Chapter 2: Four Knocks
Daylight breezed bleakly through the tiny crack of the opaque cream blind of her bedroom loft window, turning the speckled, floating dust enchanted and golden as it drifted into the beam of sunlight. A slight creak echoed through the shaded rooms of the unstirred apartment. The cause of this jangle came from Libby herself as she shuffled under the thick duvet of her small, rumpled bed, getting more comfortable. Suddenly her smartphone buzzed, an alert of a new urgent email flitting across the screen. Yet she slept on, undisturbed.
The rather decorative room Olivia was gently snoring and dreaming of magical wonders in, was rather more calming than the rest of the flat, simpler without a vast amount of embellished ornaments scattered around on a variety of shelves and table tops, topped off with clashing patterns, colours and mismatched furniture like it was in the open living room.
Dark, Royal Blue gracefully emitted from the smooth, painted walls like the last embers of a setting sun. The soft, cream carpet rug stood out from the surrounding wooden floorboards, whilst a large Oak wardrobe stood erect, looking grand and tall, giving the room an aura of mystery as to what lurked behind the polished doors (Narnia, perhaps?). Floral, blossom fairy lights dangled across the simple, metallic wall mirror, one of the few feminist things that Olivia owned.
An elegant, curved white desk with a matching ebony, padded chair were stationed under the only the small, wall window, cluttered with papers of fictional work and ideas from Libby's imaginative mind. Because of the modest layout, she felt more at home here. Whenever she came up with a snippet of an idea to put in a story or a new plot, if she was free, she clambered straight up to her little, cosy den and quickly jot her thoughts and notions down; even if they were silly, little things like a character's dislike or a part of their complicated personality.
The black, modern phone lying on her small, oak bedside table beeped again, vibrating and shuffling across the smooth surface, its loose form of dancing to the current, catchy music emitting from it.
"Don't do love, don't do friends. I'm only after success. Don't need a relationship; I'll never soften my grip…"
Libby groaned loudly at the pulsing sound, distressed from the rude awakening of her sweet, blissed slumber. She aggressively turned and faced away from the noise, grasping her plump pillow, using it to cover her head as an attempt to block out the hum of Marina and The Diamonds, not willing to speak to whoever wanted to call her at eight o'clock in the morning on her only day off in the week.
"I know exactly what I want and who I want to be. I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine…"
After a minute of failing to zone the regrettably catchy ringtone out from her mind, Olivia gave up from trying to ignore the caller who she now demoted to arch-enemy; she twisted awkwardly to her right, pulling her caught arm from under her, reaching angrily for the bouncing mobile to answer the call before it clattered to the floor.
"Oh. Oh No! Oh No! Oh No! O-" Bleep!
"Hello?" responded Libby croakily with a fake smile and an animated, friendly voice, tightly holding the device from under the covers and suppressing the urge to shout abuse to the receiver through the phone line.
"It's Anthea, dear. Sorry if I've disturbed you at such an early hour," the voice extravagantly replied from the phone speaker. Anthea Moseley was the owner of the book shop, an old, eccentric woman who loved everything to be in order and to present her stock as neat and precise as possible, with not a speck of dust in sight.
As Libby at that time was one of three employers in the store, the other being the morning cleaner and the girl on the opposite shift Libby never saw, whenever there were very little customers, she would have to go around the store, checking everything was in place and up to her boss's standards. If it wasn't, Anthea would then be in one of her strict, tight lipped moods, her mouth set in a hard line out of disappointment. It would never good to be on the wrong side of Anthea. But most of the time, she was fine and dandy, a laugh to be during a small tea break at the end of the day.
Olivia half laughed away from the microphone at the realisation of the possibility of work that day, anger bubbling steadily as a headache awoke through her sleep-deprived mind, "but it is a matter of urgency I need to sort before I can open up for business today. There's a confirmation I have to send."
"Right," she urgently responded, running a hand through her hair as she tumbled to the ground to reach for her clothes-covered chair for her work wear, cursing and fuming silently in her thoughts whilst she shrugged the mobile handset between her chin and shoulder to continue talking, "Do you need me to come down to help you out or something now? I can get to you within half an hour-"
"No, no, no, Libby dear. I'm fine. It's about tomorrow and the new filled of position of the job vacancy." Libby breathed out a sigh, collapsing back against the mattress with relief.
"Have you managed to find someone yet then?"
"Yes. Such a lovely chap. Warren I think his name his. If it's okay with you, I need you to supervise him and teach him some of the trade on Monday. I would do it myself, but one of our suppliers has emailed me about a scheduled meeting we arranged from a while back, which I had completely forgotten about, and I can't possibly miss it."
"Oh yeah, sure. Love to. Just the basic running of the shop and the till?"
"And the filing system. Everything I taught you on your first day."
"Remember it all, loud and clear." In her mind, she cussed for she didn't.
"Good. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I wouldn't have asked you if I could be in two places at once."
"I don't mind. A little extra responsibility wouldn't hurt me," Olivia uttered, grinding her teeth with a false grin, even though she knew that her employer couldn't see her.
"That's the ticket. So I'll see you at eight thirty sharp tomorrow all prepped and prepared?"
"Absolutely," she breathed tiredly.
"Bye, dear. I won't intrude you any longer."
"Okay. Bye."
The last word echoed around her room, mirroring her views about the recent events that her slow, sleepy brain was processing. She had an extra workload to do, probably without overtime payment or bonuses. Libby sighed annoying.
'Well my day's ruined and it's not even half eight yet,' she thought sarcastically.
Olivia gently placed her phone back on the side in its original place, before collapsing back onto the covers. She so desperately wanted shut-eye for at least another two hours, to curl up under the sheet and huddle in its warmth. However, she felt too far awake. And she was thirsty for her first cuppa of the morning. So she slowly dragged herself from her soft, comforting bed and plodded downstairs, heading for the kettle in the kitchen. As she leisurely treaded down, Libby began to recall last night's events and why she was so grouchy.
The urge, the stars, the wind, the noise… the shadows.
She remembered how scared she was, yet curious for the adventure, like a character out of a fictional story from the dark pages of a book. How it all felt strange, but excited. Olivia shook her head, desperate to set herself for a new day to sort her stuff around the flat so it didn't look so empty and buy the groceries to survive for the rest of the week. Soon, the flooring changed from the soft, bouncy carpet to the chilled, smooth laminate, alerting her from her thoughts that she had arrived in the lounge.
As she went to grab a large mug from the open cupboard and fetch the espresso coffee jar next to it, Libby heard a mechanical ping from next to the sofa. She turned around to face in that direction, to see the laptop screen locked with a message appearing in the bottom right corner.
'The battery must be dying; I'll charge it up in a minute.'
She took her time stirring the coffee powder into the darkening black, steaming liquid, doing her usual morning pastime of staring out the sunlit street below. It looked like normal. Zero interesting things had seemed to have happened last night; the same black taxi cabs chugging down the road with the hum of pre-lunch drivers, old biddies lumbering along to get their morning paper and a pint of milk for their teas, whilst joggers and dog walkers travelled their traditional route. Nothing had changed.
'Either last night was really stressful and disorientating, or it was a very vivid dream,' Olivia half smiled at the reassurance, sipping her well-needed strong cuppa.
The next item on her agenda was to plonk herself on the large sofa and catch up with the news and weather, scrolling through the channels to skip the annoying, exaggerated advert about cleaning products and dog food. However to her annoyance, the laptop wouldn't stop buzzing. It was like a baby, screaming at her saying, "Notice me, notice me. I need attention! I need ATTENTION!"
After five minutes of constant beeping, Libby gave in trying to listen about how the government were reassessing their political, economic recession status, thumped her half-filled china cup down and took the laptop to her lap, sighing at the contraption's impatience. On her discovery, she realised that the laptop was plugged in and in fact she had a reply to an email she had sent.
'How odd. I don't remember sending the email in the first place.'
When Olivia clicked the conversation and opened up fully on her screen, her eyes grew wide with shock. She was silent as panic had started to set in; the only sounds resonating around the open-planned room were the weirdly distorted voices from the television speakers.
"Shit," she uttered out loud, closing the computer with a slam, then running about, picking cushions, blankets, books and loose DVDs off the floor, shrugging her dressing gown tighter around her with anticipation, "I have an applicant for the lodger coming here in ten minutes."
The next few minutes were a blur of tidying the room, making sure everything was in its rightful spot, checking that the floor, furniture and the kitchen table tops were spotless enough to have guests over without any insulting remarks on cleanliness. Clumsily, she chugged back her bitter coffee, her eyes watering at its sour taste then chucked it in the sink without too much damage to the handle or the thin layer of pottery paint.
Once the whole bottom part of the flat room looked neat and welcoming, she quickly marched over toward the stair door and took in her appearance in the long, tall wall mirror, internally screaming at the sight. She was still in large, lumpy night clothes with bed hair, bags under the eyes from sleep.
Libby promptly pounded up the stairs loudly, yanking back her wardrobe doors to make a rash grab for a simple, near casual stripped shirt and jeans, running a hand through the underwear drawer for the first bra and knickers she could pick up. The bell rang as she was multi-tasking, awkwardly buttoning up her blouse with one hand and brushing her reddish-brown curls with the other.
"I'm coming," Olivia shouted down the stairs, hoping the stranger at the door could hear, "Just hang on a sec."
In response, the bell rang again, long, shrill and firm. She groaned with exasperation, sprinting down the two sets of stairs, sweeping her lengthy hair back behind her shoulders before she turned the handle of door and pulled it open towards her with a hand on her face.
"Alright, alright. I'm sorry that I'm late, but I completely forgot our arrangem-"
Libby stopped abruptly when her eyes finally caught the sight of the person who shuffled uncomfortably on the small step off the tarmac of the pavement.
The guy gave her an expression of both curiosity and confusion as to what she was saying, gripping tightly onto his parcel and the clipboard closer to his florescent orange clad chest that covered his red, smart uniform. It was only the local postman.
"I, um, am here to deliver a package to a Miss Barker?" the small, stout man asked her timidly. Olivia sighed, letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding and then giving the bloke a small smile.
"Er, yes, that's me," she said in the nicest voice she could muster. The postman shyly dropped his gaze as he reluctantly imparted the mail from his grasp to give to her. Once she held it securely in her hands, he loosened his grip on the documents and extended it towards her direction, taking out the pen from his pocket.
"Can you also sign this please?"
She nodded as an answer and accepted the items, gently scrawling her signature on the dotted line of the distribution form.
"Thank you," she stated kindly to the man, handing the equipment back to him. They both forcefully smiled, before he departed and Olivia closed the door to the warm, summery street.
For a few seconds (yet to her, it appeared to be like a lifetime), she leant against the cream, cold wall, gasping steadily and slowly to reduce her rising anxiety of a seeming non-existent guest's arrival. When she felt a little less giddy, she began to head up to her flat to have a desperately desired piece of toast to calm her stomach. As her right foot touched the first of many steps however, she heard the sound of four knocks coming from the door. Thinking that it was the postman again, she carefully turned in the narrow, short corridor and heavily unlocked the scarlet door.
"Hello?"
In front of her confidently stood a seemingly young, tall man with dark, brunette, curly hair cropped freely across his face, contrasting harshly with his white, extremely pale skin, wrapped snugly in his leather jacket and grey hoodie, his hands buried in his navy, denim pockets. His most compelling feature were his eyes, a swirl of grey, blue, green and gold, always changing its pattern when he slightly shifted his stance. He paused, gathering his thoughts, before he spoke in his deep, baritone voice.
"Hi, I'm the applicant who responded to the lodger vacancy you posted a few days ago?"
Realising that her mouth was opened in slight astonishment, Libby quickly closed them, holding out a hand for him to shake as a belated welcome.
"Y-yes, you've come to the right place," she assured him, beaming as she became more comfortably in his presence, providing her a good first impression of him, "I'm Olivia-May Barker, though everyone call me Libby. Please, come in."
Olivia stepped back, letting the gentleman stride through into the hall, before closing the bulky door once more on the now extra busy, bustling street. As she walked around him and led them to the lower section of the flat, she cautiously turned her head towards him.
"I'm sorry if it's a mess. I overslept this morning and nearly forgot about it, which I must admit is not like me," she exclaimed casually, setting him on the sofa then walking to the kitchen for the beverage cupboard. Before he could respond, Libby willingly proceeded with the host's requirements.
"What would like to drink Mr-? Please excuse me, but what was your name again?"
He span squeakily in his seat, chuckling lightly at her question and her befuddled expression, which in turn made the situation less difficult and more relaxed.
"It's okay, don't worry," he foresaid in a friendly manner, "The name is William Scott Lock. Can I have coffee, black, two sugars?"