Air
The strange figure abruptly turned around, letting the door slam behind him. It slammed with quite a loud bang, and she frowned, staring after him, not quite believing his crudeness. Not allowing this to faze her, she brought her easel into the hallway. The hallway was modest. And cramped. She turned on the light, via the light switch next to her, and it threw the place into ungodly light. She could see every crevice, and it was covered in dust. Ahead of her, a steep carpeted staircase, which looked like it hadn't been hoovered for….God knows how long. She began muttering to herself….back to the bloody first year of my undergraduate degree. People who don't know how to look after themselves and standard personal hygiene. The kitchen door rapidly flung back open, emitting a slight gasp from her. The figure, who was fairly lanky in shape, propped the door open, not giving her a second glance.
She couldn't see what he looked like because of the light flooding in from the little door at the end of the room. The dirtiness of the house and the discourtesy of her new housemate and fellow student did not faze her in the slightest. Any other person would be severely discouraged, perhaps a little wary, but she strolled into the kitchen, whipping off her scarf, and dumping it on the kitchen chair as if she had been there for months already. The kitchen was tiled; the kitchen units made out of plastic, made to look like black granite. It was all finished off quite cheaply. The kitchen was extremely tiny, however.
Outside was a rotting shed with a broken door, below. There was another flat below them. All they had was a balcony, with a single rubbish bin and a mop and bucket. The grass in the garden below probably housed snakes. One saucepan, God knows why, was right at the back of the garden, most likely housing maggots. She tried to work out if mice and rats were included; probably in this grubby house, she surmised. Grace had a mouse problem in the second year of her undergraduate degree. She realised she had been staring and observing far too much, and for far too long, without having spoken to the guy. But it hardly mattered, as he had been incredibly rude. He startled her out of her thoughts.
"When does the landlord come over? Your keys are on the table," he said, his back turned to her. He was stirring a mixture of meat and vegetables in a large saucepan on the gas stove. He had spoken very quickly, but she could detect a hint of an American accent in his raspy voice. He sounded like he hadn't talked in months. Either that or he was a very heavy smoker.
"Can't remember. Did you not hear the door go?" she replied. He still did not turn around. Grace was growing impatient, and whipped the keys up, jangling them, to get his attention. When that failed, she leaned against the sink and craned her neck. He was dressed in grey woollen trousers, a white cotton shirt covered with a forest green jumper that had several holes in the arm. He was bare-footed, although she couldn't work out why, because the house was absolutely freezing. He had long fingers, she noted, as she watched him stir his soup. However the elegance of his hands was ruined by his nails, which were in terrible condition. He either cut them very short or had a very bad nail-biting habit. He reached across towards the right of him, for the salt and pepper. His movements were lithe and quick. Had a touch of impatience to them.
"Barely," he replied, his voice surly. She scowled at him. You don't know who you're talking to, mate.
"Mind showing me where my room is?" she tested lightly, feeling her heart plunge into a deep pit that was her stomach. A never-ending pit, and it felt like she was about to drown in her impending misery. Her life was a failure. She tried again. "Grace Gilmartin, by the way." It was a minute before he turned around, and faced her directly. He had unfriendly, glassy eyes, bright in the darkness, and was framed by a thin face. He was gaunt-looking, with cheekbones that stuck out. She felt like she had been turned to stone, feeling like perhaps his thinness was not due to student savings on food.
"Up the stairs, second door on the right. All the rooms are upstairs. You are next to me. The third door is the bathroom. The key to your room is the same you have just picked up." She swallowed, nodding slowly, but pulled out a goofy smile. He was the most aloof American she had ever come across. Her previous university had been full of them, but they had all been so wonderfully affable. Still, one most soldier on, she thought. Perhaps he's really shy.
"Brilliant! I might need some help with my easel – pretty heavy and those stairs look bloody awful…" He just stared at her as if she landed from a different solar system. He blinked only once, then cleared his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing a little. His hard gaze washed over her like tidal wave, leaving her with a feeling of despoilment.
"Jonathan Crane." He put out a hand, and hesitantly, but still smiling somewhat, she shook it. His handshake was surprisingly strong, and she noticed how his fingernails dug into her skin somewhat. His nose wrinkled when he touched her, and she immediately sensed something. He disliked her already. He told her she could leave the easel down here, just as long she didn't get paint everywhere. She finally snapped, pausing at the door.
"Since when do you care about how clean the place is?" She left him to stew as she hauled her two bags up to her room. She didn't analyse the room. She simply threw her bags down and flopped onto her bed, which already had a duvet and pillows without their covers. The room was freezing. She felt her tears slip out, until they rolled into her ears, making them pop. Her nose became blocked. She began to sob, and as the sun set, she felt her eyes close.
It was very dark when she woke up, and the night time was very bleak. The streetlamps from outside, beyond the garden and onto another street shone in through a chink in her curtains, casting an orangey glow in the room. She briefly forgot where she was and what happened in her life. Then it came crashing down like a ton of bricks upon her, crushing the breath out of her lungs, and she sucked in a pained, tired breath. The parents. The confession. The crumbling smelly house. The uncouth, strange housemate. Her utter loneliness. She began shivering, for the house still retained its coldness, furthered by the night. It was only September, but this year had been very cold, and it was going to become colder ever so. The only thing Grace could do, to rid herself of the intense loneliness she was feeling was to unpack everything.
She did it at a slow rate, humming a tune, and plugged her little vintage style analogue radio into the socket beside her bed. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, when she had woken. It was the best feature of the house so far, apart from the fact that she had a large window that reached from top to bottom of her wall. She just hoped it was a good view. There was a large oak wardrobe in the corner beside the window, and in the other corner a little bookshelf. Her bed was beside the window, tucked in a little corner. She tacked The Youngbloods and her buffalo to her walls. She placed Nannie beside her bed, on the wooden rounded stool. She put all her clothes into the wardrobe. There were few of them. She placed all her art utensils on the desk, which was located next to the wardrobe.
Sick of the radio, she pulled out her little netbook and started to play The Youngbloods once the tiny computer was started up. Her mind drifted to that of her old life, back in her first University. How those friends eventually drifted away from her, no matter how hard she had tried to pull them back, with the tips of her fingers. They had been like sand running through thin fingers. She was disappointed to find, that people in general did not bother. She only had to count on herself. Her mind drifted back to her ex-boyfriend and her ex-friend, Chloe, who had eloped with Charlie after a month of splitting with her. Grace shook her head hard. Why on earth was she bringing up these painful memories? Was it become she was now so completely utterly alone, with her pathetic thoughts, and no family, a rather odd housemate in a dank house? She felt like her chest was a birdcage and the bird that was once squawking and shrieking to be let out, pecking at the bars of the cage, now had died its decomposing body on the floor.
Often when she was alone and out of place would she start thinking painful thoughts because the ever-terrible reminder that she was alone, and utterly alone would lay rest on her like a dark demon, ready to eat away at her mind. Grace busied herself more, taking her time. Then she pottered; dancing away to the music. Re-arranging the brushes on her desk. Counting all twenty oil paint bottles, twice. Placing her shoes neatly in a line, whistling to The Youngbloods. She was chewing on gum, and took out an anti-bacterial spray, cleaning the edges of the window of mould that had grown there due to condensation. She guessed this room hadn't been lived in a while. She flung the window open, feeling like Cinderella, in a good way. Clouds of dust flew into the air when she shoved her suitcase at the top of the wardrobe. Coughing, she danced around in the dust, pretending she was in a far-away world, away from this dank house. All she needed was a fairy godmother. She kept dancing to the old tunes.
He could hear her, upstairs. Clear as a bell. He was stood in the kitchen; glass in one hand, pills in the other. Plain white pills rested in the palm of his hand. It was incredibly dark outside, for five o' clock. Winter was approaching, and it was approaching early. The bright light in the kitchen reflected off the painted yellow walls giving the room an ugly tone. He could hear her, her feet banging on the thin floorboards. What was she doing? He tipped the pills into his mouth with ease and swallowed them down with the glass of water, gulping until it was all gone.
She was being incredibly noisy. He could sense his irritation growing, but tried to calm it. Perhaps if he went up there and told her to stop it. He needed to tell her about the room upstairs, in the attic. That was off limits. He had to tell her about the certain house rules. Wiping his palms on his trouser legs, he exited the kitchen, walked through the hallway, and ascended the stairs. He craned his head up, stretching to hear the noise as he heard the tuneful sound of a man singing and a guitar twanging - Some will come and some will go,we shall surely pass, when the one that left us here, returns for us at last….
He felt apprehensive, and before he could even think about knocking on her door, she had flung it open, the music momentarily becoming louder; then it was shut off as the fire door of her room closed with a slam. He halted stiffly on the stairs, staring at her. She didn't happen to see him at first, plodding along the hallway, down a couple of steps, and then turned towards the top of the stairs, halting as she saw him.
"Oh…hi," she spoke, her voice strangely high, as if she had recently been crying. He double-checked and saw that there was no blotchiness around her eyes. She moved automatically out of the way, as he continued to walk up the stairs, and made for him to pass her to enter his room, but he didn't continue to move. She raised her eyebrows, irking him slightly, her arms crossed as she waited for him to respond. However, he didn't, just staring at her, making her feel extremely uncomfortable. She was forced to speak.
"Did the landlord come over? I dropped off in my room," she said softly. He shook his head, clearing his throat.
"No, he didn't. He is like that. So I thought I'd just tell you about the house to fill you in." She seemed rather bored at his statement, and spoke no further. Thankfully, he pondered; her accent was very strong. He had heard nothing like it before, but yet, they all seemed to talk like that around here. He was at an established university, yet the town's occupants talked hillbilly style. He wasn't sure what the Brit alternative term was.
It was incredible how he gained a new housemate so quickly. He was not expecting any one to move in with him. It was a week before the semester started, and no one had really shown an interest in the house apart from a couple of people back at the start of the year, who were repulsed and scared off by his rude behaviour. He did not want anyone living with him. They had all been undergraduates anyway. So he specified to the landlord to advertise the house only mentioning postgraduates.
The girl in front of him was a quite an unusual one, once you got up close to her; but from afar she was anything but special. She had brownish eyes, that sort of pale, washed out colour. What the water would appear after you finished washing the dishes, especially if they had been covered in gravy. Her eyebrows, which seem like she had difficulty shaping at times, were arched a little. She had a small pert mouth and her shoulder-length brown hair didn't have much life to it. However, she had a graceful face – that if her hair and clothes were styled in the right way, she would have the poise of an older, sophisticated woman. Perhaps it was her thin face and arched eyebrows. Her voice was quite deep for a woman, but it was a voice that smoked too many cigarettes over the years. She a couple of blemishes on her forehead and at the corner of her small, mean mouth. He hoped she didn't smoke anymore.
With that seventies-like attire, the cotton lacy shirt, the flared ripped jeans and a brown saddlebag; he immediately imagined her sitting down in a dark basement with other students, getting high. However her image was ruined as she sported a pair of those boots women wore, which were fashionable at the moment, soft and suede-like that she wore under her jeans. She also wore a tattered woollen coat with a tartan hood and large silver hoops dangled from her ears. What did she look like? Ah, yes, the foreign word coming to him, one that he'd heard since he'd been here. Chavvy. Common. Not someone he'd like. Why was she still wearing her coat? Had she fallen asleep as soon as she came in?
Shaking the image from his mind, he pulled his gaze away, realising he probably had been staring at her. She'd been waiting for him to say something, bemused by his peculiar behaviour.
"I haven't got all day…" she began sarcastically, but he cut her off before she could come out with anything else sarky.
"The landlord said the attic room upstairs is off limits. There are hardly any floorboards up there, so if you want to avoid a nasty accident, just don't go looking for it…" She raised those arched eyebrows again. "I tend to study quite late, at least until two am, so please keep the music low, at least by nine. I have eight o'clock seminars on Thursday and Friday so try not to make too much noise, especially on Thursday night." He could tell she was losing her patience, a little dimple had formed in her cheek, and he could tell she was grinding her teeth, ever so slowly.
"What's special about Thursday?" she enquired, keeping her voice sweet. He blinked a couple of times.
"Well…students tend to go out 'nightclubbing' on that night," he said, matter-of-factly. She scoffed at him, pushing past, and started to go down the stairs.
"I don't think you'll find I'm that kind of girl," she spoke, feet slamming down on each step. "Not any more at least…" She had muttered the last part, but he had ears of a bat and had heard. He stared down at her, watching her leave the house, the front door slamming as hard as it possibly could. I wonder what kind of girl you are then, he thought.
She had soon finished her shopping in Tescos. The trip consisted of pushing past people somewhat tiredly with her trolley, becoming agitated quickly when she couldn't find what she wanted, when someone was standing for around ten minutes in front of a specific product she needed to reach out for…eventually she started becoming rude, and pushing past people, so much that she received a sigh, a roll of the eyes and a 'All you had to say was excuse me.' Maybe that was true, but she was in no mood for it. She hated food shopping with a sincere passion.
After a while, her frustration became misery, once her tiresome mind reminded her that she was utterly alone, and that the future looked as uninviting as a high, dark mountain that was impossible to climb. The darkness outside, highlighting some of the town's lights, emphasised the impenetrable sadness that wore down on her shoulders, reminding that she was entirely alone in this cold, that every other single human being she had known in her life had now not even spared a thought towards her. Not even her mother, whom she always had been close to. The other students, she had known, would all be carrying on with their lives, their wonderful lives, filled with every bit of happiness and satisfaction. Catching a taxi back, feeling the light patter of rain again as she exited the vehicle and struggled with her food bags to the dank terraced house, which was her new home, she ran a bath as soon as she stepped inside.
It was her method of healing. A bath. Ignoring the grubbiness of the room, the grit that sat in-between the tiles, the dirt that clung to the plumbing pipes and the cobwebs scattered around the ceiling, she poured in a new bottle of bubble bath, and sat on the toilet, waiting patiently. It took a while to fill. Not bothering to wonder whether her strange housemate was in, she went downstairs to make herself a cup of Earl Grey tea and grab some chocolate she bought herself while in the supermarket. Despite the dirtiness of the house, everything seemed to be immaculate; everything was in order. She opened up the cupboards and found the crockery all stacked up neatly. She began to put some of her food away; briefly looking in his cupboard, seeing whatever little was in there, was also neatly stacked. Briefly looking around, she put quickly put everything that was his upside down.
The sugar, the South-African ground coffee, the OXO cubes…She shut the door as soon as she heard a slam of a door, smirking a little to herself. Seeing it was just next door, she re-arranged everything in the cupboards as well. Grace wasn't even sure why she was doing this. Antagonising her new, rude housemate certainly wasn't a wise move. When she heard the front door slam, she managed to stifle a chuckle. However, the voice did not belong to the guy; it belonged to a young woman, around her age, perhaps a little older. Curious, she moved closer to the door, trying to listen in, but all the noise the woman was making was just small giggles. Pouring milk slowly into her tea, adding the lovely large amount she was used to, she heard footsteps. She felt a small cruel jump of joy in her stomach, knowing he was going to find his little neat heaven ruined. Devastated. A catastrophe.
Grace was beside the fridge when the young woman stepped in, her eyes wide, taking in the smallness of the kitchen, pressing her hands together. She was average height, and had very large heavily lidded eyes. Her dirty blonde hair hung down in wisps. Grace felt like taking on a position of vulgarity and turned away from the girl, not bothering to greet her. She supposed this woman was the girlfriend of the odd housemate, and she nearly wanted to applaud the woman for choosing such a male specimen. She heard his heavier footsteps, while picking up her scorching cup of tea, Minnie Mouse decorating the outside of the mug. When she picked up the large chocolate bar in her hands as well, turning around, she was caught in the sharp gaze of Jonathan Crane.
"You must be the new housemate," spoke the blonde girl. Her voice was quite high, and it wasn't northern. It had an American twinge to it, also. Thrown in the deep end, were you Jonathan, she thought sarcastically. Needed a bit of home to get you fitted in?
She smiled, quite genuinely, obviously not realising Grace's apparent rudeness. Crane was just staring at her. He knew something was up; she had done something, for there was a slight smirk on her face. Definitely something to infuriate him. He was sure of it, he knew she was off from the moment he had met her.
"Yeah," she replied, quite bluntly. "Yeah, the new kid on the block…" The girl now sensed the hostility coming from Grace, and gave a sheepish smile. She decided to introduce herself anyway, giving a bright smile. Grace felt her hostility drop for a while, realising she was simply being rude to the woman because of the man behind her. Man, boy, guy. She wasn't even sure how old he was, she was guessing perhaps a bit older than her.
"Studying for a Masters in Criminology, unlike Jonathan here, he's doing a PhD. So smart! I don't think I'll go that far…" He attempted to pull an amused smile, but it faded after five seconds. So he was older than her. Grace swirled the tea in her hands, desperate for her chocolate and healing time.
"Ah that's interesting….so what you studying?" she asked him stiffly. He replied directly, without a bat of an eyelash.
"Psychopharmacology." She raised an eyebrow. Sounded smart-arse-ish, and she had no desire whatsoever to bother asking what it was. Suddenly she suddenly felt a little inadequate, and wasn't sure why she was afraid to say what she was studying. The girl Dina already asked the dreaded question before Grace could finish her anxious thoughts.
"Postgrad Fine Art." Dina let an 'Oh' escape her mouth, and she tried to nod enthusiastically, before giving another smile, rather attractive dimples showing in her cheeks. They both bid their goodbyes, before turning off, and she could hear his door slam. There was a lot of door slamming in the house. She stood there for a minute, her mouth open, the mug and chocolate bar still in her hands. She walked down the hallway, and up the stairs, passing his room very slowly, hearing very quiet voices. Shrugging, hoping she wasn't going to hear the humorous sounds produced by coitus, she walked into the bathroom, her bath still running. It was at the correct temperature and height. Stripping herself of her clothes, she climbed into the glorious, wonderful smelling bath, and tried to heal herself, sipping her tea, and snapping a bit off the chocolate bar. It was going to be an interesting semester. Little did she know.
