The Watcher

by Ross Armstrong

  Then I went back up to the fourth floor, crawled into bed and went back to sleep.

  But now, here was another patient altogether, standing in my doorway with a subtle tremble moving through her lower half. A classic neurotic. Her problem? She couldn’t sleep. Imagine for a second being a real doctor and being woken up for this when you have a double heart surgery the next morning. Or whatever doctors do.

  She took me to her room, told me stories of stress. I think there was a rash involved. I don’t know if she was hoping I had a secret pill stash or whether she seriously is ill. Physically or mentally. I wouldn’t know. I’m not an expert. I’m not a doctor.

  Either way, she can’t have been so upfront with the concierge. Surely he wouldn’t have revealed my ‘identity’ for that. Or maybe this was a classic palm off.

  I made her sit down. Put my hand to her head. Then took her pulse and nodded sagely and improvised.

  ‘I’m afraid even if I did have something to help you sleep it wouldn’t do any good. I know this isn’t what you want to hear but you need lovely, natural sleep. Just breathe in through your nose for fifteen and out through your mouth for ten. It’s the best medication I can provide. Try it now, in for fifteen. Good. And out for ten.’

  As I knelt at her bedside I was reminded of Mum.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor.’ I got a warm feeling when she said this.

  ‘As for the rash, I can give you something for that.’ I searched in my washbag for a cream I sometimes use for athlete’s foot. I wonder what that’ll do for her. Cure her maybe. Or maybe there’s something in it that’s bad for her. I hope not. But I don’t know. Not a doctor.

  I keep my bag low so as not to reveal that rather than a stethoscope and thermometer my ‘doctor’s bag’ contains only tampons and hair clips.

  ‘You can keep the cream. Now, please, get some rest.’

  I head back to bed again, stowing the bag under my arm and trying to seem inconspicuous.

  My phone goes and I hit reject straight away. Then there’s a voicemail. Another one. I have a brief listen on the way back to upstairs.

  ‘If you don’t answer, I’m going to come round there. I will. No matter how far it is. I’m coming. You know what? That’s it. I’m coming—’ I hit Delete.

  Then I see a figure in the hallway.

  The guy next door: Lowell.

  19 days till it comes. 2.30 p.m.

  Knock, knock.

  Phil knocks on my desk and asks if I want to go for a cigarette. I wake from another daze. I don’t really want to go. But it’s awkward not to. ‘Awkward’ is the predominant word I associate with him. I look at him and imagine it emblazoned across his forehead.

  I don’t smoke but he says if I hold one I get a free ten-minute break, so I do that. Outside the sun shines and he talks. Which is nice because it saves me doing the heavy lifting.

  ‘. . . Until you’re feeling like, hmm, I don’t think I can actually take it any more, because my ribs are hurting. Then the movie gets kind of thoughtful. Then a little weird. Then kind of sad. Which is… you know. Then it gets really funny again and then it ends.’

  ‘Sorry, what were we talking about?’

  ‘Adam Sandler’s Click.’

  ‘Is it good?’

  ‘Yes, of course it’s good. He can pause and play time. He finds a magic remote control. It’s probably my favourite Sandler film. You like films?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Never seen one of his films though, to be honest.’

  ‘You like films, but you’ve never seen an Adam Sandler film? Oh, my God! What…? What’s your favourite film, would you say?’

  ‘Psycho.’

  ‘Wow. That’s… I don’t think I’ve seen that one. Is that a black-and-white one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t tend to watch those ones.’

  There’s an awkward pause.

  ‘Listen, just so you know. We all know.’

  A pause.

  ‘We heard. We know. So, I just wanted to say that,’ he says.

  ‘You… know?’

  ‘Yeah. We… we know. And it will get better. I promise.’

  We head upstairs again. What do they know? I suppose I haven’t been hiding it well. I want to leave. I have to leave. That must be it. Everyone in this office has been looking at me and they know. I hate my job. And no, Phil, it won’t get any better.

  I can’t concentrate on anything. For a moment I think back to Cary and his poor face. I hope he’s all right. He always calls his mother, every night at seven, like clockwork. I’m not a great lip-reader but I’m pretty sure he always signs off with ‘I love you’.

  Phil is nice. He’s a good guy. A simple guy. Certainly. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Just looking at him calms me down. He’s like a lava lamp. He’s a bit like Lowell in that way. Ah, Lowell.

  I like Lowell. Lowell lives next door. Which brings us back to last night.

  Back to Last Night

  20 days till it comes. Night. 11.45 p.m.

  WM – Lowell – Riverview – Fair, curly – Unusually, in a 2 flock – Dependable – Interior – 6’ 2”

  He is American, I think. Actually it might be one of those international school accents, which means he could be from anywhere. Switzerland or Swaziland. Hong Kong or Hawaii. Singapore or Kuwait City. He is balding but has a good head for it. He is subtly well built, muscular. Would seem formidable, imposing, if it wasn’t for his kind face. Which puts everything else into context. It’s worn like a travelling salesman, but soft like a foster parent. He seems bookish but with a superhero jawline. He’s the kind of man that could never be an accountant. But in actual fact I think he is an accountant. But some sort of posh one. For a big charity, I think. He does some work for a local organic bakery too. I don’t know what, but I don’t think he bakes the bread. Management, advice and sums. You’d want him on your University Challenge team. He’s a winner. You’d trust him to hold your baby.

  He glides past me in the hallway. It’s nearly midnight. He has casual khakis and a white shirt on. He looks like he should be sanding a boat on a beach somewhere. Barefoot, with a little dog running around his feet. He looks like a ’90s Gap advert, designed specifically to show you that he is a man. A healthy man. He’s with a woman. They’re sensibly dressed. Equally dependable looking. In a gentle, middle of the road way. He is holding her up and she has had more to drink than him. He’s an extreme moderate. Always a couple of G and Ts but not so many that he’s ever out of control. I imagine – we’ve never been out for a drink. He’s never been in our flat and I’ve never been in his. We’re not close. But we’d like to be. Aiden has a man crush on him, I think. He jokes that he once saw him cycling and he swooned. We have friend ambitions on him. He’s always good for a ‘stop and chat’. I’ve never seen him with a girl before. Good for him.

  ‘Lily. How are you this evening?’

  ‘Hey, I’m good. You? Up to no good I assume?’

  ‘Oh yeah, you know how it is. This is Sarah…’

  ‘Hello,’ she says, perfunctory but warm.

  She smiles. Weather girl teeth. I hope she sticks around. Maybe he’s unlucky in love. Or just has exacting standards. Who knows? He’s dependable more than exciting. Maybe that’s it.

  ‘Well, we’ll love you and leave you. As they say,’ he quips.

  ‘Do they say that?’

  ‘Yeah. Yes, I think they do. They do to me anyway.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a second. ’Night.’

  The funny thing is I do believe that. He has the extraordinary skill of looking just a touch downtrodden even with a perfectly nice woman next to him. Maybe he never makes it to the second date. Maybe once they see the inside of the flat they run a mile. Maybe there’s terrifying taxidermy everywhere. I wonder what it’s like in there. Inside his flat. And inside his head. For that matter.

  I was thinking of all these things as I slid into bed. Trying not to let on I’m thinking about another man. I wonder w
hat exactly he’s doing to her next door. I wonder if Aiden would be jealous If he knew that’s what I was thinking about. He’s dead to the world anyway. As I lie there considering Lowell’s possibly poor sexual technique.

  These walls are well insulated. But not that well. But still, you never hear anyone cry out in passion. No banging from his side of the wall. Poor Lowell. And poor Suzanne? Sandra? Simone? Cecily? Sally? Samantha? Sophie? Sarah!

  That’s the one.

  I don’t want to boast, but I’m sure we’ve made our bedposts bang against the partition wall a few times. I’m sure he’s heard us. But you never hear a peep out of him. Not to be crude. But I assume you know how it all works. You know we were trying for a baby after all. Up until recently.

  Night. 12.30 a.m.

  Midnight is long gone.

  One a.m. comes along and goes. I think of Janet and Tippi’s orchid. I think of Cary’s bloody lips. I think of Phil’s lava lamp face. I breathe in for fifteen. And out for ten. Like I used to tell Mum to. But it doesn’t work.

  Two o’clock arrives. And I am still in the land of the living.

  I think of how many others in this building are staring at their ceilings as I do now. How many are dead asleep? I wonder how many of these rooms are even occupied. It’s tough to keep track of your neighbours in a place like this. No matter how hard you try. It’s hard to make connections. That’s not what everyone wants. Hardly anyone wants that these days. They mostly just want an Internet connection and a funny video of some cats or a horse.

  People come and go here. No sooner are they set up than they’re looking to get out. The prices are going up all the time, which somehow translates into impermanence. People are renting for now, but looking to buy. People are buying, but looking to get something better soon. I overhear people talking about Flipping the Place On and Making a Tidy Profit in a Year or Two. I hear them say I Might Buy Another One Off Plan and By the Time That’s Built I’ll Have Flipped That One On Too. People are here for the week but jump in the car to get away for the weekends. People looking for a chance to leave the city for good. Everyone seems to be trying to escape this place, in one way or another. But me. I’m here to stay.

  Then there’s the people in far away countries who buy places for their kids to move into some day. Or just have them as an investment. Never bothering with the hassle of renting the place out. So they sit there like empty shells. As if haunted. Sometimes I wonder if they are haunted.

  It’s difficult to see back into a building you’re already in. To see what’s going on above. Or below or to the sides. Binoculars don’t work like that. You’d hear the sounds if the rooms weren’t pretty well soundproofed. Sometimes I think I hear crying through the walls. From above or below. Then I think it’s just my imagination. But even crying would at least be something.

  So I never know who lives here. I never hear them or feel them. Suddenly around a corner will appear a guy in flip-flops with a trendy full beard and an Antipodean accent. I’ll have never seen him in my life before. I may never do again. Does he really live here? Is he an intruder? Is he a ghost?

  Maybe ghosts haunt spaces, rather than rooms. I often think this. What I mean is, even though the four walls around me have only existed for a little over two years, and we’re led to believe your home must be at least twenty years old, preferably fifty, to qualify for a haunting, someone did once live here. In this space. In the old block. The one they tore down so they could build this one instead.

  The other one was built in the early fifties. Plenty of time for anything to occur here. What were their lives like? What did they do in here? In this space where I’m lying. Were there births? Deaths? Sex and arguments? In this space. Are these things the ghosts?

  This morning, on the way to work, I stopped and watched the wrecking ball bash open a building, like paper. Brutal, efficient. You could see the insides of two or three homes in a row next to each other. One was painted dark blue, its walls now facing the open, its chest to the wind. Their flat became one big balcony.

  The people inside never considered it would turn out this way. No ceiling or exterior wall. Only a tiny ledge of floor left at the back.

  The next one was wallpapered. Probably in the seventies by the looks of it. Browns and beiges. The light switches were still there. I noticed. But I knew by the next hit they wouldn’t be. They fell forty-five feet to the ground and were swept efficiently into a skip.

  The third flat was a garish pink. Like the inside of a body. Light colours, to make the most of the meagre space.

  The three homes sat there. Blown open. For me to see the remnants and adornments of the lives that used to live inside. Like a cross-section or a doll’s house. It’s a ten-minute glance, just for any lucky bystander that happens to be there at the time. By the eleventh minute, the three will be completely destroyed in two firm swings of the forged steel ball.

  On the wall of the pink flat was a crucifix. It glinted in the light. Visible to the naked eye. I watched the metal sphere hit it. I watched it drop, along with the concrete, dust and wires. And, without stopping for a second to consider what they had destroyed, the machines swept past and gathered everything up. Next, it went into the skip. Then into a lorry. Then the landfill.

  Yes. Without a thought. The little cross. The residents prayed to. Would be buried beneath tons of nameless rubble and debris.

  As I lie here, thinking these night-time thoughts, I wonder how many people are thinking the same things, at this very same time. Awake. Somewhere in another part of London. What if we could find each other and connect. Just as I’m thinking these things I notice something in the top right corner of my window. A single light still on. In a flat in Canada House. Unless I’m mistaken, it’s number forty-one. Jean’s flat.

  I pull on an old jumper and some trainers. Carefully, so I don’t rouse him from wherever he is. From his slumber and dreams. I can’t tell him where I’m going. He’d say I was ‘mental’ again and it’d just make me angry. Really angry. Then I really won’t be able to sleep. I grab my keys. My phone, just in case. And leave.

  I’ve never been through the estate before. Just before I close the door I grab a handmade flick knife. Aiden bought it for me on our honeymoon, in Buenos Aires. I shove it in my black washbag. Just in case.

  I’m walking through the estate at night. It’s warm out here tonight. One of those warm restless nights. But I’m surprised to see no other lights on in any of the apartments. Or the estate. No other night owls in Canada House. Just number forty-one.

  I skulk around, staring at the building. Many of the other flats are boarded up. Metal slats applied firmly to windows to keep things out. The weather, squatters, animals. The left side of the building is almost completely empty. Its guts hanging out for everyone to see. Glassless windows, dusty exposed brick, graffiti. There was a rumour that these houses once doubled for Warsaw in Schindler’s List and, looking at them, I can believe it.

  A yellow ADVANCED WARNING NOTICE tells us that the demolition of Alaska House, the largest of the blocks and the next one to go, will begin on 29 September. One of the roads behind it will be closed off for a while. This is their biggest job yet. Their masterpiece. Until then we have a few weeks’ silence and grace. Before the rumble starts again. I pass the Missing poster too. It flaps away gently in the wind.

  Jean lives on the right side of the building. The occupied side. Still waiting to be rehoused. There’s definitely an eerie feeling round here. The place is too empty. Or maybe not empty enough somehow. I can’t decide which yet. But as I’m thinking this I hear something and stop to listen. My thoughts drift away, I stand there listening. I could be imagining it. But I think it’s the sound of someone breathing.

  I turn and brace myself. Nothing. I keep my senses open. Searching for whatever is telling me everything’s not quite right. Then I hear the sound of shoes scraping across gravel. Shit. I turn again to face it. Nothing. Perhaps the echo of my own feet. Rebounding off the concrete
buildings that surround me.

  The steps to her place are only twenty metres away, but I decide to break into a jog. My heart is beating hard, it’s gothic out here. The street lights are out. Either turned off by the council or smashed out by someone more sinister. This is stupid. I’ve never done anything like this before. What is it I’m looking for? No time to think. Come on. Move your feet.

  I get to the stairwell, breathing hard now. Cars intermittently light me up as they fly past thirty or so metres away. By their passing beams, I put one hand against the wall and tread carefully up the flight of concrete stairs that leads to her floor. I can’t see the hand in front of my face when the car headlights drift away. I tread carefully. No light for five seconds, fifteen seconds. Nearly there.

  I hear a distant engine that should soon light my way. Then something wet underfoot. I squelch in it. I try not to look down. The car approaches, I don’t want to look back now. This is Jean’s route home. Every night. Jesus. The flash of light comes. Blood on the ground. I look back.

  Dead. Covered in hair. I put my hand to my throat and then mouth and only just manage to avoid screaming, knowing that would echo loud and long into the distance. I rumble and shake on the inside. It’s a huge rat. Ripped open. Over thirty centimetres long. Dead. I gag a little. Disgusted but sighing in partial relief – it could be worse. I get to the top of the stairs.

  I turn forward again. Then hear the sound of something fly past my head. Bats. There are a lot of them round here as we’re near the water. They’re cute in a way. Then a metal pipe swings past my ear and I dive to the side. I hear the sound of the air as it narrowly misses me. I reach inside my bag instinctively and grip the knife. A blood-curdling scream. A car passes, lighting the pipe again, clearly held in a gloved hand. It’s like a nightmare. But I am definitely awake.