The Lobby
(We’re All Kids Here, Son.)
As Natalie stepped out of the taxicab into the morning sunlight the black monolith of the Gatehouse Apartment building stared down at her like a wicked sentinel. At first, she thought it was a solid granite block until she stepped into its shadow. Then the details presented themselves. It was made up of bricks that time had stained so deeply they appeared black. They ate in the light around them, and backlit as it was by the morning sun it made the block appear as a mask of darkness over an otherwise perfect image of summer.
The illusion was disorientating, like suffering a moment of mental vertigo as the world subtly shifted around her. She understood now why she had gotten strange looks from the taxi driver when he had collected her from the train station, the same man now waited nervously in the car behind her. She had told him of their destination, and he had half-turned in his driver seat and glared at them. The action had been so abrupt as to make her gasp, and he had only relaxed when he had seen how she had clutched her young son to her in her sudden fright.
He checked the address with her. Enunciating it slowly as if to confirm there had been no mistake. Then he looked her over slowly as if curiously examining an animal he had not previously seen. Natalie Fisher was not a stranger to a man’s gaze. She had seen it in many of its forms. Sometimes it was welcome, reminding her that she was more than just a mother and that her son had not robbed her of her femininity as her younger self had sometimes feared, but sometimes the stares she saw from men were dark ones, laced with underlying aggression. But this stare had been altogether different. There had been fear in the man’s eyes that had only softened by her apparent helplessness. At the time she had not understood the man’s behaviour, but now – looking over the imposing building – she thought she understood a little of the feelings he must have felt.
She felt her son take her hand. She squeezed it, he squeezed back, and suddenly the world snapped into place. She was a mother and should act the part, even if she ad-libbed it from moment to moment. The young boy tugged at her arm, and she looked down at his face. It was round and friendly, showing none of the trauma she knew must sit behind those large brown eyes.
“This home?”
“Yes, Matty.” She replied and looked back at the building.
It looked different to her now. The black brick no longer looked foreboding. It appeared as formidable as a castle keep and formidable was good.
“Yes.” She repeated, but it was useless, Matthew had already become distracted by his new home. “I hope it is.”
The cabbie didn’t see her when she passed him his fare and collected her luggage. He held his hand out to her, but his eyes remained fixed on the large building. She told him to keep the change, but she was certain he would have anyway because her hand barely cleared the open window before the taxi lurched forward. She felt the grit from the road as it hit her bare legs, the backwash of the moving vehicle pressing the hem of her summer dress against her thighs.
Natalie Marie Fisher, twenty-eight, her blonde hair in a pixie cut that was fashionable ten years previously, watched the car do a hasty three-point turn before returning to where she had found it.
It was an escape, she thought and glanced again at the building.
“I think it’s looking at us, Mum.” Matthew’s eyes followed her own.
“Why do you think that, Matthew?”
“I can see the eyes.”
Natalie looked back to the building, examining it more closely this time, searching for whatever anomaly Matthew had taken to be eyes, but seeing nothing. She could make out six small balconies that presented as little more than a slightly darker patch of black against the darkened brick. On either side of these were two columns of unlit windows. She would have thought the building uninhabited if she had not known better.
She reached into her pocket and drew out a single golden key. It was of an unfamiliar type to her. On either side of it were teeth, and it seemed broader than what she was used to. On the diamond-shaped fob was the number “108”.
“There are no eyes that I can see Matty.”
“They’re gone now,” the boy replied, “maybe they’re sleeping.”
“It’s almost noon.” Then she paused and glanced at the building again. She smiled. “I doubt they’re even up. Grab a couple of bags. Come on, you’re a strong boy.”
Matthew took one of the smaller bags and balanced it on top of a large hold-all, hooking the handles over his shoulder. The bags were as large as he was and probably as heavy. He leaned absurdly to counter the weight, and Natalie’s hands itched to help, but she held back. Instead, she dropped behind a little as they made their way to the large glass doors that led into the building’s foyer.
The temperature inside dropped dramatically as she followed Matthew through the double glass doors. The cool air drew goosebumps from her bare flesh. For a brief moment, all she saw was gloom, and in the silence, she felt as though the world had slipped away. The building still felt as though it had been abandoned. She couldn’t hear the residents moving around in their respective apartments, no music being played too loud, or arguments filtering through the walls.
The foyer looked like something designed for a hotel rather than an apartment block. All it lacked was a booking desk to make the image complete. A few tall plants too green and lush to be real stood in large brown pots at set intervals, and between them were two couches separated by a low coffee table. Further inside, half hidden by a pillar was the light from a machine of some description, perhaps a drinks machine or an old arcade game.
The colours were too dark for such an enclosed space, making the room appear smaller. The fluorescent lights that hung from the ceiling could not produce enough light to banish the shadows from the room’s corners.
“Mum,” Matthew whispered, as he nodded towards one couch. An old couple sat there, the man had his feet resting on an old coffee table, and Natalie saw a hole in one sock through which she saw impossibly white flesh. Beside him, the old woman sat on the edge of her seat. Her head lowered over a paperback novel that Natalie was certain she couldn’t read in such low light. The couple had not noticed their entry into the building, engrossed as they were in a conversation that Natalie could only hear as a ghostly murmur.
“Good morning,” Natalie said brightly, and a moment later Matthew echoed her words. The old woman looked up, and for a moment Natalie thought she could not see her out against the glare from outside, so she stepped deeper into the room.
“Hello, I’m Natalie Fisher, and this is Matthew.”
Matthew dropped the bag he was carrying with a thump and waved.
The old couple watched them, the old man craning his neck to look past his wife, who sat between him and the newcomers. The silence stretched out and Natalie was about to usher Matthew by and continue to search for their apartment when the lady spoke.
“New residents?” She glanced at the old man and then back again. “New residents!”
The old lady pushed from the couch and once again Natalie had to resist the urge to reach out. The lady was old enough to defy any attempt at guessing her age, but whatever it was it was advanced. Her frame was frail and had that sunken quality that the old often exhibit, but despite this, she moved across the foyer with surprising grace.
She reached out and took Natalie’s hand in both of her own. It was like being held by warm mist. Natalie had the impression of contact but could not feel the woman’s hands touching her.
The old lady led Matthew’s mother through the archway into a corridor, and Matthew reached down and grabbed the bags at his feet. The old man hadn’t moved, and Matthew was torn between following his mother and staying with the man. The old lady and his mother stopped and began to speak.
Matthew nodded to the man, and after a moment the man nodded back but didn’t seem immediately inclined to speak. Matthew shifted uncomfortably, unsure of how to proceed.
“Ayuh, Matty.” The old man’s voice was thick and gravelly. It reminded Matthew of how the bad guys sounded in animation.
“Ayuh,” Matthew said in reply, not knowing what the word meant but liking the sound of it. “My mum and me are moving in today.”
“That the truth?”
For a moment Matthew was confused. Did this mean the man didn’t believe him? Or was it some phrase that meant something else to the old man?
“Sure, it is. This moment.”
“That’s good, Charlie from 105 will have someone to play with.”
“There’s another kid here?”
“We’re all kids here son.”
“Matty?”
Matthew looked up to see his mother waving him over.
“Don’t keep her waiting, son.” The old man said with a smile. “They don’t like that much, and a happy wife makes a happy home.”
“She’s, my mum.”
“Same principle son.”
Matthew loitered a moment longer. The smile remained on the old man’s face. It was the grin of someone who had been told a private joke they didn’t want to share. It was a mischievous grin, and Matthew wondered if his mother’s father, dead long before Matthew was born, would have had a similar grin.
“See you later, sir.”
“That you will. Run along now.”
The old lady was in full swing when he got to them, and Matthew recognised the face his mother wore when she wanted to get away but was too polite to say so. He watched for a few moments, then turned right. The first door he passed had the number 105 on its door, Charlie’s apartment and the second had 106. Matthew followed them until he could see the end of the corridor. The door in front of him had a strip of frosted glass beside the handle, and on his left was a door marked 108, almost opposite was 107. He dropped the bags beside the door and examined the narrow corridor. Above him pipes ran along the ceiling, beside them, a nest of cables followed their path. Just under this the colour of the wall abruptly changed, above it was a pale grey and below it had been painted blue. The doors and surrounds were painted brown, and the carpet was green. It was obvious even to his young eyes that whoever had decorated the hallway had the intention of using colours that emulated nature.
Matthew looked back towards the foyer. His mother was still listening to the old lady. He watched and then turned back towards the door at the end of the hall. Through the glass, he could make out vague images of the room beyond it. He pressed his face to the window; he could see stairs in the room between the strands of wire that reinforced the glass.
It was a stairwell lit in the same soft orange as the light that filtered through his bedroom curtains at home. The sudden memory made the boy feel sick and sad at the same time. It was a colour that reminded him of a time when his biggest desire was to watch the whole of Voltron. It reminded him of sitting in the middle of the room with a game controller in his hands. It reminded him of friends, and it reminded him of laughter.
There was a time when he had everything, but never knew it. He had innocence and time in abundance. He had friends that he hated one moment and then loved with complete abandon the next. There were games to be played and stories to be told, and Matthew had thought that there was time enough for all those things.
He grasped the door handle, a long length of metal that ran up the middle third of the door, right beside the glass and pushed. He wanted to stand under that light and look up into it. In it, he was sure he would see the smiles of his friends looking back down at him. Perhaps he could step back through it and be back there where everything was right.
Matthew didn’t know what the word nostalgia meant, and if he had he would not have understood how strange it was for a child looking forward to his first day in middle school to be feeling it so profoundly, but he was.
The door shifted slightly in its frame but would not open. Matthew tried again, putting all his weight behind it, and the door snapped against its frame with a solid thump.
“I think it’s locked.”
It was a voice he associated with reason and support, his mother’s voice, but it caught him unawares. It almost made him cry out in sudden fright. He clenched his fist and felt his nails dig into the palm of his hand. The faces of his friends had gone, and he could no longer hear their laughter.
“Yeah,” he answered, but his voice didn’t betray any of what he felt.
She turned back to the door to 108 and fished the key from the pocket of her summer dress. Matthew followed.
“We’ll have to live rough for a few days until we can get hold of some furniture, but Mrs Nicholson said that there’s a place close we might find…”
The door opened and Natalie’s words dried up on her tongue.
Stepping into apartment 108, Gatehouse Apartments was like stepping into a hopeful dream. The kitchen ran halfway the length of the room along one wall, in front of it was a breakfast nook, and further in was the lounge. The carpet felt thick even through her shoes, and the smell of fresh paint – though faint – still hung in the air. Where she had been expecting a bare, unfurnished room there was a couch, a coffee table and an empty bookshelf ready for her son’s incomplete Voltron collection.
Natalie eased through the room, pushing open doors as she passed them and peering inside. Both bedrooms were also furnished, and the bathroom appliances looked new.
“Mum,” Matthew said, his tone uncertain. “Is this the right place?”
She checked the key, it still said 108 on the key fob. She scratched at it as if she expected it to suddenly turn into 109. The man at the letting agency told her it was a ground-floor apartment, and she had even enquired if it were close to the foyer, and – apologetically – he had told her it was the furthest apartment from the entrance.
“I think it is.” She replied with equal uncertainty.
Matthew ducked into the first bedroom.
“That one’s yours.” She said, pointing towards the door at the far end of the room.
“I have a room of my own?” The boy replied, the excitement in his voice clear. He moved past her, breaking into a run. He struggled with the door handle and then stepped into his new room.
Natalie went to the door and collected their things, pausing to try the key in the door one more time. It turned easily, so she slid it free. The lock was new, it glinted in the hallway light and not a scratch could be seen on its surface. She placed her hand on the side of the door, intending to close it and something caught her eye.
The number 108 was displayed on the door with stainless steel numbers. But under it, she saw a ridge of paint. Another number had originally been fastened there, a number seven. She turned to the door that was almost opposite what she already thought of as her own, and on it were similar silver numbers, this time 107. Beside the seven she saw similar indentations, these curved.
The numbers had been switched.
“Mum, have you seen my room?”
“No honey, give me a second.”
She looked along the corridor, it was empty. Someone was watching a poorly dubbed martial arts movie. She listened to the overblown sound effects for a few moments. Then more sounds started to present themselves. She thought she heard someone laughing, and now she could hear the murmuring of the old couple talking in the foyer.
She grasped the door handle to room 107 and twisted it, as she had expected it was locked.
“Mum?”
“Okay, Matty.”
She went back into her apartment, her gaze passing the door to the stairwell, and for the briefest of moments she saw a face in the glass. It was a dark oval, backlit by the orange light inside.
Her stomach leapt into her throat, and then it was gone, or it was never there at all.
It’s just because everything is unfamiliar, she told herself, it’s the glass playing tricks.
Matthew met her just inside the door to apartment 108, and as he watched her close the door, it suddenly occurred to him that no one told the old man that everyone called him “Matty”.