Apartment 107
(That Was Just One More Sin For His Growing Collection.)
It was like working in a snare drum. Each scuff of his shoe, each hammer fall, and each block of wood hammered into place sounded like the makings of a song. The sound bounced back from the bare walls as he worked, the bare floorboards creaking under his weight. Lucas measured, jotted down the measurements and then measured again. He advocated the adage “measure twice, cut once.” And it usually paid him well.
Usually, but not today.
He was partway through moving a wall in 107, making an oversized closet large enough for a small bathroom that shared its back wall with the eastern stairwell, and its right-hand wall with the bedroom. The supporting struts ran along the wall varied as much as a centimetre in length, so each had to be marked individually. He had done a similar job in 108, but in that case, he could salvage space for a whole new bedroom. He would have done away with the Eastern stairwell if he could, but that would require moving supporting walls, which was beyond his abilities.
The Eastern stairwell served no purpose, the doors would jam closed, and Lucas was at a loss to understand why. He had re-framed the door, oiled them, and in one case completely replaced a set, without any change. He expected to see something in the stairwell, but he was not certain he had. He had felt something and caught shadows from the corner of his eye, but there was nothing he could identify as something unnatural. After a week’s work, he was left with unease and a stairwell door on each floor that would never remain unlocked.
He marked the measurements on the hand-drawn map, then realised he had marked them all backwards, so he deleted them and started again.
Lucas was not himself.
He measured up again and cut, starting with the most extended lengths and working towards the shortest. He used a handsaw, the rotary saw he usually used a little too shallow-bladed to get through broad beams, and he knew his shoulder would sometimes remind him of its ordeal in the night ahead. The process took him hours longer than it should have. Each support strut was a little shorter than it should have been, and Lucas had to trim it to fit the next position. He finally resorted to cutting the lengths too long, then trimming them down a millimetre at a time. He was usually far more professional with his work, but what Barbara had told him had made it impossible to concentrate. Her face had beamed with joy at the news, but her husband’s look of sympathy had told Lucas that he would not appreciate the news, and he hadn’t.
He completed the supports and began measuring how much drywall he would need, he had a supply, but it would not be enough. There was never enough of anything, and because of it, he had two dozen unfinished jobs.
He cast a glance over the partially renovated apartment. The kitchen had been fitted and the primary bedroom needed decorating and without one it would remain empty indefinitely.
Lucas checked the time. He had been doing that since he had spoken to Barbara. The minutes were moving faster than they should have been, and with each, his anxiety grew. She was probably in her apartment, and he could walk over to it and tell her he was sorry but was not happy with the arrangement. Arrangement. It was not supposed to be an arrangement. He knew that Barbara had thought of it as a pleasant surprise, but all Lucas could think was that his whole world was about to fall around him.
He was catastrophising. He knew it wasn’t as bad as that, but he could not keep a reasonable response to the situation in his mind.
He stopped. His thoughts were beginning to race. He had to regain control. He breathed in deep, slow breaths. In through the nose, and then out through the mouth. Each breath was slow and measured. On the wall was a nail that hadn’t been driven fully home. He stared at it, letting it push other thoughts from his mind. He then felt his tension slowly fade, and as he did, let his mind begin to drift.
He could hear a martial arts movie playing in a nearby apartment. Even without seeing the picture, he could tell the dubbing was atrocious. The staccato dialogue delivered jokes that fell far from the mark, and the sound effects cracked over the music.
He glanced again at his watch. He had hours before he needed to be concerned. He didn’t need to be concerned at all, he reminded himself, he should meet her anyway. This didn’t have to be a date; it could just be the building superintendent meeting a new resident. Besides, there was little more he could do before he could get the new drywall delivered.
Lucas didn’t admit that he was as excited as he was afraid.
He hadn’t spent much time around women his age, those who worked at the orphanage were all far older, and no girls his age lived there at all. As he had grown older some of the boys would manage to sneak out unobserved, and sometimes would return with tall tales of their exploits with the local girls. Lucas had thought their stories were unlikely and never crept out with them to test his theory. He knew when something was wrong, even as a child, and after all the horrors he had seen, he knew what the wages of sin were.
When the other boys spoke of girls, Lucas had thought of his sister, the only girl he had ever known. She had been a few years older than himself and though she was no older than eleven it still seemed like an impossible age to him. She would tuck her hair behind her ear as she read to him, she had been the very image of sophistication. He must have been little more than a toddler, but he swore he could remember it as though it were yesterday. She had seemed so mature, and he saw little difference between her and their mother. He had thought of the world as little people and big people, and she had been one of the big people. Later, when the boys would talk about girls, he would see her face and he hated them because of their often cruel words. She never had the chance to grow up and meet someone who would love her, but if she had Lucas hoped she would have met someone better than the boys he was forced to grow up with. Someone who would honour and keep her in the way she deserved.
Years later, long after he had left the orphanage, he had met women out in the world who had interested him, but they never showed any interest in return. He thought he knew why. They saw him as odd. His talk of God and his obvious inexperience with women made them see him as simplistic and unsophisticated.
And he supposed that they were right. There were many things that Lucas didn’t understand. The world was a complicated and sometimes frightening place. What he sometimes saw outside the walls of The Gatehouse Apartments frightened him more than anything he saw within it. He remembered the sheer panic he felt when first presented with a self-service checkout and the humiliation when a staff member offered to help him use it. She had been a young woman, barely old enough to work on an alcohol aisle, and her kindness just intensified the shame at his ignorance. What he had been afraid of was nothing, and he had just been fearful of being fearful, scared of nothing more pressing than a look of concern from a pretty face. He knew then that he was not cut out for the world. He had been away from it for far too long. He understood it and knew he could learn, but he also knew there would be so much temptation along the way.
He had overheard people talking about someone a lot like himself. They would laugh at people who believed. They would see them as bigots, unintelligent, or just plain unbalanced. A part of him would itch to correct assumptions. The Book said that he should evangelise, it instructed him to defend his faith, but Lucas knew the idea terrified him.
People could be cruel. He knew this better than anyone. The memories from his childhood were unreliable. He could not tell where the nightmares ended and his life began. But after what he had seen in The Gatehouse Apartments, he wondered if any of what he remembered were just figments of troubled dreams. Mostly he remembered his sister and mother, but what he did remember of his father had been cruelty personified.
He would see the woman from 108 in a few short hours, and she would know so much more about everything than he did. She had run her home and raised her son and Lucas was certain she would never be paralysed with fear over something as pathetic as an automated checkout.
But what if she was cruel?
That’s what scared him. He expected her not to like him, and he was ready for that, but he hoped that she would not be cruel in her rejection. He would recover from it, but it wouldn’t be easy. It would be painful even if he discovered that he didn’t like her but devastating if he did. His best hope would be if she were a horrible harridan that he wanted to escape from, but he didn’t believe this to be true. He had met her son and found him to be quiet and helpful, with a streak of curiosity similar to his own. Lucas was convinced that a good son could only be because of a good mother, and Matty reflected that. He had thought about the hours fixing the drainage pipes, with Matty handing him tools and keeping him company, and as he did the same strange idea kept returning.
Lucas wished he could have a son one day and hoped he’d be a little like Matty Fisher.
Even though it was still early, the day was done. He would have to wash up and prepare himself for the evening. Then meet Natalie Fisher at her apartment after which they would join the other residents in a small party welcoming the newcomers. At least this would allow Lucas to exit quietly when things became uncomfortable. He was certain to run into her after, and a graceful exit would make it more comfortable for them both in the future. That was if he could convince Barbara Nicholson not to interfere.
That old lady was a menace. He had become fond of the old woman, but she had long since decided that there wasn’t a person she couldn’t fix, given the time and the tools for the job. It appeared that Barbara saw Lucas – or Natalie Fisher – as her current project, and it was all his fault, he was aware of that. He had put the idea in her head when he told her to speak to the new resident about her past. He remembered his words.
“Ask her next time you see her, assuming you can entice her out of 108.”
He should have known they would send Barbara Nicholson’s mischievous mind in motion. Her husband Bart had even warned him to get out while he could.
Lucas packed away his tools and checked the measurements for the drywall one last time. He could do a rough calculation and request a bulk order to be delivered. If he was lucky it might turn up in the morning. He could then finish the wall ready for a plaster veneer finish to complete the bedroom, and panelling for the bathroom. He might be able to get it all done by the weekend.
Yeah, he thought with uncharacteristic bitterness as he made his way to the apartment’s front door, I’d hate it to eat into my social time.
He wrenched the door open with more force than intended and locked it behind him. He walked past 108, sparing it an accusatory glance, and then walked to his apartment. The martial arts movie was still showing in 106, and Barbara and Bart were sat where they always were in the lobby. Barbara’s book was still open in the same place, and Bart’s fishing magazine was folded back on itself exactly as it always was. Lucas had never seen him with a fishing rod, and he would have no idea where he could fish locally if he owned one. Lucas slipped by without them noticing him, saving him from the unpleasant confrontation if he and Barbara found themselves locked in battle.
He turned to the right, where the door to his apartment was located directly opposite apartment 102, and almost ran into Matthew Fisher. The boy stood at Lucas’s apartment door, waiting for him to return. Lucas froze like a deer in headlights. The little boy was half his size, but it was as if Lucas was confronted by a pro boxer who had put too many opponents in a coma. The boy could only want him for one reason, and Lucas felt his cheeks flush with embarrassed heat.
“Lucas,” Matthew said, sounding incredibly grown up.
“Matthew,” Lucas replied, feeling far less so.
The boy looked at him, his eyes half-lidded in thought, and Lucas shifted from foot to foot under his scrutiny. The moment stretched out, it felt impossibly thin, tight enough to snap, and Lucas had no idea what to say. Matty watched him silently, and Lucas could feel the discomfort like a nest of worms in his belly.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Lucas blurted and hooked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the lobby and the old couple who sat there. “It was Barbara,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “I’m as annoyed about it as you are.”
Matthew took a step back, setting his jaw defiantly. For a moment Lucas thought the boy might launch himself at him, and he had little doubt he could defend himself against him if he did. Lucas worked with his hands, and he was strong, but there was no way he could envision harming a child.
“What’s wrong with my mum?” Matty asked, his voice raised an octave. “You think you’re too good for her or something?”
Lucas wanted to say nothing was wrong with his mother, but he didn’t know. There was something wrong with everyone. Every person who walked God’s earth was flawed and sinful. They all fought against darker halves or revelled in them, but they were still flawed. Lucas’ voice was small and hurt, and Matthew could hear his confusion.
“No,” Lucas replied sullenly. He wanted to calm the boy but couldn’t think of anything. He knew hardly a thing about Matthew’s life. He knew they had moved here from far away, and he knew that they had very little, but didn’t seem to mind. They were a small family who had seen hard times, and in Matty, Lucas saw a boy who was much the same as himself when he was a similar age. The truth was that Lucas admired them for what he knew about them, perhaps even envied them, and that was just one more sin for his growing collection.
“No,” he repeated. “I’d never think that.”
In the lobby, Barbara began speaking to Bart in clipped tones. Neither Matty nor Lucas could hear what was said, but her irritation was clear. The martial arts movie was coming to an end in 106, the music had swelled to a fast musical accompaniment and multiple characters could be heard shrieking out battle cries.
“So, are you going to turn up?” Matthew said.
“Yeah.”
“And are you going to be nice?”
“Of course, I’m going to be nice,” Lucas responded, genuinely shocked at the suggestion.
Matthew stepped forward, and Lucas stepped back. The boy was barely past Lucas’ waist, but the intensity of the boy’s stare and the confidence of his stride had caught Lucas by surprise. Matthew raised a hand and pointed at the man in front of him. It should have struck Lucas as ridiculous, but it didn’t. The boy’s face was set in deathly seriousness, and Lucas didn’t disregard anything the boy said next.
“You do anything bad, and I’ll take care of you,” Matty said, his voice was low, and it raised goosebumps on Lucas’ arms. “Charlie knows how to get into places, so locking your door won’t help.”
“Who’s Charlie?” Lucas asked, but he thought he probably didn’t want to know.