endure a mountain bike and a ton of junk mail!
She breathed out again and let her shoulders relax. There. That was better. Maybe she’d even find it funny in the morning.
Whatever will be, will be. Whatever had happened, had happened. She couldn’t change it, so she might was well ignore it, move on …
But her knees complained as she started to walk down the hallway towards the living room. She looked down to discover red marks on both of them and a tiny cut on her right leg, where she must have sprawled into the upended mountain bike. That horrible warm, itchy sensation that had come over her on the doorstep when she’d been thinking of her father returned, but she attempted to bat it away like a pesky fly.
She decided to watch TV for a bit before heading