Moving On Up
Four flights of stairs take Imogen from fear to aspiration…
Imogen huddled on the bottom stair, cross with the thunder for making her a child again. OK, it had only been a fortnight, but she was wondering whether leaving home had been a mistake.
Another lightning flash lit the panes of the front door. She pressed against the banisters.
“Do you want to come up?”
Imogen craned up to see a beautiful, but lived-in face peering down from the very top landing. The mysterious tenant of the attic flat, she assumed.
Twice this week she’d glimpsed her pointy black ankle boots pattering upstairs beneath a swirl of black skirt. Between boots and skirt were woolly tights.
The first time, the tights were red. The second time, green. Today her tights were lilac, her white hair drawn into a ponytail.
“A streak of lightning can be five miles long,” the woman taunted. “If it’s got your name on, I doubt being two storeys higher will make any difference.”
“I think I know more about lightning than you do,” snapped Imogen.
“Suit yourself. Some company might be a distraction, that’s all.”
Reluctantly, Imogen unfolded herself. Fighting her instinct to find a nice safe basement or cave, she climbed the stairs.
At least now she might learn who some of the other tenants were, she thought. No-one had exactly rushed to make her welcome since she’d moved in.
“Go through, dear,” said the woman as Imogen reached her. “I’m Rose.”
Her eyes were a youthful blue, though Imogen guessed she must be over seventy.
The attic had white walls and polished honey-gold floorboards. There were rugs in raspberry and wine. A white iron bedstead bore a patchwork quilt in hexagons of blossom pinks.
“This is lovely,” Imogen murmured, comparing it with her ground floor flat of muddy brown and sludge green.
“Only a bedsit. Plus a tiny bathroom in that corner.” Rose plonked herself in a white cane chair.
“I always liked the simplicity of life in one room. Tell me, do you often curl up in the hall?”
“When I was eight, our house was struck by lightning,” Imogen began, perching on the bed.
Rose clapped her silver-ringed fingers to her mouth.
“Oh, my dear! And here’s me joking about it.”
“It’s all right. The damage wasn’t that bad. Except…” Unconsciously, Imogen touched her throat. “Except, with the shock, I lost my voice. My parents took me to speech therapists and psychiatrists.
“It was months before I spoke again.”
“Goodness. Anyone would be nervous of thunder after that.”
Imogen summoned a faint smile, glancing at her surroundings. One postcard from Tintagel on the Victorian fireplace. One small ship in a bottle. Over the fireplace, a painting of the sea.
This was the kind of place she’d imagined for herself, in dreams of leaving home.
“It’s not so much the lightning I’m scared of,” she said. “It’s slipping back into silence. When I began to talk again, my voice came out differently. It made me painfully shy.”
“Surely it’s best to use your voice as much as you can?” exclaimed Rose. “Shout. Laugh. Sing.”
“I’m an archivist at the County Museum. It’s very quiet.”
“I see.” Rose fixed Imogen in her gaze. “So, what brought you here?”
“I was engaged, but I’m afraid I’ve broken it off. James and I grew up in the same street. Everyone took it for granted we would end up married. Including us.”
Imogen paused, touching her throat again.
“Lately I began to realise I’d clung to James too long. He was safe. Familiar. I guess I outgrew him.
“Now I’ve broken his heart. And it’s made things awkward between his family and mine.”
“It will work out, dear. Have faith. My turn to confess. When I first came here, George Butler, your landlord, was a boy of eighteen. I rented the attic from his parents.
“It was as dark as a miner’s armpit. I did all this decorating myself.”
Imogen pictured the squat, heavy-set man to whom she’d handed an exorbitant amount of cash. She frowned.
“You haven’t been here ever since?”
“Oh, no. I came and went. I’m rather a gypsy. Restless. Poor George couldn’t understand it. I’m afraid he had a terrible crush on me, dear.”
Rose stood up, black skirt swirling. She lifted the sash window wide open, admitting birdsong and fresh, sweet air.
“It’s no good to hide away from life. We must go towards the light, dear. We need it to grow.”
Imogen joined her by the window, drinking in the sight of damp rooftops and distant trees.
“Personally, I’ve always believed a view to be vital,” declared Rose, just as if she’d read her thoughts. “Nothing beats the sea, of course. Down in St Ives, for instance. All that glorious sunshine and colour.”
Her face growing wistful, she grasped Imogen’s arm.
“Listen. Very soon, I shall be leaving altogether. Why not ask George if you can move up here? You’ll be thriving in no time.”
Although dismayed at the prospect of losing her neighbour already, Imogen saw that Rose was right. What she’d been missing was this sense of space and freedom.
“OK,” she agreed. “I will.”
In the days that followed, as Imogen left for work, she glanced up to Rose’s attic. Wasn’t it amazing how, despite the city grime, the place was filled with light?
Plucking up her courage, she phoned George Butler, using the excuse of a leaky radiator.
“And, umm… If the attic flat were ever to become vacant, I’d really like it.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“I’ll send my son Winston tomorrow night,” he said gruffly, and hung up.
This didn’t sound promising. Was George still carrying a torch for Rose?
Next evening, Winston Butler arrived and tightened a nut on her radiator, puffing from the exertion.
“Dad says you’re after moving into the attic,” he said when he’d done.
She’d decided to be assertive.
“We’d have to discuss the rent. There won’t be as much space as down here.”
“That top flat hasn’t been let in years.” He tossed a bunch of keys in his hand.
Imogen held her tongue. Maybe Rose’s use of the room was a private arrangement with George, for old times’ sake.
She trailed Winston as he lumbered up the stairs, eager to experience again that glorious light and airiness.
On the second floor, Winston fumbled for the key. Imogen nearly asked if they should knock, but the door creaked open.
A musty smell hit her as she walked in.
The furniture was as she’d seen when she visited Rose, but a coat of dust dulled everything. The walls had lost their brightness. The windows were filthy.
“I don’t understand.” Imogen slumped down on the faded patchwork quilt.
“Dad kept the furniture in case the tenant came back for it. She never did.” He clomped to the kitchenette to investigate the plumbing and electrics.
Imogen sat, stunned. So who was Rose? Some vision produced by the stress of the thunderstorm? Perhaps she should give up on independence and go home to her parents. To James.
“Shall I tell Dad you’re interested, then?” called Winston, coaxing a gush of water from the taps. “He won’t be back ’til late. Gone to a funeral.”
“I’m sorry,” Imogen whispered.
“Just an old acquaintance, apparently. Mind, he’s driven to Cornwall for it.”
A giddiness came over her. St Ives. Rose. The sea. It was too much to take in.
She tweaked something from behind the fireplace. The postcard from Tintagel. She turned it over. It was blank.
Despite herself, Imogen smiled. Whoever Rose was, she’d made her message plain. Attic life could be minimalist, yet rich. Self-contained, yet outward looking.
“I don’t mind doing the decorating,” she called to Winston, her voice wobbly but determined. “Is it possible for the windows to be cleaned?”
The season of storms now behind her, Imogen has painted the walls of the attic palest pink.
She has joined a photography class. Each morning at eight, she trains her camera on the sky. The pictures will make a patchwork for the end-of-term exhibition.
She shouts, laughs, and sings, as Rose prescribed. At last, in the clarity of her newfound light, Imogen’s new life begins.
We’re sharing a new spooky short story from our archives every Monday and Thursday throughout October. Look out for the next one!