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Flat 1
In the shadows across the street was the biggest dog Michael had ever seen. A stray, probably, judging by the lack of collar and ungroomed fur, with powerful looking mandibles, muscles coiled in its hind legs, and sharp teeth in its maw.
Above all else, there was a strange sort of intelligence in its dark eyes. It stared at the door of the building, unmoving, despite the stifling heat. Weren’t dogs supposed to pant or something?
Michael closed his book and looked closer, trying to see clearly in the dark. It was hard, though, with the way the dog stayed firmly in the long shadows.
Maybe he was seeing things. Michael rubbed his eyes—he’d barely slept in the past week and he’d heard stories about how when people went too long without proper rest they’d start to get loony.
And Michael could never get any rest of quiet at his place.
The Wu flat was already packed before Michael’s parents went ahead and decided to have another kid. In all honesty, he had no clue what the fuck they were thinking—they only had two bedrooms, of which Michael and John already shared one. Where was Julie supposed to sleep?
Michael supposed his parents figured that John would be moving out in a year or two, and after that, he and Julie would bunk together, but he didn’t fancy that.
So, since the spring when Julie was born, he’d taken to tucking his book under his arm and posting up under the awning of the restaurant next door. The owner, Mr. Huang, took pity on him (at least Michael suspected he did) and didn’t clear him off.
It might not’ve been the perfect silence he was looking for, but the steady hum of the people filtering past and clatter of dishes from the restaurant were better than Julie’s sharp cries and John yapping away on the phone with his girlfriend.
At first, he had to bundle up in thick jumpers and, once, even mittens. But as the spring warmed into summer, he could sit for hours with his books, just pulling his knobby knees up to his chest and disappearing into the pages.
Come winter, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Autumn might be decent if he bought some wool socks and a hat, but he couldn’t keep it up forever.
Michael sighed and flipped the page of The Great Gatsby. In the heavy heat of an August night, winter seemed a distant dream. How could the world ever be cold? Sweat clung to Michael’s brow, the people passing by on the street seemed deflated, all sunken with sloped shoulders and frizzy hair as they wilted in the heat. At night, when Michael finally had no choice but to return to his room, he’d lay on top of his blankets, counting the lines in the ceiling and he listened to John’s snores and the hum of the fan that did little to stave off the stifling layer of hot air.
Michael rubbed his forehead, flicking away sweat, and read on: I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
It was all a bit pretentious, in Michael’s opinion. The whole novel was—these rich arseholes didn’t know how good they had it. All they did was drink and party and feel sorry for themselves.
Still. Michael didn’t mind the narrator, Nick Carraway, out of the whole lot of them. Maybe it was something about the way he was always on the sidelines of the action, observing everything, but never completely part of it. He felt that way at school, sometimes.
He even felt that way at home, especially now, with baby Julie and with John off to do great things, he was just… there, sitting on the street, listening to street lamps' buzz and watching his apartment block.
Over the few months he’d been out here, he’d quickly become knowledgeable in all the happenings of the block. Edith in eight would’ve loved to hear it all—she was always offering him tea and sweets, undoubtedly meant to be an exchange for his gossip.
She was a shrewd old biddy, Michael would give her that. How she got most of her information, he didn’t know, but she certainly had a sharp eye.
And, in terms of sources, Michael probably would be a good one to have. Sitting outside like this, he caught all the comings and goings of the block of apartments: Paul Leung, who lived next door, was cheating on his girlfriend; Lan Sung at the end of the hall always left her flat before half eight; the strange blokes in nine came and went at all hours. Of everyone, Michael knew the least about nine. The unit had been sold back in July and since then he’d seen people come and go once or twice, but no one seemed to be living there until last week. Who bought a flat and let it sit empty?
His mum said they might be real estate investors of some description, but Michael thought they were too unkempt for that—they couldn’t have been more than two years older than John and looked in need of hair cuts. Maybe they were rich and wanted a flat to crash in after nights out in the city.
“Maybe they’re MI6,” John had said to him after Michael shared his theory. “Spying on us, y’know?”
“Shuddup.” Michael shot a glare in his direction and stormed outside after that.
Michael was sure he’d figure out the situation eventually. They hadn’t been there long. And besides, he was more interested in other things. Like right now, Paul was coming down the street, that same shifty look in his eyes that he had whenever he was out with another woman.
Michael watched him over the top of his book. Paul seemed drunk, on top of it all, if his uneven gait was anything to go off of. As he pushed open the entrance door, something caught Michael’s eye.
The dog was on the move, stalking Paul in the shadows. Michael set down his book, his heart rate picking up. He’d never liked dogs, not after John had told him about how the stray ones could be rabid and no one—not even the best scientists on earth—could help you if one decided to bite you.
And the dog slipped into the building on Paul's heels as the door swung shut.
No, no, no. That wouldn’t do. Michael creased the page of his book, tucked it under his arm, and clamoured to his feet. He didn’t need some bloody stray wandering around.
But when he walked in the entranceway, the dog wasn’t there. Michael cocked his head and listened—soft steps echoed from the stairs. Michael went to investigate.
Sure enough, he caught a flash of a black tail as the dog disappeared around the bend in the stairs. Michael followed after it, taking the steps two at a time.
But when he reached the third floor, the dog wasn’t there, either. The only thing he heard was the door to flat nine slamming.
Maybe it wasn’t a stray then—maybe it belonged to whoever lived there. If it did, Michael was surprised. The walls of this place did little to dampen sound, and he’d never heard so much as a bark.
He took one final look up and down the hall, but there wasn’t even so much as a trace of mud on the titles that glowed in the din of the light.
***
Two weeks later, as the muggy August gave way to a rainy September day, Michael saw the blokes from flat nine coming in as he was leaving for school. Where they’d been so early, he couldn’t guess. If anything, it looked like they’d been out the whole night, not that they were early risers.
“Hullo,” said the taller of the two—the one with the dark blond hair and sallow skin.
Next to him, the one with the shaggy dark hair nodded by way of greeting.
“Hi,” Michael said as he waited for them to pass in the doorway. He hesitated, not knowing if it was his place, but decided he should say something. “Err, so you have a dog?”
The tall one stopped at the base of the stairs and turned. “What?”
“The other day—I saw your dog.”
“Oh?” He turned to the dark-haired one and raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize he’d been out.”
“Yeah.” Michael adjusted his bag; the weight of all his textbooks was going to give him back problems. “He seems well trained and all, but the landlord doesn’t allow animals.” Last summer, Lan tried to hide a kitten in her place and ended up owing fifty quid.
“I’ll deal with it,” said the dark-haired one, his voice full of amusement.
“I won’t snitch or anything! Just thought you should know.”
“Of course.” The two looked at each other, deep in some conversation that they had entirely with the quirks of their lips and rises of their eyebrows.
“Thanks for mentioning it,” said the blond.
And, with that, they took off up the stairs.
Michael still saw the dog from time to time. But it never made a noise and the landlord never found it, despite his eagle eyes.
The two of them must’ve been good at keeping secrets.
Flat 2
Jia had been saving the last of her weed for a special occasion. And, she supposed, May 4th, 1979 definitely qualified as a special occasion. Or maybe an emergency was a better way to describe it.
Either way. She needed to turn her brain off for a few hours.
Paul hated the smell weed left behind, so even though he was working late (again), Jia flicked off the telly, pulled her hair back, wrapped herself in an old denim jacket, and headed outside.
It was spring, now, and the trees were coming out in full, but the night still held a chill that struck Jia in the chest and buffeted her core.
Or maybe it only felt like it did. Maybe that hollow ache at the centre of herself came from somewhere else. It took her two tries to the light the spliff, but when she did she took a slow drag in of the smoke and stared at the lights twinkling in the windows of the flats and shops along Gerrard Street.
“You alright?”
Jia snapped her head to the side. Standing next to her was the lanky bloke who lived on the third floor. It had been months since she’d last seen him—and at that, it was only a quick hello as she grabbed the post—but the months hadn’t been kind to him. He was even thinner than he’d been before, and now his bones stuck out in sharp angles against his skin. His face, too, seemed hollow; dark bags hung under his eyes and his cheekbones were sharp, but not in the way that models had defined cheekbones. Instead, he looked as if someone had sucked years out of his life in a short window of time. Which, Jia thought, might’ve been true.
She blew out the smoke in a stream, wishing not for the first time she could make rings like her boyfriend in university had been able to. She briefly thought of giving him a ring (he was Irish, after all, and would certainly have some choice words) but decided against it. “‘m fine. You?”
He nodded. “Fine.”
Jia held the spliff out to him. “Guess we’re both ‘fine’, then.”
For a moment, he looked at her as if he couldn’t decide what to think.
“It’s just weed, you know. I didn’t lace it with coke or anything.”
“Didn’t know you could do that.”
Jia shuddered. “Don’t recommend it.”
Her neighbour took the spliff and took a deep drag. God knew he looked like he needed it. “I’m Remus by the way.”
“Jia.”
They stood outside the building in silence, smoking and listening to the buzz of the night. When the joint burnt so low that Jia couldn’t hold it without singeing her fingers, she crushed it under the heel of her boot, grinding it into the stone of the street.
“Cheers,” she said, “it’s been a night.”
“How come?”
Jia eyed him. “You seriously don’t know?”
He shrugged and cast his eyes down. “Been dealing with some, err, personal stuff lately. Been a bit tuned out.”
“Thatcher won.”
“Ah, fuck. Seriously?”
“Yeah.” Jia dug her hands deep in her pockets. “Sometimes I wonder, you know? About the future and everything.”
“Me too.”
“In school, they always taught us history as if it were this march forward. I mean, we’ve got men on the moon and vaccines for polio. But lately, I can’t help but think we’re sliding back.”
Remus nodded along with her words. “Dunno if anywhere is ever as progressive as it claims.”
“Maybe. Maybe we were never really moving forward. Maybe ‘s all just a spiral—we just keep rehashing the same shite over and over.” Tonight, talking to Remus, Jia felt as if they could solve all the world’s problems. Or—if not solve them—at least bring them to light.
“Maybe.” The corner’s of Remus’s mouth pulled down, dragging the corner of a faded scar down with them. “Hope not.”
“Me too. Paul always says I should be more optimistic. Bit hard, though, when the world’s going to the dogs.”
“You can say that again.” He shook his head. “I switch back and forth. Sometimes everything seems dark. Other days, I think I can actually make a difference. At the very least, I think I need to keep trying.”
“Maybe that’s all we can do: try.”
“We can’t just let them have their way. Not without a fight.”
Jia nodded in agreement. Not without a fight.
Flat 4
The record shop, in Lan’s opinion, was the best place in the world. She loved everything about it, from the way that it smelled of dust, to the peeling paint, to the creak of the floorboards under her shoes.
She could’ve easily spent half her life (and half her money) in one. But she had a job as a secretary to keep down and rent to pay and groceries to buy and ageing parents. What else was new?
Still, she stole away whenever she could. The one only a ten-minute walk from her place usually sold used records for only a few pounds and, if she got there earlier enough, she could find some treasures among the piles of shite.
On a bright Sunday in October, she got there not long after it opened. The owner, a stocky man named Tom, gave her a small wave as she entered.
Lan closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she welcomed the familiar feeling. After, her hands always felt slight grimy, but she wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Today, the shop was quiet, as it usually was on Sunday mornings. Most people were too hungover from Saturday, she supposed, to go record shopping—there were only a few people idly browsing the rows of records.
Lan didn’t bother with any of the new releases, they were always too expensive. She made her way in a beeline toward the used section in the back corner. The records there weren’t neatly displayed; Tom kept them all in boxes after boxes, piled on and under tables and stacked in rows. The search was the price of finding a gem. Once, she’d uncovered Bowie’s first album tucked inside a sleeve of Bing Crosby.
Lan never had anything specific in mind when she started her search. She believed in the serendipity of it all—what she needed would find its way to her.
As she started thumbing through the box wedged in the corner, under a flickering light, she realized the bloke to her left was vaguely familiar. She watched them out of the corner of her eye.
“Hey. Moony,” he called across the store and held up a record that Lan couldn’t see. “How ‘bout this one, eh?”
The other man—Moony, apparently—wrinkled his nose. “You know how I feel about Meatloaf.”
“You’re a snob.”
“Proudly.”
Lan glanced over in earnest. She could’ve smacked herself—how did she not notice? She’d spent long enough hoping to catch another glance of those dreamy blue eyes and that crooked grin after they’d first moved in. Of course, that was before she’d realized she’d been thick. Flat nine had one bedroom.
Even with the obvious aside, Lan knew it would never work. She was fairly certain they were involved in some… questionable activities. She wasn’t a snitch—not by any measure—but that whole lifestyle wasn’t for her. Neither of them seemed to hold down any sort of steady job and once she’d heard them muttering about smuggling cigarettes while she waited for her food at Huang’s restaurant.
She sighed and at that moment, the one with the sandy hair—and Lan realized she had no idea what their names were, even though they’d lived in the same building a year and a half—caught her eye. Her cheeks warmed. She’d been staring at his boyfriend.
“Hello,” Lan said, trying to save face. “I’m Lan—apartment four.”
“Knew you looked familiar,” said the bloody gorgeous one. He pushed his hair back and smiled. “I’m Sirius and that there is Remus.”
He nodded, but didn’t look entirely happy. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.” Lan paused. “So you’re a Meatloaf fan?”
“Dunno if I’d say I’m a fan, but he certainly brings back some good memories,” said Sirius. “How ‘bout you?”
Lan wrinkled her nose. “Can’t say he’s my favourite.”
“Who is, then?” asked Remus, his frown having lightened up.
“Probably Fleetwood Mac.”
“Ah, good choice.”
“You a fan?”
“I like them, even if Remus isn’t wild.”
“Hey.” Remus straightened up. “I like them. They’re just not my favourite, you know?”
“Fair enough.” Lan shrugged and, as an old memory came back to her, she smiled. “A few years back I worked at a chippy on the weekends, just to make ends meet. Told them my name was Stevie.”
Both Sirius and Remus laughed at that, so Lan hoped that any ill-feelings were forgotten.
“There are worse idols than Stevie Nicks, I’ll give you that,” said Remus.
Lan nodded in agreement. “Besides, have you heard the rumours about her?”
“Can’t say I have,” replied Sirius, “we’ve not exactly been paying the most attention to the music scene lately—or the news at all, for that matter.”
“What are they saying about her?”
Lan smiled. She couldn’t know how true the stories were, but it was certainly an interesting idea to consider. She leaned closer and mock whispered: “Stevie Nicks is a witch.”
Lan had only thought it was a fun story, but judging by the other two’s reactions, she might as well have told them Nicks was dead.
“There’s no such thing as witches,” Sirius said, rather fast. “They’re just a myth.”
Lan laughed. “What, you don’t believe in magic? Not at all?”
Sirius shot a look at Remus, who then answered the question. “More scientists, we are.”
“Have it your way, then. Dunno how else you’d explain how good they are.”
Flat 6
Huang had owned the restaurant next to his flat for coming up on fifteen years. He’d wanted to get the shop right under where he lived, but the timing of it all hadn’t worked out.
When the unit finally did get put up for lease, he didn’t see the point in moving everything one door over. So the restaurant stayed and his flat stayed and he got used to it this way.
Over the years, he’d seen his share of familiar faces: students who lived in the area that needed hot food when drunk and during finals; businessmen from Hong Kong who searched for a slice of home; the tired parents who came off long shifts and needed something to fill their guts.
He’d seen his neighbours, too. He could never be sure if they came because they liked the food or out of guilt at the mere thought of being seen getting Chinese somewhere else, but they came all the same. Lan who still looked fifteen at twenty-five always ordered shrimp bao. Paul and Jia would argue over whether to get BBQ pork or roast duck and, inevitably, would end up ordering some sort of noodle dish that Huang doubted made either of them happy. Even old Edith still made her way down to pick up veggie noodle soup—not that long ago, when her late husband Wei was still around, she would’ve picked up an order of marinated chicken and fried rice, too.
Even the blokes in flat nine were semi-regular faces; he could count on them to pick up food every few weeks.
Once a month, the one with the shaggy hair, Black, would come in and order dinner for six. Huang knew how much young men could eat (he remembered well himself) but even still he did a poor job hiding his shock the first time Black told that they weren’t having anyone else over for a meal, that all the food was for the two of them.
It went on like that, for a few years. Once a month Black would come in and order the massive helping of food and smile at him as he walked out.
Over time, he started missing some months. His visits became more and more infrequent. He’d skip months at a time. The smile disappeared. He looked older, more worn.
Huang couldn’t pin-point exactly when he stopped coming in, but it was a rainy day in January when he realized that Black hadn’t come for months.
He never did see him again.
Flat 7
Ru was proud to say she was a member of the UK chapter of Antiquitarian Horologists—which, really, was just a fancy way of saying that she fixed old clocks. She liked the way it sounded though; she liked telling people what she did and watching them try to hide the fact they didn’t know what that was.
Sometimes, though, she’d find a good one. Someone who’d ask her what that meant. Those times were even better, because Ru would get to explain that she fixed antique clocks. She’d tell them all about the ways the gears fit together, the way they ticked and chimed and broke. In some ways, she fancied herself a type of surgeon. One needed a delicate hand for both operations.
But all hearts ticked the same, more or less. Each clock was it’s own beast—no two makers shaped their masterpiece in the same way. Some favoured smaller gears with teeth smaller than grains of sand. In her living room, Ru kept the old grandfather clock that had been in her family over a hundred years, and that giant one needed to be wound twice a day, but kept time perfectly down to fractions of a second and would chime with a clear ring that reminded her of the bells of St. Peter’s.
Over the years she’d lived here, what started as a hobby overtook her life. Every surface of her flat was covered in spare parts or tools that must’ve made her look like a lock pick or paints and polishes. She’d even made it her career, which she couldn’t have been happier about. It paid better than teaching ever did, and she got to spend her days getting broken things to tick once more.
Part of the fun wasn’t just fixing the clocks, part of the fun of it all was seeing how they broke, though she’d never admit that. She was certain that Charles Smythe, the chapter president, would consider it nothing short of heresy if she confessed to finding something beautiful about the broken clocks. To him, it was a tragedy to see a fine piece of timekeeping instrumentation broken.
To Ru, it was brilliant. The clocks and watches didn’t break on their own; time alone was usually kind to the pieces.
People broke them.
Not on purpose, usually. Sometimes, they’d overwind their favourite watch because they wanted it to keep them on track through the next weeks. A beloved cat would claw at the side of a grandfather clock. Glass would crack when someone tried to move it out of the reach of a toddler.
This wasn’t a tragedy, in Ru’s opinion. This was life. Wasn’t it beautiful that people cared enough that they wanted to fix their broken things?
Which was exactly why Ru felt the need to comment when she saw Remus, the bloke across the hall—who’d looked bloody awful lately—staring sadly at a golden pocketwatch. She only learned his name because the postman had accidentally stuck a postcard meant for him in her box, once. Aside from that, they’d hardly swapped words.
In the din of the streetlamp, he looked nearly like a ghost, pale that he was. A cigarette hung loosely in his mouth and a ratty gold and red scarf looped around his neck. He ran his thumb over the back, which was embossed with a swirling pattern that Ru couldn’t quite make out at a distance.
“It’s beautiful,” she said and shifted her shopping in her arms like a baby. She didn’t need the bottom bursting through, she’d already paid enough for those tomatoes and didn’t fancy them smashed.
Remus snapped it shut and tucked it into his pocket. His face reddened deep into his cheeks and down into his neck.
Ru hadn’t meant to embarrass the poor boy (though he could hardly be called a boy now; he must’ve easily been in his early twenties) but it seemed as if he’d thought he was alone. Which wasn’t a bad assumption. The street was quiet that night and light snow had started, the flakes dry and distant and catching the lights from the street like stars.
“It’s broken,” he said.
Ru couldn’t stop her face from lighting up. “Have I ever told you what I do?”
He was good, she could tell. He gave her a wan smile as she explained. What better luck could he have? A broken clock and one of the few people in the whole country who could fix it.
“The thing is,” he said, “I’m not sure you can.”
“Special make?”
“You could say that.”
Ru paused. The weight of her groceries had started to grow heavy in her arms, but she didn’t mind. “Do you know anything about its origin?” Different eras had different traditions—if he had a rough idea of when it was made, she might be able to slip into the mindset of whoever had crafted it.
But Remus only shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t.” He flicked the ash off his fag. “It was a gift. And the people who gave it to me… well, they’re not around anymore.”
“Oh.” Ru deflated. She shouldn’t have pried. “I’m so sorry.”
“‘S not your fault,” he said glumly. He paused for a moment, his eyes glassy and staring up at the snow and dark sky. Nights like this, when the cloud cover was low and the snow fell, all of London held a warm glow.
“You can have it,” Remus said. He reached into his pocket, fished it out, and placed it in Ru’s palm. His long fingers were cool against her skin. “Not all the memories that come with it are exactly good. I’d only end up tossing it, in the end.”
That, Ru thought, that would be the real tragedy. She closed her fingers around the gold. “Are you certain?”
“You can sell it if you ever manage to fix it. Or keep tinkering with it forever. ‘S up to you.”
Ru only nodded, her face suddenly warm too.
***
Ru had no intention of keeping the watch, beautiful as it was even with the gold tarnished and the clock not ticking. She truly had no idea who crafted it, but whoever it was, they were a genius and an artist. On top of the pearly glow and vine carvings, the other face of the watch held a compass (though that appeared broken too).
Overall, though, nothing on the outside looked to be damaged. The glass was smooth and uncracked and there wasn’t so much as a dent on the case.
When Ru opened it up, she realized the inside was a different story. It looked as if a bomb had gone off inside—the mainspring had unwound, the setting jumper was split in two with a jagged crack, the crown was severed from the rest of the inner workings. Ru imaged this must be how a detective would feel when first arriving at a crime scene. The damage was nearly overwhelming; where could she even start to pinpoint what went wrong?
Carefully, she removed the pieces. Her desk was already littered with screws and wheels as it was, but she set all of these into a small container to keep them separate from the rest.
She cracked her knuckles—a habit her mother had always hated—adjusted her glasses and got to work.
It took Ru the better part of the month to repair the damage. Even sorting out what parts were still fine and what parts needed to be replaced took a few days of work. Then she had to measure and order in the new parts, which she couldn’t even be sure would fit. In all her years, she’d never seen anything like this model. The craftsmanship was fine, but it was also distinct and unlike the common models she’d seen. This piece wasn’t even an antique, but Ru couldn't think of anyone in the UK, or Europe for that matter, who did work like this. Maybe she could ring up that Swiss horologist she’d met at a lecture last year—she might have a clue.
When the first mainspring that Ru ordered didn’t fit, she half debated swallowing her pride and knocking on Charles Smythe’s office door. But she wasn’t that desperate yet.
Once, when she’d first started, she’d heard the paradox of the Ship of Thesus and it fascinated her to no end: how many parts of a watch could one replace before it was no longer the original? Could you replace the entire inner workings of a timepiece and still claim it was the same as before?
When Ru was younger, the question bothered her more than it did now. If one was fixing clocks for museums, she supposed the historical authenticity was still something that one should pay heed to. For her, she no longer let it trouble her work. People, she thought, couldn’t hold onto nostalgic ideas of glorious pasts if they wanted to function in the present. What was more valuable: a completely authentic Victorian clock that lay broken in an attic or a timepiece with new glass and a modern fourth wheel sitting in the centre of a mantlepiece, where everyone could see it? Ru knew what she would pick every time.
She hoped Remus saw it the same way. Maybe he wouldn’t, she supposed. After all, he’d had the broken watch for a long while it seemed and was willing to toss it aside without too much of a second thought.
But after several long and frustrating nights, Ru heard that first satisfying tick. She smiled to herself; this had been one of her most challenging projects, though she was never one to back down from a challenge. In the end, she had to replace nearly half of the inner workings. Strangest of all, she had to add a sliding pinon, as it didn’t appear there was ever one in the first place. She had no clue how he would’ve wound the spring—it shouldn’t have ticked at all, the way that it was. But it had and it did and, now, it ticks again.
Everything was as it should be.
***
Ru knocked on Remus’s door that night. It took him a minute to answer, and several thuds sounded from inside before the hinges creaked as it swung open.
“Here you are,” Ru said, holding the timepiece out to him.
Remus only stared. Again, he looked rough. His face was sallow, his hair uncombed, a good week’s worth of unkempt stubble clung to his jaw. “Err, what?”
“Your watch—I fixed it. Gave me a right time, too, but I got it going in the end.”
Remus’s hand shook as he accepted the watch. The gold now shone in the soft light and, as he opened it, the clear glass reflected his face. The satisfying and clear ticks of the second hand rang through the hall. Remus’s mouth parted, but he said nothing.
“Couldn’t get the compass going,” Ru confessed. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
Remus shook his head slowly as he turned over the pocketwatch in his hand. “I don’t know what to say.”
Ru smiled warmly. Part of her wanted to reach forward and squeeze his hand, the way her mother had done to her whenever she felt overwhelmed, but Ru stopped herself. “You don’t have to say anything.”
Remus kept staring at the watch. From his flat, the sound of muffled music drifted into the hall and overhead, the light buzzed. Through the window on his far wall, Ru could see snow falling once more. Wet clumps lined the frame.
Remus’s Adam’s apple bobbed and stepped aside from the door frame. “You’ll come in for a cup of tea?”
Ru nodded and entered.
“Have a seat, I’ll just put on the kettle,” Remus said as he made his way to the stove.
He moved slowly, Ru realized, like someone much older. Like someone with pain in their joints.
Ru didn’t mean to stare at him, but the flat was small and there weren't many other places to look, aside from maybe the bookshelf that teemed with novels and records.
Because Ru was staring, though, she caught him pulling the pocket watch out once more as he turned his back to her. He held it close to his lips and whispered something Ru couldn’t make out.
He stared at the watch after that. Or, more accurately, he stared at the compass rose, almost expectantly. He bounced his leg and bit his lip and tapped his finger against the side.
The dial didn’t move.
Ru cleared her throat. “I can give you the number of someone who might be able to fix it, if you’d like.”
Remus shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think that part is ever going to work again.”
“It’s your choice,” she said, “but I don’t think that anything is inherently broken forever.” She believed her words; deep in her heart, she knew that to be true.
She hoped Remus might believe her words, too.
+ Flat 8
Edith Bennet knew war.
She knew the people it created. She knew that war pared the joy away from people, bit by bit, until they were skeletons.
She knew that cost of war was unspeakable; something that one could never put into words.
She knew that war changed people, deep in their cores. She knew that after the war, people might fall in love and get married and have children and laugh with their friends and sit in the sun once again. And she knew that, over all of these things, the dark cloud would always hang.
She knew that war liked to live in one’s memory and visit and inopportune times. There would be days when the flashbacks would come, sudden and earth-shaking, and leave one wretched and hollow and gasping.
And she knew that people who’d never lived through war could never understand. Some people her age would mumble and whine that all young people these days were too soft. But wasn’t that a blessing? Wasn’t it wonderful that they would never live with that darkness in their cores?
Because Edith knew all of these things, she knew that the men in flat nine were in a war long before the injured man showed up at their door.
Even from far away, she could see the hardness in their eyes. They spoke little. The rest of the neighbours must’ve thought they were morose, which they were, but not without cause. They’d seen and lived through unspeakable things. They knew loss.
The war might not have been in the papers, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. There was plenty that happened in the world out of the public eye. But, if one watched carefully, they could see the signs. The problem with most people (in Edith’s opinion) was that few people actually knew how to shut up and observe.
Edith had been doing that her whole life. Maybe it was an inevitable consequence of her position in life—always an outsider. Her father was British and had met her mother in Hong Kong back in the 20s. Edith knew she’d lived there until she was six, but truthfully she couldn’t remember anything of it, save a hazy memory of a harbour, which she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t dream.
From there, Edith lived in gloomy Manchester until she turned nineteen. She couldn’t be completely bitter about her childhood—she had a good education and friends—but she’d never been able to fit in as naturally as all the others. Edith was always caught between the worlds of her parents, straddling the line, never fitting completely into either.
There, she learned to watch. To observe. To keep quiet and follow along and not draw any attention to herself.
She supposed those were all the qualities that made her a good spy.
That, of course, and the fact that everyone counted out young, pretty women. The soldiers would watch hawk-eyed for spies in the streets and then spill secrets during pillow talk. Edith Bennet was used to people counting her out. One way or another, she’d had to deal with it for most of her life. It never got any easier; the anger of it all burned inside her. Somedays, the rage was embers. Others, it was ablaze that she could barely contain. Edith wondered if that was, in part, because she refused to let them be right.
In the war, she’d been posted up in Grenoble—a tiny town at the foot of the French Alps that might’ve been quaint, in another life. She listened for what she could and fucked a German soldier and learned about the plans to stamp out the resistance in Vercors. Edith slipped her coded warning back to the Generals in England and believed, for a moment, that she’d made a difference. That she’d saved lives.
And, the next week, they crushed the resistance all the same.
Edith knew war.
She knew how victory was hollow. She knew that despite everything she’d done, despite the fact that she’d been British enough to risk her life for her country, she wasn’t British enough for most jobs (or people) back home.
There was a brief time when she landed back on English soil that she did what all the other soldiers did—she found herself a pretty nurse to kiss and believed that life might be fine from that point out.
But that, too, couldn’t last.
Edith knew war.
She knew that peace was a hollow and fragile thing. But that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy it—she loved Wei, she truly did, and they spent a happy twenty-five years together. She’d gotten work as a seamstress. She watched her children grow.
Life was good.
And so she hoped for everyone’s sakes that the men who lived in apartment nine were fighting the good fight. Lord knew she didn’t have the strength anymore.
Still, she watched them. She watched the strange men and women filtering in and out at the oddest hours—some wore dark, pointed hats; others had dark cloaks that looked like they belonged on movie sets; others even would mutter in Latin. One even stopped by in a full fur coat and cowboy boots, once. She watched them as the bags under their eyes grew darker and larger and their hair grew grey.
From time to time, sharp cracks, like the sound of a car back-firing, would ripple through the building.
She heard sobs, too. Choked cries. After those nights, Edith made sure to swing past with a box of buscits and mutter something about how she’d made too much.
At first, the long dark nights seemed to be punctuated with joy: rowdy laughs, blaring music, far too much liquor. Soldiers needed their leave.
But, over time, all that stopped too.
She saw them, one day, as she was going down the stairs on her way to her weekly walk in Hyde Park. They were coming up, both exhausted and looking in need of a meal, sleep, and a shower. The sound of their boots echoed in the stairwell.
In another life, Edith might’ve let them pass with only a curt nod of her head. But she knew how wars fought in silence drained a person. At least people would look at a soldier’s uniform and understand. In the shadows, one had to maintain the facade of a normal life.
“Thank you,” Edith said quietly.
They both turned and gave her odd looks.
“Thank you for what you’re doing. It’s not unnoticed.” Edith passed them as she descended the stairs, buttoned her coat, and tried not to think about it as she left for the tube. She tried not to think about what those tunnels had once been used for, too. The ghost of war lived everywhere.
***
Edith heard the yell on a cool day in early November. She was washing up the breakfast dishes when the muffled noise sounded through the walls—that horrid, wretched and hollow thing. Grief beyond grief.
Edith shut the water off, set the pot on the counter, and opened the bottle of whiskey she rarely brought out.
The flat, after that, was quiet.
***
Over the next months, Edith kept her eyes on the news. The papers were quieter than they once were. Not as many random attacks. Less odd stories that made no sense. Even the weather had turned; England was the sunniest it had been in years.
Edith saw one of the men in flat nine from time to time. He was a ghost. He didn’t live in the real world—he seemed to shuffle through life, the way Edith remembered she had in the days after she got back from France.
She hadn’t seen the dark hair one since before she’d heard the yell. Even someone half as observant as Edith could’ve made the connection.
The next week, at the bakery down the way, she saw the tall fellow. His hands were deep in his pockets and his eyes were glassy and distant.
Edith turned to him and looked him up and down. “It’s over, yeah?”
She didn’t ask: did you win ? That was a question only those who hadn’t lived through war asked. No one walked away victorious. There was no such thing as winning—maybe at large, a country or cause could win. But people did not walk away winners.
The man nodded slowly. “For now, at least.”
And that was that.
***
The years passed. The stairs seemed a little higher each month, the winters a little colder, and the walk to the market got longer each time Edith went.
And, slowly, the fellow in flat nine came back to life. His name was Remus—Edith had learned that when she brought around a tin of chocolates on Christmas and, three days later, received a small card and bottle of wine.
Coming out of war was never the way people imagined. Even the V-Day, even the dancing in the streets, that wasn’t truly the end. It was a slow crawl out of the dark days, like the heart of winter melting into spring.
She heard laughter, sometimes, ringing through the wall. She’d see him walking in with a slight smile across his face.
Someone new had been around too—a blond bloke with curly hair. Edith hoped they made each other happy. That was the best one could hope for, after a war: someone to be happy with. Someone to make the sun shine when the dark clouds rolled in.
***
It was late in the summer of ‘95, Edith’s 75th birthday was a few months away, and a great-niece from Manchester had crawled out of the woodwork to try and convince her to sell the flat and move into a care home.
Edith disagreed. She was fine on her own and she would be as long as she was still kicking. If they wanted her out of her flat, they’d have to drag her out. She was staying here, for better or worse.
And (judging by the newspapers) things were, once again, turning for the worse. She’d seen the headlines of the random attacks on the rise once more. On the telly, she watched the reporter glumly give the details of a bomb gone off in Canary Wharf. Even the weather was wonky again—the days in the summer were dark and dreary, moreso than they normally were in London.
There were times when Edith wondered if her niece might be right—if she should move away and let someone else worry about all the cooking and washing and cleaning. It might even be interesting; it would bring a new batch of people to watch. But there was also a finality to that decision. Once she left this place, Edith wouldn’t ever live on her own again. She wasn’t ready for that, not yet.
Edith wasn’t moving while she could still manage on her own. Even if times, like now, were difficult. She huffed and shifted the weight of her bag in her hand and stepped up onto the stair’s landing. The apples and potatoes were damn heavy. Maybe she’d take to eating only bread and lettuce and anything that didn’t weigh a ton.
“Need a hand with that?” someone asked.
When Edith looked up, her heart nearly gave out. It stuttered and rocked her chest and knocked the breath out of her lungs.
In front of her was a ghost. It had to be. The man standing at the top of the staircase had a sunken-in face, with dark hair that made his already pale skin glow. His eyes were hollow, on top of it all—he’d seen things that people weren’t meant to see.
This man had been dead for fifteen years. Edith had been certain of it.
But he kept staring at her, one eyebrow quirked. “With your bag?”
He came down the first stair, his boot clattering when he stepped down. Ghosts didn’t make noise, Edith was fairly certain. Could he really be alive, after all this time?
She held out her bag and he took it without another word. This close to him, she could see he was skin and bone under the knit jumper. What had happened to the once well-muscled lad? Edith didn’t know if she wanted to learn the true reason. She’d heard the stories from prisoners of war. Some things were too horrid to speak of.
In silence, they climbed the stairs. She gripped the nock of his arm that held the bag, and he held the oak banister with his other hand.
When they reached her door, and Edith fumbled in her purse to find the key, she finally found the words: “you’re back, then.” It wasn’t a question, but she couldn’t let it go unacknowledged.
“I am,” he said. His voice was rough, almost a bark. “I’m trying to be.”
Edith nodded. There was nothing more to say to that. That was all one could do—try.
“And it’s started again?”
“What’s started—”
“You know what I mean.”
Silently, he nodded once. The slight jerk of his chin told Edith everything she needed to know.
Edith felt the familiar pit of dread start to weigh down in her gut. This was it, then. A war once more.
“You’ve lived here this whole time?” he asked, almost nervous sounding.
“Yes.”
“And—and he managed?”
Edith nodded. “He did.”
The man let out a breath of relief. “Good.”
Edith looked at him once more. Haunted as he was, he was still young, upsettingly so. Not yet forty and there they were, back into another war. “D’you know any Burke, dear?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“He once said that all that was necessary for the triumph of evil was for good men to do nothing.”
Silence hung in the air between them, thick and heavy.
“Thank you for not doing nothing,” Edith whispered. “And get some rest while you can.”
He didn’t smile, but he did nod. “I will,” he said and gave her a thoughtful look.
For both their sakes, Edith hoped he was telling the truth. God knew they all needed rest. Whatever was coming would come, all the same. But for now, they were there and they were alive, living and loving in a tiny flat, and nothing could change that fact. Not whatever was ahead. Not whatever was behind.
In the end, Edith thought, all one had was the present. And, when people came into one’s life, even in the dead of night, it was best to drive away the fears of what might come with the sunrise and instead hold them close and never let them go.
Moring would come all the same.