Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

“You have a flat here? You mean here, over this pub?”

“That’s right. I’ve had it for five years now. My secret headquarters. Sitting room, bedroom, bathroom. I suppose an estate agent might call it bijou, but I scarcely use it these days so it does for me.” He paused, and blew some more smoke, and then he said, “I was wondering, you know. Perhaps you might like to take it over.”

“What about you?”

Frank Mordant shrugged. “As I say, I scarcely ever use it. Only when a wave of nostalgia comes over me. I’ve got a bit of stuff up there but you’re quite welcome to use it, too. A color TV with a video recorder and a stereo system and a pile of CDs. Do you like Abba? I used to love Abba. Dig it, the dancing queen … Those were the days. Oh, and a deep-freeze, too. Not a big one, but it’s got fish fingers in it, and pizza, and some chicken balti, too.”

Julia couldn’t help smiling. “I thought you were so acclimatized. Your accent, you know, and the way you dress.”

“Oh, I am. But you know what it’s like. If you want to live here happily, you have to edit things out of your mind, and after a while you begin to think that perhaps they didn’t happen at all. That stuff upstairs … that’s just a little reminder that I’m not dreaming, after all.

He stood up and patted his pockets to find his keys. “Why don’t you come and take a shufti at it? It’s a jolly sight nearer to work than Lavender Hill, and I’d only charge you £1.15s.0d a week.”

“I’m not sure …” said Julia. “I’ve already made quite a few friends in Lavender Hill.”

“Nonsense, you can make friends anywhere. Personable young lady like you. There’s no harm in taking a look, is there?”

Julia glanced toward the landlord. He was polishing pint glasses and watching her with a dull, fixed stare, the cigarette still hanging from the side of his mouth, as if he wanted to remember her for ever. “Well … all right then,” she agreed. “But then I must get home.”

Frank Mordant’s flat had a separate front door at the side of the pub. It was painted maroon and it had no number on it, only a small bronze knocker in the shape of a grinning imp’s head. Frank Mordant gave it a rat-a-tat-tat and said, “Cornish piskie. It’s supposed to bring you luck.”

Inside, there was a damp coconut mat and then a steep flight of stairs. Frank Mordant switched the light on and said, “Good exercise, stairs. Up and down here a few times a day and you won’t need to worry about jogging.”

“I don’t jog, not any more. People used to stare so much.”

“Yes, I suppose they would. Here – watch your step at the top here, the carpet’s loose.”

At the top of the stairs there was a small brown-wallpapered landing with two doors leading off it. A damp-rippled reproduction of Damien Hirst’s Chinese Lady hung at an angle between them, and one of them bore a ceramic plaque saying The Smallest Room.

Frank Mordant unlocked the other door and led the way into a narrow corridor. On the left there was a small kitchenette with a gas water-heater and fitted cupboards in lime-green Formica. It was obvious that he didn’t use the flat very often: there was a stuffy, sour, closed-in smell, and all of the dried herbs in the spice jars that hung on the wall had faded to pale yellow.

“Needs a woman’s touch, really.”

The sitting room was surprisingly large and light. It had a high ceiling and all the walls had been painted white and the light gray carpet wasn’t luxurious but it was fairly new. There was a plain couch covered in black cotton fabric and a large brown 1930s armchair. A large television stood in one corner of the room, as well as a video player and stacks of labeled videotapes. There was a video camera, too, tilted on top of a tripod.

“A few pictures on the walls,” Frank Mordant suggested. “Scatter cushions, that kind of thing. You could really make it quite homey.”

A plain white calico blind covered the window. Julia went over to it and tried to release it, but it was fastened to the window frame with thumbtacks. She lifted an edge of it and peeked out. It looked right over Chiswick High Road, still crowded with buses and cyclists and homegoing cars.

“Want to see the bedroom?” asked Frank Mordant. “The bedroom’s nice. Only had it redecorated in September.”

He opened the door that led to the bedroom. It was just large enough for a double bed covered with a pink candlewick bedspread, a wardrobe and a chair with a leatherette seat. The walls had been stippled with pale blue distemper. Over the bed hung a fan-shaped mirror with two picture postcards stuck in it, and on the pillow lay a defeated-looking golliwog.

“Well …” said Julia. The flat wasn’t as seedy as she had expected it to be. Frank Mordant was right: one or two colorful pictures would make the whole place look much more welcoming, and she could cover that deadly black couch with the sunflower-patterned throw she had bought from Habitat. Living here would save her more than one pound a week on rent, and nearly as much as that again on bus fares.

She came back into the living room. She found Frank Mordant tinkering with the video camera. He swiveled around like a floorwalker in a department store and wrung his hands together.

“What do you think, then? It’s really quite cozy, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t get too noisy, does it, with the pub downstairs?”

Frank Mordant shook his head. “I won’t lie to you, there is a bit of a racket at closing time. Car doors slamming, everybody saying goodnight, things like that. But it doesn’t last for long. And here’s the secret ingredient.” He knelt down and lifted up one corner of the carpet. “Underfelt, double-thick, almost completely soundproof. I had it laid so that I could play my music as loud as I liked. You could scream your head off in here and nobody would hear you.”

Julia took another look around. “It’s interesting … I’d like to think it over, if I may.”

“Of course. Take as long as you like. Before you go, though, there is one thing you might like to consider.”

He went to the kitchenette. She didn’t know whether she was supposed to follow him or not, so she waited. She lifted the edge of the blind again, and looked down into the street. The road was noisier here than her terrace in Lavender Hill, but she didn’t really mind the background jostle of traffic.

“Do you know which bus—?” she began; and then she was suddenly aware that Frank Mordant was standing right behind her. She hadn’t heard him, hadn’t even sensed him approaching.

Without a word he clamped a thick white cloth over her nose and mouth, as thick as a muslin diaper. It reeked with a pungent, chemical smell – a smell that seared her nostrils and burned her eyes. She gave a panicky snuffle and breathed it in. She staggered against him, tried to struggle, and managed to snatch at his wristwatch. But he kept the cloth pressed firmly against her face, and as she tried to pull away from him the room tilted on its end and the floor came toward her like a dark, silently slamming door.

Two

Julia was woken up by a penetrating white light shining in her eyes. Gradually she opened her eyes a little wider, but the light dazzled her so much that she closed them again. Her head was throbbing and there was a biting, astringent taste in her mouth. She felt chilled, and weak, as if she had the ‘flu, and she was conscious of something harsh encircling her neck.

“Ah, coming round,” said Frank Mordant’s voice. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

She opened her eyes again. She was lying on a prickly woolen blanket on the floor and Frank Mordant was looking down at her with a grin. Somebody else was looking down at her, too – a suntanned man with very white hair.