Literary Remains

by R. B. Russell

  But no matter how absorbing his work he could only stare at the computer screen for so long before he had to look away and rub his eyes. He had just turned fifty and acknowledged that he had to take regular breaks. Working from home certainly helped. There was nobody to notice if his mind wandered and he spent rather too long aimlessly staring out of the window and it was one day as he was doing this that he saw the man whom he later believed was called Tedor Pienkowski.

  This man on the pavement opposite was in his thirties, wearing sunglasses, and he was casually but expensively dressed. David didn’t know why he had caught his attention. Perhaps he had seen him before? The man walked with a certain confidence; almost a swagger. He had his hands in the pockets of light-coloured trousers and David could see that his shirt was hanging out at the front. He was obviously happy, carefree, being light on his feet and almost dancing along the pavement. His head was down, under a hat, but David almost fancied that he could tell the man was singing to himself. He wore a fleece under what looked like a very expensive jacket, and the collar of the fleece was turned up in a way that David’s ex-wife would have frowned upon. It was this man’s ease that caused him to stand out from the other passers-by.

  As the man continued to walk along on the opposite side of the road from David’s vantage point he delved into his trouser pocket and pulled out a key-ring which he twirled around his finger several times. Then he turned suddenly through ninety degrees and with his back to his audience fitted one of the keys into the lock of a door that David had not previously noticed. The next moment the man was inside and out of sight. David assumed that it was the entrance to a flat like his own; a flat above either the bookmakers or the jewellers.

  David peered at the windows above both of these businesses which were directly opposite and a minute later he saw the man’s face. He was looking down along the street, as though expecting to see someone.

  David looked too, and in only a few moments the person who must have been expected appeared. David saw her before the man did because she was approaching on the other side of the street, from the direction of the park, and the angle was in David’s favour. She was young and thin, wearing a tight pair of jeans and a white padded jacket trimmed with fur. David guessed that she was on her way to the man’s door because her walk was similar to his: confident, expectant. Sure enough she produced her own key and followed where he had previously gone.

  David Riley decided that theirs was an assignation and returned to his computer, amused, satisfied that he had guessed what they were up to. It was just another of the many unimportant dramas that he glimpsed from his window.

  David didn’t see either of them again for another week or two and then it was not from the window of his flat but in the general store at the western end of the road. He had gone in to buy a bottle of wine and was talking with the owner when the man entered. He didn’t take off his sunglasses, although it was dark inside the shop, and he selected a bottle of wine with care. When he had made his decision, because David and the owner were still talking, he put a twenty pound note down on the pile of newspapers on the counter between them.

  ‘Great minds think alike,’ he said, noticing that David was also clutching a bottle. The man’s attention, though, was caught by the young woman walking past the window. He insisted that he was in a hurry and didn’t want any change. David thought this recklessly generous until he noticed that there would not have been much change from the twenty-pound note anyway. He paid for his own rather cheaper bottle and left in time to see the man walking by the side of the woman down towards their doorway. For a moment David couldn’t understand their body language; there was a calculated distance between them. Then he realised that they were presumably trying to be discreet about their relationship.

  At the door the man took out his keys and unlocked it while she looked around them, almost as if she were checking that they were not being followed. If that was her intention then she did not notice that David was walking directly towards them, noting their every movement. He decided that she was very pretty, although the dark make-up around her eyes was not necessarily very flattering.

  While she was looking about her the man had opened the door and, as she had not noticed, he placed a kiss on her cheek and rushed inside. Playfully she protested and stamped in after him. Once again they were gone.

  And as before David Riley forgot all about them, and it might have been three or four weeks before he saw the couple again, together for the last time. He was returning home from a meeting at the offices of his new employers and the two of them were standing outside of their door. As he recognised who they were she turned away from the man and walked decisively off towards the park. He was staring after her and even with his back to David he could see by the man’s posture that he was upset. David continued to walk towards him, warily now, and was about to cross to his own side of the road when she disappeared around the far corner. The man turned and they recognised each other. David didn’t know if the man knew him to be a neighbour, but he shook his head slowly, sorrowfully, and went back inside his door.

  That night David noticed that there was a dull blue light in the windows of the flat over the road. He had not noticed it before and was fascinated. He stood at his own window, his lights off, and watched. Twice David saw the man looking out; he appeared to be bare-chested, with a glass in his hand, and he stared down the street as if hoping that the woman would return. It was from this date that David began to look out for him regularly, and he saw him leave about noon the following day.

  Usually the curtains were drawn in the flat opposite, although the blue light crept around the edges of the curtains at night. However, he didn’t see the man himself for perhaps another week, when he appeared in the street carrying a plastic bag emblazoned with the name of an expensive local wine merchant. It may have been that David had missed the man’s comings and goings and this annoyed him. He knew that for some reason he wanted to make his acquaintance, although he did not understand how he might do so, or why.

  Quite who the man might be nagged at David, and the following week he decided to make some enquiries. He wondered if he might get information from the staff working in the bookmakers below the flat, and to that end he looked in the newspaper and, turning to the racing pages, found a horse upon which to put a bet. He didn’t want to spend anything other than the minimum amount so he chose a horse with long odds and went over the road. In fifty years it was his first time inside a betting shop and it seemed rather dark and seedy. The old man behind the counter peered at him threateningly and asked if he could help. David stammered out the name of the horse and the race, and received a very suspicious stare in return, presumably because it was such an unlikely runner. He then failed to find anything other than a large note in his wallet and felt so intimidated that he didn’t consider that he could ask for change.

  ‘To win?’ asked the man, incredulous.

  ‘Each way,’ said David, attempting to make the bet easier to justify. He felt foolish, but nevertheless he had the courage to ask if the old man knew the name of the people in the accommodation above.

  ‘I should do. It’s my flat,’ the bookmaker said shortly, still suspicious. ‘He’s got some foreign name. But he’s not renewing his lease. It’s a pity; he’s renovated it, and decorated it nice. He put in a whole new kitchen and bathroom. I could do with another tenant as good as him.’

  ‘It’ll be for rent then?’ David asked.

  ‘Yes. Do you want to go up and see it?’

  David said that he did. He explained that he only lived over the road, but made the excuse that he was looking for something better in the same area.

  ‘I’ll get you a key and you can go and take a look. He won’t mind. He’s never there.’

  The old man disappeared into the back of the shop and eventually reappeared with the key. ‘Make sure the door’s locked properly when you’ve finished.’

  David was pleased to be out of the bookmakers
and his pulse raced as he stood outside the front door to the flat. He knocked first to make certain that nobody was at home, but when he unlocked it he felt as though he were trespassing, even though he had the landlord’s permission. David didn’t know what to expect inside, but it was surprisingly airy and modern. It was very simply and very tastefully furnished, but the bedroom appeared to be in the large front room where most people would have had their living room. It was dominated by a large bed covered by a heavy dark blue bedspread. What he would have expected to be the bedroom contained just an exercise bike and nothing else. The place didn’t tell him much, but if the price was right he was indeed tempted to take it. His own flat, while serving its purpose of accommodating a single later-middle-aged man, was cramped and in poor repair. His kitchen was particularly old-fashioned and he rather coveted this one with its expensive-looking units and modern appliances. Over the years he had always told himself that his surroundings didn’t particularly matter to him, but the contrast between the two flats made him envious. The only thing in favour of his present position was that it was furnished, and he supposed that he would have to buy new furniture if he were to move.

  He looked up and noticed that there was a curious light fitting in the centre of the ceiling. He flicked the switch by the door and three blue bulbs winked on. He was pleased to understand the strange illumination he had seen from his own flat opposite.

  As David was considering the impracticality of the lights he heard keys in the lock down below. He automatically backed further into the living room, feeling like an intruder. He heard the door open and close, and somebody started to climb the stairs. Although he told himself that he was there with the permission of the landlord, David wasn’t looking forward to explaining his presence.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, awkwardly, as the tenant of the flat reached the top of his stairs.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ the man asked, stopping, surprised and suspicious. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘The landlord told me I could come up and look around. He said you were moving out?’ David held out the key for him to see.

  ‘The old bastard could’ve waited ’til I was gone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, he said it would be alright?’

  The man looked around him.

  ‘I suppose it is,’ he said, a little mournfully, calmer. ‘There’s nothing for me here any longer. I don’t even know why I’ve come back today.’

  ‘You’ve somewhere else to move to?’

  ‘What?’ he asked, appearing to have already forgotten that David was there. He was rubbing his eyes under his sunglasses, which he still retained although he was indoors.

  ‘Have you another flat to go to?’

  He laughed. ‘We don’t know each other, do we?’

  ‘No,’ David replied, defensively.

  ‘Good. Then I can tell you that I do have somewhere to go to, yes. I have a family. This was somewhere for myself, somewhere private.’

  ‘Ah, I understand.’

  He looked searchingly into David’s face: ‘Good.’

  ‘But it didn’t work out?’

  ‘You could put it that way, she…well… You don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘It’s okay. I think I saw you a couple of times. I just live over the road. My place is in poor repair, and I’m looking for something better.’

  ‘We were trying to be discreet.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I don’t know anyone to tell.’

  He shook his head, considered, and then said:

  ‘It isn’t possible to communicate to somebody else just how terribly you can be in love, is it? Intellectually somebody might say that they understand. Perhaps they can try and relate it to their own experience? But that unique feeling of exultation when you’re in love can’t ever, ever, be appreciated by anyone else. Perhaps it can’t even be appreciated by the person you’re in love with…? And when it goes wrong, when you are still as furiously in love, but you find yourself thwarted; it is as though you are falling, forever from a tall building…’

  ‘I’m recently divorced,’ David said, wanting to suggest that the man didn’t have a monopoly on bad experiences.

  ‘I’m sorry. Did you love her?’

  The question took David aback. It seemed like such a stupid one, to which he ought to have retorted ‘Yes, of course,’ but he acknowledged that it would have been more honest to say that he had simply been fond of his ex-wife.

  ‘Not passionately,’ he admitted.

  ‘That’s the difference between us, then. I’d say that my love for Alice is, was, a vast, magnificent love that rips through my whole being.’

  He walked across the main room to the window and peered out, distracted.

  ‘I’d better leave,’ David said quietly, and the man nodded, without looking at him.

  David Riley was very tempted to take the flat, but told the landlord that he would think about it. The more he thought about moving over the road the more certain he became that it was a good idea. He hoped that some of its elegance, and that of its former tenant, might rub off on him. It was when he had returned to his own dilapidated accommodation after that first awkward viewing that he could see how sub-standard his own place was in comparison. And he knew that the seediness of it had transferred itself to him personally. Since he had been there, living alone, working from home, he could spend several days without seeing anybody and he had started to neglect himself and his appearance. He was getting overweight, and was no longer shaving every day. The way that he looked could be rectified immediately, he decided, and the following day he made sure that he shaved, showered and put on smarter clothes.

  He was confident that he presented an altogether better appearance when he went out the following day. It was an omen, he hoped, discovering in the newspaper that the horse upon which he had placed his bet had miraculously come in third. He felt some confidence as he went in to the bookmakers this time, and while the old man begrudged him his winnings he seemed genuinely interested that David might have had some inside knowledge. Buoyed up by his good fortune, David agreed to the old man’s terms for the flat and put most of his winnings down as a deposit on the rooms above. With what remained of the money he went and had a haircut.

  He and the landlord agreed on a date of the 30th July for moving in, a Monday, and David calculated that he had just less than three weeks to make all of the arrangements. He was given a key so that he could go in at any time and measure up, but this felt a little strange as the present tenant presumably still had his belongings in there. Over the next few weeks David didn’t see the man in the street, though, and at night there was no longer any blue light around the curtains which were permanently drawn.

  The three weeks before he could move into the flat passed slowly, partly because David became more and more critical of the rooms he was about to leave. He was constantly tempted to go over the road to look inside his new flat again, but could never summon up the courage in case the old tenant was still there after all. Finally the thirtieth of July arrived and he had his few possessions boxed and ready move. At nine in the morning an old friend, Julie, arrived to help him, as she had insisted.

  They each took a box across the road to the flat and let themselves in from the street and climbed the stairs. Julie went ahead, chatting all the time, but stopped just inside the door to the front room.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ David asked, and she stood to one side so that he could see. The curtains were closed but some light came in, mixed with the blue light from the ceiling, and revealed that lying on the bed in the large, elegant room, was a naked man. He was on his front, gently snoring, and David did not immediately identify him as the tenant he had already met.

  Julie and David started to withdraw quietly, but the man awoke, peered over and saw them. He looked confused, and realising his nakedness he dragged the sheets over himself.

  ‘What the hell?’ he asked. He groped for his glasses almost blindly, located them on the bedside table
and put them on. Turning, he recognised David. ‘It’s you?’

  ‘Yes,’ David replied, trying not to look too surprised by the situation in which he found himself. ‘I’m meant to be moving in today.’

  ‘No,’ the man insisted, slightly groggily. ‘It’s only the 30th today.’

  ‘That’s the date I was given by the landlord.’

  ‘But the stupid idiot told me I’d got ’til the end of the month.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Julie, obviously amused by the scene she was witnessing. ‘There are 31 days in July.’

  ‘Do you think the landlord knows this?’ David asked. Julie was the only one who felt comfortable enough to laugh.

  ‘We haven’t been introduced,’ the man said to Julie. ‘My name is Tedor Pienkowski. I am pleased to meet you. I would get up and shake your hand…’

  She turned red and giggled.

  ‘Give me a moment to get dressed,’ he asked. ‘And we’ll decide what we are doing.’

  David and Julie agreed, and moved into the kitchen.

  ‘I suppose I might as well leave today,’ the man called after them, as if it was of little concern to him.

  ‘Well, I don’t have to move in until tomorrow,’ David countered. ‘Although the overlap would’ve been useful, I could leave it until then.’

  The man did not reply and a second later was overcome with a fit of coughing.

  Neither Julie nor David put down the boxes they were holding. They listened as he continued to cough intermittently, and in between they could hear him moving around.