Wild Stacks

Wild Stacks / issue 0 / October 2010

FLAT TOP

By ALLEN ASHLEY

I didn't think I'd miss having Duncan as an upstairs neighbour but that was before Laurence moved in. Duncan I'd grown used to: heavy-footed like the proverbial herd of elephants stomping meaningfully over the bare wooden floorboards; sunbathing until late in September in his half of the miniature garden, his genitals and slight paunch barely contained by a pair of blue Speedos; or cooking up exotic dishes in the manner of currently fashionable TV chefs. These latter appealed more to the sensitive smoke alarm than the modern cosmopolitan palate.

Janie had commented on all these matters and sometimes I wondered if her dismissive remarks actually cloaked a well of feminine curiosity. But Duncan was history now. Neither had I seen enough of Janie lately.

The first indication of the new state of affairs came with Laurence's positioning of his audio-visual equipment. His lounge was directly above mine and his television would have plugged into the socket for the shared aerial. He'd indulged in that bane of modern urban living: the home cinema speakers. They never came packaged with an obligatory soundproofing system for one's put-upon neighbours. On a couple of occasions I was assailed by the stereophonic explosions requisite to the terrorist-foiling action of some Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise film. Mostly, though, it was Newsnight, Sky Hourly Update and the like. I could silence my own set and still be up to date on world affairs: freakish weather in Colorado; slipping share prices in Tokyo; political upheaval in the Philippines.

He had a DAB radio in his bathroom and portables in both kitchen and back bedroom. A finger on the pulse: distorted voices straining for the consensus of immediate history in every audible corner.

***

He has a newspaper delivered daily. I didn't think anybody did this anymore: we all pick up the Sun, the Mail, or the Independent on the way to the station, not wait in for some spotty teenager to ram the fragile pages into the letterbox. We get a free local paper, of course, crammed with stories of street robberies and education crises; funded by adverts for stock clearance warehouses and massage parlours.
I quite like the idea of a leisurely breakfast of tea, toast and a tabloid. There's something of the hotel life about it. Should I set off for work an hour or so later so that I can indulge in this relaxing morning ritual?

***

We share some plumbing. I have a small hot water tank sitting like an eyeball from the Cyclops just below the ceiling in the hall. All the cold water, however, flows through the same copper pipes. I hear the flushing of his toilet, the tap rushing as he rinses his hands or brushes his teeth, the staccato intake and rumble that signals the operation of his washing machine. Sometimes I have been waiting for my cistern to re-fill to rid the bowl of a particularly difficult shit and a tower of toilet paper but he's used his loo at the same time and we're in competition and the delay is endless. I hear his footsteps and guess his intentions so jump out of my chair and try to beat him to it. That's the only way to stay ahead.

When his girlfriend's over she always takes at least one shower every day. She's a pretty. petite thing with dark ringlets, a prominent nose and a slightly Turkish aspect to her skin colouring. Miriam or Meriam or something. On the few occasions when Janie's been around I've encouraged her to mirror the woman's activities but she's been resistant.

"I bathed before I came over." / "I'm not that dirty." / "Are you after shower sex or something, Billy?"

In our early days we would often soap each other up in the bath, illuminated by scented candles at the non-tap end. Then I developed an allergy to evening primrose oil and some of the other perfumes. Or we ceased being so interested in each other's bodies.

I wish I could watch Meriam bathing.

To do so I would need to become Laurence.

***

He's had his hair cut. It looks like something of a modern variant on the flat top, which I thought was well outmoded. But hang on: the hard man on Eastenders, a couple of prominent Premiership footballers and even the reporters on the local news broadcast are bringing it back into fashion.

There's a cheap barber's in the parade of shops by the railway station. I need a new style. Helps the male swagger.

***

I was reading something in the press about the growth of CCTV over the past couple of decades when I spied Laurence leaving the building. Every railway station, office entrance, high street pavement, supermarket and corner shop has sprouted cameras and recording equipment, tracking our movements more than a hundred times a day. Laurence was wearing a nondescript jacket a little too short for the season but a really well-cut pair of trousers: stone grey chinos that hung casually perfect as he paused to open the front gate. I wanted to look as effortlessly cool. Maybe I needed to expand my range beyond a perfunctory browse through Next, Topman, Gap, Burton and, lately, M&S.

As luck would have it, the communal postbox had plenty of mail for my upstairs neighbour, including a catalogue of menswear and other accessories such as shavers and executive toys. It was badly packaged in some sort of ill-fitting plastic shrinkwrap liable to tear accidentally, especially across the space for addressee… The hallway was the almost last public space in London not prone to 24-hour surveillance.

It was the matter of barely ten minutes to access the credit account with Direct Male Postal Services and order some new strides. They promised delivery within three to five working days. I would have to ensure that I was not actually working during that period so I could be ready for any possible confrontation.

"But I always order my clothes from this company."

"But it's my address on the package."

"Easy to mistake 'B' and 'C'."

"It's my name, too. Stop trying to steal my stuff, Laurence."

***

He surprised me, lurking just behind the front door as I arrived back from the shops. Up close, he needed a fresh dab of deodorant. Still, I could talk.

"You see this?" he asked, fluttering a sheet of glossy paper in front of my face. It took me ten seconds to ascertain that it was an estate agent's flyer. "They've just sold a flat up the road for two-ninety," he continued. "That's ten thousand more than I paid. In a month!"

"I don't know how people keep up," I muttered.

I was acutely aware of the contents of my shopping bag: Value brand potatoes; sausages not fillet steaks; a bag of salad a little too wet inside the bag as it reached its "Use By" date.

"You ever think of selling up?" he asked.

"Not yet."

A shake of the head, two keys in locks and I was safe again.

***

When I was younger, I was all for "Live and let live"; but now…? Most of the world's population seems to equate liberty with licence. The right to assert their own lifestyle over everybody else's. Western capitalism, Islamic terrorism, noise culture - they're all at it, the bastards!

I'm waving the latest estate agent's bumf around like a raving politician. "Quiet residential street" / "Pleasantly tree-lined" / "A mixture of well-appointed flats and terraced houses". They don't mention the Sunday afternoon alfresco car mechanics convention. Or the kids either bombing up and down on motorised scooters or booting footballs from one pavement to another whilst they project the racket from their MP3 players to all and sundry.

I can't stand it tonight, I want to go out and confront them. I take a step to my door and then into the hallway and as far as the shared outer door, angry fingers poised over the latch, pausing…

It's not a class thing. That's simplistic shit to claim that because someone is working class, whatever that means these days, one is prone to anti-social behaviour. My mother was a dinner lady – doesn’t that make my background proletarian?

I'm outside now, sorting something out in the recycling bin, counting the crowd of miscreants just down the street. The police don't want to know. The local council probably gave them the hovel in the first place. Except it wasn't a hovel then.

I can't deal with them on my own. They'll stone my windows, piss in my front yard, stab me in the guts without a second thought.

Laurence is at his window gazing at the annoying mayhem. Come down and give us a hand here, you cowardly bastard.

But he doesn't and he won't and I snivel back to my cramped lounge and switch the TV on to some crime drama that I'm not really interested in but creates sufficient volume to mostly drown out the shouts and revving motors.

Later I hear sounds close to my window. A parting of the curtains reveals Laurence putting out some rubbish and taking a peek at the street. Is he echoing my every action now?

***

The lovely Meriam had arrived with a shopping bag containing two bottles of wine and a box that probably contained a cake. So now Laurence was an expert chef and was doing Sunday roast for himself and the skinny minx who provided the fripperies! Would he forsake the ream of newspapers for once or let them form the basis of an enlightened dinner party conversation?

"Did you hear about the constitutional crisis in Turkey? "

"What's your opinion on the National's Beckett revival?"

"It says here that fifteen percent of couples under thirty are open to experimenting with multi-partners. I think we need to talk about this, Laurence."

They are a few courtship stages ahead of me but I'm on the phone now to Janie.

"It would be so nice if you came over."

"I thought you used Sundays for silent contemplation. Anyhow, I've arranged to see my parents."

"Make an excuse. I'm doing a cold meat salad."

"Well, if you put it like that, Billy…"

Upstairs they were listening to Classic FM. I whizzed through the downloads on my MP3, found some Mozart and "Nessum Dorma" style light opera, plugged a jack into the hi-fi speakers. We're all disc jockeys nowadays.

Later, toying with some ham a little too close to its "Sell By" date, Janie says, "This is all I've asked from you, Billy, just a bit of commitment. Putting us first for once."

"Let's go and talk in the bedroom," I suggest.

My timing is superb because I can hear they're already onto the main course upstairs. The bed is creaking as the wooden feet slip and resettle against the increasingly persuasive rhythm of their lovemaking. I haven't indulged in pansy stuff like scented candles but did have a hoover round earlier. Use your ears and a little of your imagination –

"Sounds like they're busy upstairs," Janie smiles.

I can hear her – the girl above – begin a breathless ululation - as the humping gains momentum.

"We could do something ourselves," I whisper, trying to keep the tension out of my voice, the desire not for Janie as such but to find my own space within the ritual, to be parallel or a mirror or a delayed display… to match up to my neighbour and the lead he's setting.

***

Strange knockings from above. What is he planning now? What is he constructing now? Some sort of further espionage to undermine my position. Undermine? In a literal manner, I am under him but I shall turn this hierarchy upon its head with the application of stealth technology and wariness.

As a youngster I was quite handy with the saw, the scissors, the vice and the craft knife. I made myself a cool periscope with mirrors and tubing and I shall consider again - in the absence of opportunities to gain physical access to his property - how best to observe his plans and machinations.

Where to lay my spying devices? How to arrange my optical traps and snares. Knowledge is power. Observation is everything.

***

I am first to the post again. He has a communication from his bank detailing ways in which he can guard against identity theft. "Ten Steps to Protect Yourself on the Internet". Never open attachments from senders you do not know. Never reveal your password.

Open your neighbour's mail before he can get to it.

Learn what he's planning and what he's saying about you.

Never reveal anything.

***

At last he's left the building.

I know he's been spying on me and my hope is that he will be careless in how he disposes of the evidence.

So I casually stroll out to the bin bag he placed in the container not ten minutes ago. If someone asks - and why should they, it's not their business? - my reply will be that I forgot to recycle some empty bottles.

I gash my fingers on a badly opened can in the depths of the sack. I want to suck the blood away but the smell of tinned fish makes me nervous of picking up a secondary salmonella infection, so I wipe my bleeding hand cautiously against the leg of my trousers.

At last I find what I seek - the slim, metallic SIM card that is the oracle of our age.

But when I plug it into my own electronics, I get only a snow storm of white noise punctuated by a smattering of out of focus shots taken at an office Christmas party some ten years ago to judge by the fashions. I'm not in any of the photos and neither is Laurence although he maintains the excuse of having wielded the camera.

It's still early enough in the day for me to change my outfit and go off the shallow pretence at which I earn my daily crust. No one speaks to me at work although the wound has closed up and I've washed thoroughly so I can't be physically that repulsive.

I drift through a series of chores, a blind lab rat in a closed warren lit by fluorescent tubes and eerily blue PC monitors.

Signal failures delay my return and Laurence is already by the window watching for me. I don't wave. I pull my coat tighter around my neck as if his gaze is a blizzard.

***

I've largely stopped using the far end room, keeping its door closed and radiator shut to save on heating bills. There are a couple of old packing cases full of stuff I once thought to sell but now ought to simply throw out. I was in there seeking some old T-shirt as an extra underlayer against the domestic chill when I caught a glimpse of myself in a free-standing mirror propped against the back door and took a step of amazement backwards just like a character in a cheap cartoon.

It wasn't simply the flat top hairstyle or the shabby indoor clothing, even my skin tone was unfamiliar and a curious foreshortening effect had robbed me of at least four inches of height. Or maybe I was weighed down by cares: old man Sisyphus with a bent back from endlessly pushing metaphorical stones.

I was down to the bare bones in the adjacent kitchen: tea leaves that had lost their aroma and mostly quit the imprisoning bag for a life in the corner of the cardboard box; a rancid scrape of cheap margarine that turned my stomach even as it touched my tongue. I'd been remiss in my commitment to survivalism. Where were the stacks of baked beans, tinned meat and vegetable soups sure to see me through the apocalypse?

I had little piles of silver and copper change stashed in sock drawers and back pockets of unwashed jeans. Enough to fill a couple of cheap bags from the local convenience store.

I was dubious about quitting the flat even for the ten minutes or so required for the urgent task. My adversary had already imposed much of his inimical influence onto my immediate environment and, subtly, onto my own physical appearance; what if he took the opportunity of my temporary absence to make his final push for conquest?

They'd known me in the corner shop for a few years and usually offered some comment about sport or the weather. Today they treated me like a stranger. I was annoyed yet also grateful.

I was back in situ within a thousand seconds. I was too smart for that bastard upstairs.

***

Laurence is outside in the front hall. I can't smell his after-shave but I'm sure it's him. He uses Paco Rabanne, same as I do. His footfalls are heavier than mine, though, and all his lion pacing the cage activity can only lead to one conclusion… and so it does. He's at my brass letterbox now, rattling it, tapping his knuckles against the wooden door, demanding let me in or I'll blow your house down.

He couches it in modern parlance, the veneer of friendliness, the cloaking device of we're all friends and this has been a misunderstanding and why don't we sit down over a drink and sort it all out?

No poisoned chalice with you, pal, thank you very much.

He's raising his shoulder for a run and thump against the door. I can't see him doing so but I know that's his next manoeuvre. I brace myself for the impact, the shudder and crumble…

Which never comes.

Clearly he can't get the run-up to achieve the required power and, displaying unusual intelligence, has decided to not even try.

Impasse. Lasting… how long? Thirty seconds - yet it feels like thirty minutes. Now he and his sweat and his heavy feet have returned upstairs.

This is my opportunity if only I could seize it. Classic tactics - take the fight back to the enemy's territory with a thrilling counter-attack.

I plead exhaustion.

My moment of triumph shall come. But later.

***

He's made my flat smaller. The ceiling is much lower, the rooms boxy and claustrophobic, the shared hall space entirely his territory now. The front yard has been colonised and the street beyond rendered unobtainable. The siege continues.

He's made my life smaller.

Listen to his taps. Wait for the casual overfill of his bathtub and the ensuing flood in my bathroom which will short out all my electrics. Hark to his loud phone calls, his booming voice proclaiming to his friends and allies in high finance and global advertising that he is now king of this urban jungle. His footsteps beat out the rhythm of the prison warder.

I've given up on books, CDs and the TV. Like a rebel hiding deep in the cellar, I choose my moment to employ the radio at the lowest audible volume. I heard something just yesterday, a thrilling boys' own war story from way back when of how the inhabitants of a town enclosed by the enemy had refused to be starved and beaten but instead had broken through the blockade and taken the surrounding soldiers by surprise by unexpectedly carrying the fight to them.

I want to regain my self-belief, my assertiveness, my individuality. But even if I push back Laurence and his noise and his encroachment, I shall surely be a mere Canute failing to stem an unstoppable tide.

Widescreen TVs; home cinema systems; Bose speakers; in-car stereos; talking tube trains and buses; garbled station announcements at an uncomfortable volume; polyphonic mobile phone ringtones; I'm on the train, I'll be home in ten; close that deal with Harber's, it's our best prize; yeah, what she's doing, right, she's dissing you, man; the endless roar of traffic, a background wash from the encircling M25 supplemented and supplanted by the engines of London's capillary roads; the passing aeroplanes, especially at night when the clouds briefly hold and echo their boom; police sirens, ambulance sirens, ear-bursting screeches; construction work; destruction work…

We are all on top of each other, screaming and yelling the cacophony of our existence. I need to make my voice heard.

There's no future in silence. There's no silence in future.


© Allen Ashley. Originally published in Once and Future Cities by Allen Ashley, Eibonvale Press (2009). Used with permission.