Chapter 3.3

 Roisin wasn't sure what she expected of the house she was renting on Dunstall Road, but whatever she'd imagined, she was disappointed when the taxi drew up outside it. She knew in a vague way what the houses in this area were like from the three years she'd lived in Wolverhampton before, but the flat she'd rented on the Tettenhall Road then was a far cry from this one. To be fair, it wasn't the position or built of the house that was the problem. It was a mid-terrace, two floor seventies brick build with stucco covering the brickwork, and probably a handful of structural problems, wit a tine front yard mostly filled with three council refuse bins, including a green one that was overflowing with what appeared to be sewage.

She tapped her bank card on the taxi driver's app and added a generous (for her) tip, although the ride had been uncomfortable and the cab had smelled of old cigarettes. The driver hadn't seemed to associate the rule of not smoking in the workplace as applying to his car, even if he didn't actually light up while she was inside it. At least he got out to help her extract her portfolio from the boot. 

She stood on the pavement for a minute, looking at the filthy state of the stucco. The house to the right was treated in exactly the same manner, but had been studiously looked after, the stucco freshly painted and spotless. To the left was a brick-fronted terrace, though again it was well maintained with modern windows and a roof that had been re-tiled within the last five years. The one she was renting had the old wooden sash windows, which admiddedly had been mentioned on the webiste, but there they had been described as 'period architecture providing a well-lit interior,' rather than, as she saw now, 'period architecture with single-pane glass that hadn't seen a fresh coat of paint since it was first built. She knew instinctively that the sash cords inside the frames would have rotted away, rendering the windows all but sealed shut or, in the case of the upper-left window, immovably open. What was the betting, she wondered, that was the room she was renting. At least it would let the fumes out, because all these houses had original gas fires as heating, often with pay-per-minute coin meters attached.

She glanced across to the pristine house to her right and waved at the face peering out at her from the downstairs bay window. The owner of the face ducked back out of sight, but the twitching curtain indicated she was still under close observation. Their front yard was of an equal size, but had been tastefully decorated with white stone gravel and several potted plants of the yellow variety. Roisin knew the basic plants -- lilies, roses, sunflowers and hemlock-- from her forays into the hidden meanings of historical art, but if the flower wasn't in a painting it merged into a blur of Latin nouns of the type dribbled at the viewers of Gardener's World.

The taxi left, emitting a cloud of smoke from the exhaust and the the strains of Groundstation's "Too Pretty for a Boy," last weeks number one in the singles charts. She settled the rucksack over one shoulder, the second bag over the other and hefted the portfolio, which she would swear had got heavier since she hefted it off the train. There was no gate between the two brick pillars, and the path was literally ony two steps long before she was at the front door. The smell from the green bit was overpowering, though whether from decomposition or from the extensive use of fly killer, numerous cans of which were strewn over the what might have once been a garden, she couldn't say. There was no doorbell, and the door was fastened with an old-fashioned Yale lock, so she had to knock and hope the other renter was in.

He was.

In the open doorway was a tall, gangly lad of the type usually appearing as the unlikely romantic lead in a sit-com. Baggy chinos, socks with a hole in the toe, a hand-knitted cardigan over a grubby tee-shirt and stubble curated to look two days old. One gold, hooped earring in his left ear and an infected lump on his right lobe, barely covered by a folded plaster. He looked her up and down, as if he was a judge on 'Last Man Alive.' "Alright?"


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter 1.9

  "You want me to write a story?" She looked up at her aunt with a slight frown. Writing a story seemed like something to do for homework, and she didn't have any homework. Her aunt smiled, "No, not unless you want to. Look." She opened a drawer and took out a palette like the ones they had at school. White plastic with holes like little egg cups all around the outside, only this one was pristine white, whereas the ones she was used to were multicoloured and thick with old paint. Finn began opening the bottles of ink, revealing that each one had a medicine dropper in the lid, with which she drew out some of the colour and added it to the palette cups. And oh! What colours they were! Yellow like the sun on a summer morning; red like the crunch of autumn leaves in the park, and blue like the shimmer of a damselfly flitting over the mill pond. She delighted in the translucency of them, like the glassworker's artistry in liquid form. "You can use anythi...
Read more

25.5

  When the fear begins to subside comes the anger, rising like Vesuvian magma under the unsuspecting twin cities, melting away what’s left of the terror with righteous indignation. How dare the Creator write a role for which she did not give consent? There was no need to drag her away from her humanity into this dance between the immortals. What possible cause could they cite for the theft of her humanity when for thousands of years it was understood they despised the half-caste offspring of mortals and angels, going so far as the destroy all but a handful of people in the blanket destruction of all life on the surface. It was akin to a farmer finding a caterpillar on a lettuce and burning the whole field because of it, and them blaming the lettuce. Not only the Creator, either, but all those angels who thought they could manipulate the world into giving up their souls, for taking them without consent; for the rape of the spirits of humanity for their own personal gain. The Falle...
Read more

Chapter 1.1

  Three Thirty-three AM. She thought that was some train scheduler’s idea of a joke for a train to stop in the deep cutting of Laverstone station at the precise time. She almost hadn’t made it, thanks to the wet leaves on the steep drive of the house causing her to slip and fall. She’d have caught herself with the handrail, only she was on the wrong side of the path, and both her hands were full. Even then, her hands wouldn’t have been grazed to what felt like the bone if she hadn’t been wearing the ancient rucksack her dad had used when he was in the Air Force. Not that he’d ever actually seen service. He’d been shipped to Afghanistan when the British and American governments pulled out and left the Afghans to live or die on their own but all he’d done was oversee the dismantling of several vehicles the RAF hadn’t wanted to fall into the hands of what they called the insurgents. The rucksack, full of clothes and the items she deemed required to keep her on the right line of sanity...
Read more