Chapter Five
Martin looked out the window of the back upstairs room—his writing room. The house didn’t seem as far out of the city as the first time. From the outside, as they drove away from it, the city seemed smaller, not bigger. Alison’s flat seemed squashed, layered with a grime which could never be removed, just the build-up of so much living. It was as if the city was encased in a plastic dome, filtering the light of the sun, only letting through enough light essential for survival.
Outside the dome, in the open country, the light was fuller, more vital. The air moved differently, it didn’t feel like it was recycled. It wasn’t heavy with smells and sounds of the street, it moved over the fields and through the trees around the estate and then it blew on, further away, followed by fresh winds and new air.
From the back bedroom window Martin could see the fields beyond the red brick estate. On a hill in the distance was the edge of a forest; the trees were dark and thick and covered the brow of the hill. At the other corner of the window, away on the other hill in the distance, stood four wind turbines, their propellers spinning, their thick white trunks jutting out of the hillside like the inner machinery of the earth revealed. When the clouds moved, Martin could see their shadows move across the hillsides like giant ghosts moving silently over the land.
When they moved in Martin only had a suitcase of clothes, a bag of books, and a laptop. Alison had boxes and boxes of clothes, toiletries, property magazines, office papers, ornaments, and her favourite dish set. It seemed like a lot when they had packed it, but when they got it in to the new house, the boxes made a little pyramid in the middle of the front room, taking up hardly any space at all. They had so little that it only took them a day to move in their furniture, unpack, and arrange everything.
Martin planned to bring his table from his bedsit to write on, but Alison offered to buy him a new one as a housewarming present and he accepted. He only stepped into his old bedsit to empty the wardrobe and the bookshelf. It took him five minutes, and then he closed the door and walked down the iron steps into Alison’s car. She looked surprised.
“One bag?”
“That’s it,” said Martin.
“Are you leaving anything behind?”
“No. Just a past that doesn’t want to be remembered.”
She started the car and pulled away. “So poetic. Still, though. One bag?”
* * *
Thanks to Alison’s position at the property agents they were the first to move in. The estate was finished and the trucks and diggers were gone. On that first night, neither of them could sleep, so Martin and Alison got out of their new bed and walked around the empty New Acre Estate. It felt like a film set, unused, unreal. It still could be dismantled and taken away, and another scene set up. The moon was bright and the sky was clear and the street lights were on, shining just for them. It was just them and their shadows moving through the brand new streets.
They chased each other like children and shouted Hello! down the road, listening to the echo roll and bounce around. They walked down each identical cul-de-sac, and Alison said how easy it was to imagine that they were the only two left, that the world was deserted except for them. Martin said he was getting cold and they headed back to their house.
It did feel like time had stood still, like they were outside of the normal laws of the world. They had not heard a single sound besides their own voices.
When they got back to number eleven and closed the door Martin was glad to be inside. He could relax. He had become nervous outside. The black windows, without curtains or lights had the pattern of faces looking at him as he passed. There was something inside the houses, just out of sight. The darkness within the empty houses was swollen and alive.
Over the days and weeks that followed, the houses filled with couples and families, and the darkness was pushed from the houses and streets, forced further and further back into the fields and hills behind the estate. He watched the vans filled with possessions unload as the streams of people’s lives ran to identical doors. Furniture was tilted and squeezed through doorways, appliances were flipped on, boxes opened and unpacked.
Martin watched all of this from the upstairs window. Neighbours did not come out and help or greet the newcomers. No-one called next door to say hello and introduce themselves. They unpacked their cars and emptied the removal vans, then went inside and closed the door. At night, no-one walked outside. The furthest anyone would walk was to the door of their car. All of the lives on the New Acre Estate were being lived behind closed doors, tucked safely into the new houses on the hillside.
Martin continued to write the story of Gregor Alskev. Every day Alison caught the train into the city and he filled the computer screen with words. He didn’t have to clear away his notes or shut down his computer when Alison came home, he just moved downstairs and spent the evening with her. Gregor Alskev stayed up in the writing room.
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