A change of plan…
I made a tough decision, but the right decision. I ditched the whole lot. I hated it and it was going nowhere and it bored me to write so god knows what it was like to read. And did I mention I hated it?
But that doesn’t mean NaNoWriMo is over for me. I’ve started again. I am currently some six thousand words behind where I should be (honour dictates a restart means a word count reset too). But this is a story I really want to write. It’s a re-imagining, or retelling, of the NaNoWriMo I did a couple of years ago. It will all be original text, but I am using many of the same characters, a similar setting and some parallel storylines. The story was originally called ‘Some Solitude for a Social Species’, but this time round I am giving it the working title of ‘The Valentine Mansions’.
I fear that between prior engagements and the word count deficit, winning this year will be pretty tough, if not impossible. But I am going to give it my best shot.
I always caveat NaNoWriMo with the usual quality warnings, but from here on in you will have to really indulge me. I’ve got a lot to do and no time to check it. Anyway, here’s the first bit. Let’s not think about word counts, eh? This is supposed to be fun.
The Valentine Mansions
On the 7th Floor…
Nathan woke to discover a woman sleeping in the corner of his room. He thought he recognised her from the 18th floor. There had been a party up there a few weeks previous and she looked a lot like the host. “Uh… Hello?” he said. “Is that you, Stella?” She made no response. He sluggishly swung his legs out of bed and put on his slippers before padding across the room. This was all very curious. He had only met her the once and they hadn’t struck up a friendship or anything of that sort. How would she have known which room he lived in? And what an odd thing to do, to sneak in to someone’s room in the night, without even attempting to wake them. Nathan chastised himself for not locking the door. This could have been far worse. He could have been robbed or assaulted or killed.
The woman was lying in the foetal position on her side. Nathan’s memory for faces was excellent and seeing close up he knew immediately that this was definitely Stella. She must have been blind drunk. Nathan thought back to the 18th floor party. She had been wasted then, too. She had spent most of the night dancing with a lifter type. The next day, someone said they’d seen her slip off to have sex with him in the stairwell between the 20th and 21st. Some host!
The situation had Nathan momentarily at a loss. What was he to do? Perhaps he should just wait until she woke up? Or carry her to the bed, let her sleep it off? He was expecting his sister over at 10am, it was 9.15 now. Before she arrived, he needed a shower, not to mention breakfast. This was highly inconvenient. “Stella!” he said. Still no response. This wouldn’t do at all. Something needed to happen, he couldn’t just leave her.
Prodding her with his index finger wasn’t cutting it so he gave her a gentle shake on her shoulder. She slumped onto her back but didn’t wake, didn’t move. Her mouth hung open and he could see a slit of white between her eyelids. God, she was totally out of it. “Stella!” he yelled, grabbing her under the arms and pulling her to her feet. He began dragging her towards the bed. He would lie her down and get a glass of water from the sink. A cold splash in the face would do the trick.
She weighed more than Nathan had anticipated and although the distance from the corner of the room to the bed was only twenty feet, he found himself struggling. By the time he got her onto the bed he was sweating profusely. “Wake up!” he shouted, slapping her lightly on the face.
Her skin was cold to the touch.
She wasn’t drunk.
“Oh, shit,” Nathan said. “Oh, shit, shit, shit.”
Stella didn’t hear. She was really quite dead.
On the 4th Floor…
Frank straightened his tie in the mirror. He checked his shirt, and put his suit jacket on. There was some aftershave in a small green bottle by the sink in his room. He poured a good amount onto his right palm, rubbed his hands together, and smacked his cheeks gingerly until it was all gone.
He stepped back and took a good look at himself. He was pristine. Perfect hair: slick, black, gelled back in faultless lines. Perfect skin: rugged but clean, lived in but vibrant. Perfect clothes: pinstripe suit, shined shoes. And that tie… oh, that tie! Beautiful two tone green worn in an unpretentious but careful knot, snug against Frank’s collar, which in turn was snug against his clean shaven neck. Yes, he was pristine!
“It’s a good day,” he said to his reflection. His mouth formed the words confidently and clearly.
By the bed was a large leather suitcase. He opened it and checked the meagre contents. He sighed. “It’s a good day,” he said. “A good day.” He locked the case and extended the retractable handle. One of the wheels was missing so it didn’t move how it used to, and it made an awful squeak. Frank couldn’t help but hear the nagging voice in his mind, insisting that the missing wheel made his whole gig a bit of a curate’s egg. But the voice of reason argued that it was what it was, and there was nothing that could be done, so he would have to make the best of it. And in any case, he looked pristine, and that had to count for more than a little wheel and a little squeak. “Good day, a good day,” he said, as he left his room and locked the door.
A long row of doors just like his own stretched out down both sides of the hallway. He dragged his squeaking case to the lifts at the end of the corridor and pressed the button. While he was waiting he watched as a number of people came out of their rooms and headed towards the door to the opposite end of the corridor, presumably for breakfast in the kitchen. It took a few minutes but finally the leftmost of the four lifts to arrived.
The Valentine Mansions was lively at the quietest of times, but mid-morning was a time of the most fervent activity. It made Frank’s work particularly hard – who wants to trade when they are in the middle of their morning routine? But Frank was a strict ten-to-sixer, and was willing to put the hours in no matter how thankless they were.
The lift doors opened and Frank stepped in. The walls were covered in notices and messages and advertising. Frank checked his own but barely registered the rest. He pressed the button for the 34th floor. One hallway was a whole day’s work. Working the 33rd floor yesterday hadn’t been the best, but he didn’t let that rattle him. As the lift creaked up floor by floor, he breathed carefully and repeated, “Good day, it’s a good day.”
When the lift doors finally opened onto the 34th, an elderly gentleman that Frank vaguely recognised was waiting to get in the lift. “Morning, Frank,” the man said. He tapped the suitcase with his foot. “Got any tobacco in that thing?”
Frank shot him a dark look.
“Well, do you?”
Frank shook his head. “No. And keep your voice down.”
“Ah-ha. No license, eh? You didn’t mention that the other week! Well, no matter. You remember my room? Ten on the 3rd – you’ll come by if the situation changes? I’ll always pay a good price, you know me.” With a cheery farewell, the man stepped into the lift.
Frank looked down the 34th floor hallway. Sometimes, standing at the end of a corridor, the long line of doors on each side seemed to go on forever. Perspective brought the two walls together before the eyes could fully make out the kitchen door at the other end. When that was your working day, a worn brown carpet stretched out past God-knows-how-many rooms, taking God-knows-how-many-paces to traverse, you would have to be made of steely stuff not to balk at the sight from time to time. Even a man like Frank had his moments of doubt, but careful reflection always drew the same conclusions. As difficult as this life was, this was the best of the options available.
He straightened his tie, then his jacket, then himself. He wheeled his case forward a couple of feet to the first door on the right, squeaking all the way, and knocked on the door. Nobody came. He knocked again, louder. Still nobody came. This was normal, part and parcel of the job.
He turned on his heels and stepped forward to the opposite door. He rapped loudly, three times. A voice inside called out, asking him to wait a moment. Frank stood perfectly still as he waited, mind empty, staring at the golden number ‘2’ on the door. Eventually the door opened.
“Good morning, sir. I was wondering if you would be interested in looking at the range of products—”
The man who stood in the doorway was heavy-set and unimpressed. “Fuck off,” he growled. Frank opened his mouth to speak but the door was already closed. Frank closed his mouth again.
He pulled the case to the next room on the other side and knocked. “A good day,” he said quietly to himself. “Today is going to be a good day.”
On the 18th floor…
Nathan, having locked Stella securely in his room, was alternately sprinting and quick-walking down the 18th floor hallway, trying to get to Beth’s room as quickly and inconspicuously as possible. He passed door after door of sleeping residents, most of whom he didn’t know, some of whom he wouldn’t have recognised. One resident, sleeping behind the door of room 29, he had never seen at all. As he made his way to room 43 and Beth, he stumbled and fell against that door.
The thud caused Sadie to stir in her sleep. She opened her eyes for a few seconds, but at no point could it be said she was truly awake. Her room, while in size and structure identical to every other on her floor of the Valentine Mansions, was undoubtedly one of the most depressing. It was dense with the suffocating atmosphere of inevitability. The stench of failing biology filled the air and permeated the bedding, the sheets, the pillows. Death perched on the edge of the bed, recalling George, Sadie’s husband, for whom she now unconsciously reached. Her fingers closed above his empty pillow, stroking nothing where his hair once was.
Death and her patient scythe watched Sadie’s deterioration with detached satisfaction. Sadie knew she was heading for that that monstrous blade, her only consolation was the hope that this terrible ordeal was setting her on a path that would reunite her with George and his familiar smell. There was nothing left in room 29 for her anymore. Let it go to the rats. Her life was no more than a regimented routine of sleeping syrup, hunger, thirst, and a void where her love once was.
Her delirium produced dreams that combined a lifetime of busy memories with the empty present, framed around a single phrase that George had said when they had first met in the recreation room on the 20th floor. “This is no place to grow old alone, that’s why we need each other, that’s why I want to ask you something.” The blunt practicality of his proposal may have upset a true romantic, but to Sadie it was comforting. Or at least, it had been comforting. Since he had gone the words had taken on a different truth. He was gone now and gone forever, which meant she was alone now and alone for ever.
In her sleep she scratched her thighs, sore and chapped from dried urine. She rolled over. The effect of the drug came in waves and a period of deeper, vacuous sleep lay ahead.
Scant relief, perhaps, but relief nonetheless.
Tags: NaNoWriMo, nanowrimo08, National Novel Writing Month
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