MONOLITH (9 page)

As Alex Hadley selected the key for his mailbox the same thoughts always went through his mind.

Don’t let there be any bills or any threatening letters.

Sometimes he even said the words out loud as he opened the mailbox to examine the contents. Now he opened the box and peered in, taking the mail from within and glancing at the envelopes there. It seemed to be mostly circulars, junk mail, invitations to furniture sales and local restaurants. If he had a pound for every new takeaway that had opened and sent out its menu he wouldn’t have to work. He shook his head. All bullshit. But that was good, he reasoned. Bullshit was better than bills. Among the envelopes with windows (usually a bad sign) there were a couple that he recognised the return addresses to.

Fuck it. Bills. Some bastard somewhere wanted money from him. Money he didn’t have to spare.

Hadley let out a long breath.

He flicked through the other envelopes making another mental note to check the mailbox more than once a week. That was one of the reasons he had so much mail. He barely looked in the box unless the mood took him. He saw a brown manila one and he swallowed hard and kept that one until last, re-locking the box and beginning his trudge up the stairs towards his flat.

He told himself that the trips he made up and down the steps were good for him. They were the only exercise he got these days so perhaps they actually were. He passed the doors to the other flats; two on each landing, glancing at each one in turn, wondering what was going on behind them. During the time he’d lived here he’d barely said a hundred words to each of his neighbours. The flat directly below him was rented by a young woman who he thought was French. What she did for a living he had no idea, just as he had no idea if she was really French but on the very odd occasions he had passed a few fleeting words with her he thought he’d detected an accent of some sort.

He reached his own landing and looked at the door opposite. Another young woman lived there alone but she was hardly ever in. As with the occupant downstairs, Hadley had spoken briefly to her on occasion but neither had ever thought to ask the other’s name or anything else. As with most people, the extent of the conversation covered the state of the weather and that was it. There was a parcel from Amazon propped against her door and Hadley wondered about taking it in for her. Then he shook his head and decided against it. It wasn’t likely to get stolen where it was. The two couples who lived on the floor above were both decent enough (or so he guessed from the limited words he’d exchanged with them). Professional people he assumed (that term seemed to cover a multitude of sins) and no one from outside could gain access to the small block without a master key anyway. He looked at the parcel one last time then made his way inside his flat, locking it behind him.

Every now and then there was a story in the news about how someone living in a flat had died and not been found for months and always people expressed their shock and surprise at how this could have happened but Hadley knew only too well how it could happen. People simply didn’t cross paths the way they used to. They didn’t bump into each other every day. Barely spoke because they were in a hurry to get work or somewhere. No one had a sense of community any more. That was how people died in fucking flats and rotted away for months with just their starving cats chewing their faces off. London, as with any big city, was one of the loneliest places in the world if you were alone. And up until a couple of years ago Hadley had rejoiced in that fact. He spoke to the people he wanted to speak to back then. He picked who he conversed with. Now he would have given anything just to have stopped for a chat with someone.

How times change.

He flicked on the lights and wandered into the living area, dropping the circulars and junk mail into the waste bin then he finally came to the brown envelope at the bottom of the pile.

Satisfied that it wasn’t from the Tax Office he looked at the envelope more closely.

There was a crest in the top left hand corner. The word HOSPITAL was printed beneath it.

Hadley swallowed hard and tore open the envelope, his eyes scanning the letter within.

‘Oh Christ,’ he murmured as he read, the colour draining from his cheeks.

He read and re-read the letter then folded it up, replaced it in the envelope and slipped it into his inside pocket.

Out of sight out of mind? If only.

He sat in the room for long moments gazing at the blank TV screen and listening to the sounds of traffic from outside then he got slowly to his feet. He thought about making a cup of tea, wished he drank so he could have consumed something stronger then decided that tea was the best option. At least the physical act of making it would kill a few minutes.

As he walked through into the kitchen he pulled the brown manila envelope from his pocket and dropped it onto the small and crowded worktop while he filled the kettle, dropped a teabag into a mug and retrieved the milk from the fridge. He muttered under his breath when he noticed that the container and the fluid inside weren’t as cold as they should be. Fucking fridge was on the blink now he reasoned. Something else that didn’t work properly and would need money to fix. He shook his head, his gaze drawn to the brown envelope once more.

His eye alighted again on the word HOSPITAL.

He clenched his teeth together until his jaws ached.

Jess had always found the buzz of conversation within the office strangely conducive to creativity. She preferred to have noises around her when she was working rather than the silence preferred by many in her trade and those who made their livings by producing articles or works even grander. The constant hum of chat and the ringing of phones seemed to focus her mind rather than cause distraction. Even when she was working from home she invariably had music or the TV on in the background. Something there to produce the sort of mental proddings she found so necessary to work.

Now she sat back in her chair and glanced around the office at some of her colleagues, the source of the background noise and the conversational muzak Jess craved so badly. There were three men gathered around one desk, all of them in their mid-thirties and all talking animatedly and a little too loudly. At another desk she saw one of her older colleagues glancing up occasionally with a look on her face that could best be described as disapproving. Each time the men’s conversation grew too loud she would tut to herself and shake her head as if those simple gestures would cause the men to stop. They didn’t.

Jess looked back at her own computer screen. There were several different coloured post-its stuck to the edges of the screen, each one intended to remind her to perform a task. One even said FOUR PINTS OF MILK. Jess took that one, balled it up and threw it into her waste bin. It landed on top of the pile of overflowing rubbish that was already there and toppled off onto the floor. Jess wondered if she should write herself a post-it saying EMPTY BIN.

She smiled to herself and got to her feet, fumbling in her handbag for her purse and pulling out some loose change. Armed with this she headed towards the door at the end of the large open plan office and through it to the vending machine beyond.

There were two more of her colleagues standing close to the machine talking quietly and both turned and smiled when they saw Jess approaching.

‘Hey, you,’ said the first of them, a tall dark haired woman with a long nose and high cheekbones.

Jess reached out and touched the woman’s arm warmly.

‘And how are things in the world of fashion?’ she said, smiling.

‘Oh darling,’ said the woman adopting an exaggeratedly affected accent. ‘They’re fabulous as ever. I’m off to New York fashion week in a couple of days.’

Jess grinned.

‘Want some company?’ she asked.

‘I’ve already volunteered,’ the other person standing by the vending machine said. He was in his early forties, his hair straight and black and hanging limply as far as his collar. He peered at her from behind a pair of expensive spectacles that made his watery blue eyes appear huge.

‘What about you, Clive,’ Jess asked. ‘What are you up to?’

‘A couple of film festivals in Europe,’ Clive Garston told her. ‘I’m interviewing some directors too.’

‘It seems like everyone but me is jetting off somewhere,’ Jess said shrugging her shoulders and feeding coins into the vending machine. She selected the button marked hot chocolate and waited while the plastic cup dropped into view.

‘I’m sure you’ve got plenty of interesting stuff to do here,’ the woman said reassuringly. She sipped her coffee and watched as Jess also selected a couple of bars of chocolate from the machine and unwrapped the first one as soon as it fell.

‘You make me sick,’ Carrie Morgan said watching as Jess munched the chocolate. ‘You eat like a bloody horse and you never put any weight on. I’d only have to look at that chocolate and my thighs would expand to the size of zeppelins.’

‘A second on the lips a lifetime on the hips,’ Garston said. ‘That’s what they say isn’t it?’

Jess grinned and looked at Carrie.

‘You’re not exactly in need of a gastric band yet,’ she said smiling and admiring the older woman’s immaculate figure.

‘I probably will be by the time I get back from New York,’ Carrie said. ‘It’s all lunches, dinners and shows.’

‘Oh you poor cow,’ Jess snorted. ‘Excuse me while I get my violin out.’

‘Isn’t it nice to see someone who suffers for their profession,’ Garston added sarcastically.

‘Oh fuck you,’ Carrie said. ‘All you’ll be doing for two weeks is sitting in bloody cinemas watching films. A film critic is hardly in a position to criticise a fashion correspondent when it comes to hard work.’

‘I do a bit more than just sit and watch films,’ Garston said, flatly. ‘I’m working on a book too.’

‘Isn’t everyone?’ Jess added, smiling and the two women laughed. Jess reached for her hot chocolate when the cup was full, sipping at the thick brown liquid, blowing on the surface when she realised how hot it was.

‘What are you working on, Jess?’ Carrie asked.

‘A piece about Andrei Voronov and the Crystal Tower,’ Jess informed her.

‘Good luck,’ Garston grunted.

‘Well it’s not so much about Voronov; it’s more to do with the amount of accidents that have happened there since they started building the place,’ Jess said. ‘It’s like a war zone the casualties are so high. There was another accident yesterday. A guy was killed.’

‘You’ll never get near Voronov,’ Garston said. ‘He makes Howard Hughes look like a party animal.’

‘I know,’ Jess said. ‘Not exactly welcoming to members of the press is he?’

‘He was married to a Russian model before he moved to London wasn’t he?’ Carrie offered, smiling.

Jess nodded. ‘He’s got a couple of grown up kids from one of his earlier marriages. They both work for him. He married some French actress about three months ago. The ceremony was held on one of his yachts.’

‘He never goes to premieres or the usual round of social gatherings. He doesn’t want to be seen and he’s pretty secretive about his family,’ Garston went on. ‘No one knows much about him.’

‘Alex Hadley seems to know a fair bit,’ Jess offered.

Carrie looked fixedly at her for a moment.

‘How do you know?’ she enquired.

‘I bumped into him the other night,’ Jess explained. ‘We went for a drink.’

‘Where?’ Garston grunted. ‘The nearest Salvation Army H.Q?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Jess snapped.

‘Well come on, Jess, Hadley’s nothing now is he?’ Garston said. ‘How long’s he been out of the business? Two years? Longer?’

‘He still works freelance,’ Jess said.

‘What do you say to Alex Hadley if you see him in McDonalds?’ Garston chuckled. ‘Cheeseburger and small fries please.’ He laughed.

Jess regarded him angrily, her eyes narrowing.

‘He was a good journalist,’ she said. ‘He still is.’

‘If he’s that good he’d be working for a paper, wouldn’t he?’ Garston countered.

Jess held his gaze but said nothing.

‘How is he?’ Carrie enquired.

Jess continued to glare at Garston for a moment longer then she turned to face the older woman.

‘He’s ok,’ she said, curtly. ‘Considering.’

‘Considering he’s out of work you mean?’ Garston interjected.

‘Oh fuck you, Clive,’ Jess snapped. ‘What happened to Alex could happen to any of us.’

‘Bullshit,’ Garston sneered. ‘He was an arrogant bastard. He wouldn’t change, he couldn’t adapt so he went under. Survival of the fittest and all that.’

‘And you love it, don’t you?’ Jess countered. ‘You never liked him.’

‘The feeling was mutual, I think,’ Carrie added. ‘He did think you were a dickhead. He told me that.’

‘Well, I’m the one with a job and he’s not, so who’s the biggest dickhead now?’ Garston said, defiantly.

‘Oh fuck you, it isn’t a competition,’ Jess snapped, turning away.

‘It’s always a competition, Jess,’ he called after her. ‘Life’s a competition and Hadley lost.’

Jess raised her middle finger in the direction of the older man.

‘I’ll tell Alex you send your regards when I speak to him,’ she said, turning the corner so she was out of sight of her colleagues. ‘I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed you still think so highly of him.’

Carrie looked at Garston and shook her head.

‘You couldn’t just let it go, could you?’ she said, flatly.

‘Fuck him,’ Garston sneered. ‘And fuck her too.’

‘In your dreams, Clive,’ Carrie said and she too walked away.

Garston watched her go.