Adam Nevill: Apartment 16

‘Aha,’ Seth had said, in horror and disbelief.

But Archie had merely blinked at him.

On the side of the room opposite the windows, the mattress of the double bed distinguished itself with Auschwitz stripes and gang-rape stains. Of the furniture, there were two badly assembled wardrobes and a little cabinet beside the bed. Still coated in mug rings and make-up, it added a faintly reassuring feminine touch.

Beside the bedside table was a single radiator, painted yellow and speckled with dark droplets. Dried blood. He’d never been able to get rid of the stains and once asked Archie who lived in the room before him. To which Archie had raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Lassy. Lovely girl. Had boyfriend troubles. They was at each other all night.’ Archie had then relished his role as storyteller. ‘Before her was a real strange fella. Quiet as you like. But when the police come, they caught him in here with his step-daughter. And her friend.’

The whole room smelled like old carpet that had been stored in a garage for years. But at least it was dry.

He’d never done much with the place after that, just moved his stuff in and picked some broken glass out of the carpet. The sheer dilapidation of the room made any attempt at improvement seem futile. And now his piles of discarded magazines and Sunday papers made the room look cluttered but somehow vacant at the same time. Desperation led him there; despair kept him there.

During his first night he remembered being filled with a combination of self-pity, feelings of abandonment, and a subtle terror that would have been choking had he let it grow. But he couldn’t afford anything else after moving to London with twenty unwanted paintings to his name. And with the big south-facing windows, he told himself the room would make him a good studio. Old school.

Seth closed his bedroom door and locked it. The other tenants often got drunk and fell about in the dark passageways; he could never relax until the door was secure. He dropped his bag on the bed and switched the kettle on. Then he turned it off again and opened the fridge, remembering he had a can of beer left over from the four-pack he bought the day before.

He sat on the edge of the bed and glanced at the cardboard boxes still stacked in the corner of his room. All of his art materials were back inside the boxes, gathering dust in a corner. The paintings were in plastic bags, stacked inside the wardrobe. He’d not done so much as a sketch in over six months and wondered whether he’d finally given up on all that, or if he might go back to it someday.

Not bothering with a glass, Seth drank from the can. He thought about a sandwich, but now he’d sat down he was too tired to move again. Still wearing his coat, he lay on the bed covers and sipped the cold drink. Time to get out. Tomorrow he’d make a start. Decide on his next move.

He looked at his watch: four o’clock. He’d have to leave for work at five thirty. Deciding a quick nap would make him feel better, he put the can on the floor, turned on his side, closed his burning eyes. And dreamed of a place he’d not been shut inside since the age of eleven.

The gate to the chamber was made from iron bars, thickly covered with black paint. Instead of windows there were two arches, one on either side of the gate. These were also blocked with vertical bars. There were no other entrances into the chamber.

The back wall, the two sides and the ceiling that completed the rectangular building were bare white stone. Smooth marble tiles made the floor hard and cold under Seth’s bare feet. In here, he was always stepping from one foot to the other; the soles of his feet felt as if they had turned blue and stayed blue.

No bigger than fifteen feet square, the chamber had no decorations. It was also devoid of furnishings. There was nothing to sit on. The cold made his back ache, but the floor was too chilly to sit upon with naked buttocks.

From the ceiling a light was suspended on a brass chain. The light bulb was housed inside a square glass shade, like an antique lamp on the outside of a horse-drawn carriage. It gave off a bright yellow light, all night and all day. He could not prevent himself from trying to warm his hands against the glass shade. But every time he reached up and touched the glass it was cold.

Looking through the locked gate he could see a deciduous wood: damp, thick and wild. The foliage was dark green and the sky above the tallest trees was low and grey. Three wide steps descended from the chamber into the long grass that grew in a wide arc around the face of the structure before the tree line. A cold wind blew through the iron bars.

His world had been reduced to a few colours.

He was inside this place because he had allowed himself to be led there and locked inside. That was all he knew. Beside that, he had vague memories that his family had visited long ago. His mum and dad had come together; his dad had seemed disappointed in him, his mother worried but tried not to show it. Another time, his sister and her husband had come. They had stood at the bottom of the steps and his brother-in-law had cracked jokes to make him feel better. Seth had kept a grin on his face until it began to ache. His sister had said little and seemed frightened of him, as if she didn’t recognize her brother any more.

He’d told them all he was all right, but was unable to tell anyone what he really felt about his imprisonment in the strange stone chamber; he was unable to explain it to himself. After they passed from sight, a lump had filled his throat. Confused, his memory failing, he had no idea how long he had been inside the stone chamber, or for what specific reason he had been locked inside in the first place, but he did know he would be there for ever; always frozen, always hungry, never able to sit down, just stepping from one foot to the other, fretting.

She might have just boarded a luxury passenger liner, a Titanic or a Lusitania. Inside, Barrington House was like a movie lot designed for a film set on the high seas between the wars, photographed in copper and sepia.

In a daze, she followed the tall head porter, Stephen, through reception and into the east wing. Along corridors lined with silk wallpaper, illumined golden brown by the lights inside patterned glass shades, and through the peculiar smell of tradition. Not quite churchish, but not far off: wood and metal polish, fresh flowers and the fragrance of precious, preserved things insufficiently ventilated, like an old and private museum never open to the public.

Stephen talked as he walked ahead of her. ‘We’ve forty apartments spread through the two blocks with the private garden in the middle which draws the light into the rear of the flats. It’s a bit confusing at first. But if you imagine a giant L shape, with the roads along the outside, you soon get your bearings. And there are twenty parking spaces under the building, but I’m afraid your aunt’s flat doesn’t have parking.’

‘That’s OK, I don’t have a car. And the novelty of using the subway hasn’t worn off.’

The head porter smiled. ‘It may do, ma’am. It may do.’

‘Apryl. Call me Apryl. Otherwise I sound about a hundred and ninety.’

‘And you may live to be that old. Your aunt was eighty-four when she died.’

‘Great-aunt. She was my grandmother’s sister.’

‘Still, a good age.’ He paused and looked over his shoulder. ‘Though I am truly sorry for your loss. Apryl.’

‘Thanks. But I never met her. It’s still sad though. She was the last of that generation in my family. We had no idea she was still alive. Or that this place was like. Well, like this. I mean, it’s spectacular. We’re not rich. We couldn’t even afford the service charge — it’s about how much I make a year back home. So I won’t be here long.’