Talking to Addison. Jenny Colgan
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Over the next week or so I started to settle in. I was working part-time shifts at the New Covent Garden market, day and night, and as Kate went to work at 6.30 a.m. and returned at 9 p.m., I normally missed her, and steered well clear of the shower in the morning.
The house, though always untidy, was clean – for me, a perfect state of affairs. Kate paid someone to come in and ‘do’ once a week, which I disagreed with in principle but thoroughly enjoyed the benefits of. It began to feel like home, despite the coffin, which was nine foot by seven. Not the kind of place you’d let a cat visit, in case its brains got bashed to bits in a nasty swinging incident.
I was used to creeping in at odd times of night, and was always amazed to hear the faint tapping of fingers on a keyboard, random beeps and small buzzing noises from Addison’s room.
I never saw him, but fantasized wildly about him. A monster? Kate and Josh’s deformed lovechild, half man half robocop? Perhaps he was blind! That was why he crept around in the dark and didn’t go outside. I had a brief romantic reverie of my being his life partner, caring for him, being his lover and his guide; ‘Holly,’ he would say, ‘you, you are my eyes.’ And, plus it would be a double bonus when I got to forty and wouldn’t have to bother about how I looked.
Then, ping, I realized that the Internet is in fact an almost purely visual medium, and apologized in my head to all the blind people in the world.
Finally, after about a fortnight, I cracked.
It was about 3 a.m., and the house was completely still. I’d been unpacking tulips from 11 p.m., but the work had thinned out and Johnny, my gaffer, had sent me home. It took about ten minutes on Josh’s bicycle – in the very dead of night I would glide down hills, hands free, and have to restrain myself from shouting out loud to fill up the rare London silence.
I had crept into the house, exhilarated and pink-cheeked from the spring wind. My hair was tangled, and I didn’t feel sleepy. My hours were so topsy-turvy, I didn’t know when I slept. The television, however, was in the sitting room, which backed on to Kate’s room – so, no Channel 5 soft porn for me. I was about to head through to the chilly kitchen to make some tea when I saw the omnipresent blue glow underneath the door, the familiar tap tap tap.
Well, sod it, I thought to myself. Two weeks living in the same house as someone and not seeing them is simply freaky and unnatural. There could be nothing wrong with just popping in and introducing myself, for fuck’s sake. It was only … well, ten past three in the morning. I felt strangely excited, like playing ring-the-bell-and-run-away. If I got yelled at, I could always hide and say it was Kate.
I crept across the hall, instead of walking across it like I normally did when I came in late at night so everyone would know it was me and not a burglar; steeled myself and rapped gently on the door.
The typing noise stopped. Encouraged, I tapped again. ‘Hello?’
There was no response.
Feeling like an idiot, I repeated, ‘Hello?’ leaning slightly on the door.
Clearly it wasn’t locked.
Half horrified at what I was doing, I pushed open the door.
The large room was dark, but light streamed in from the moon and the streetlights. The place was also lit up with an unearthly green glow, which I realized, once my eyes adjusted, came from a huge VDU. The room was so filled with banks of electronic equipment it was like the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. LEDs lit up and monitors bleeped quietly.
Sitting with his back to me was a very tall man, who resembled a normal man who’d been put on a rack and stretched out. His black spiky hair stuck up straight from his head, and I couldn’t see his face.
He didn’t turn round, although he must have heard me, because his back stiffened.
‘Hello?’ I whispered. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but I saw you were still working and, well, I moved in here a couple of weeks ago and my name’s Holly and I thought that, you know, since we lived together, we should perhaps lay eyes on one another.’
I swallowed. My voice seemed to echo in the empty room, and I felt like a complete dork. Then, when he didn’t reply, I started to get annoyed. It wasn’t like I was demanding anything unreasonable. This was only basic human contact, for fuck’s sake! The way Kate and Josh tiptoed around him was ridiculous. He needed shaking up, if you asked me. He still hadn’t even bothered turning round! That was bloody rude.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t realize you were so rude. I won’t bother you again. Excuse me.’
I turned to go. Slowly, I heard the revolving chair creep round behind me. I looked back.
A huge pair of dark brown eyes, blinking rapidly, regarded me with a mixture of curiosity and fear. I almost gasped aloud. He was … well, just spectacularly beautiful. Just, like, Oh my GAWD! Not in a pretty, boyband poofy kind of way, but that chiselled, sensitive look that cries out, ‘I may have been staring at this computer screen for fifteen hours, but as my physiognomy suggests, I have the soul of a poet. And not one of those ones with hair in their noses that you see in the Sunday supplements.’ Even from behind his glasses you could see that his eyelashes cast long shadows on his ludicrously high cheekbones and a frown seemed to pass over his exquisitely high forehead.
I managed to quell my first urge, which was to lie at his feet and present my stomach to him to be tickled, when I noticed he was wearing a Star Trek T-shirt. How original of someone who played with computers all day long to like Star Trek, I thought.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. His voice was quiet and soft, with no discernible accent – not like mine. I got very London, selling flowers every day.
He looked at his hands. His fingers were incredibly long – practically prehensile. I actually sighed.
‘I was a bit caught up in what I was doing.’
He sounded apologetic, and I was in one of those brain-twisting moods whereby if you meet someone who is clearly your soul mate you feel an overwhelming urge to be rude to them.
‘So you don’t listen to people when they come to say “hello”? What were you doing?’
He stared at his hands again and didn’t say anything. I thought for a bit.
‘OK, shall we start again?’ I announced. ‘I’m Holly, and you’re Mr Addison, I presume.’
‘Not mister, just Addison,’ he said quietly.
‘Ooh, what a great name!’ I said, reaching out to shake his hand. He didn’t take mine, and regarded it with some alarm. ‘Addison Madison?’
What? What magic potion had I just taken to turn me into the Moron of the Western World? I cringed.
He blinked. His eyelashes practically bounced off his sweetly pouted lips. ‘Ehm, no … Addison Farthing.’
‘Farthing, Farthing – right, of course, how silly of me,’ I gushed, like I was interviewing him on a breakfast show. ‘Of course.’
I was backing away and backing down big time.
‘So, anyway, I thought, you know, time to say hello, pop in, have a chat …’
Addison continued to regard me impassively.
‘So, here we are, having a chat … and it’s been lovely chatting to you. Really. We must do it again some time.’
He continued staring at me as I backed out of the room.
‘Great! Nice to meet you! Nice Starship Enterprise, by the way!’ I said as I got to the door, but he was already turning back to his enormous screen and had clearly forgotten my very existence. Huge cables twisted round the table legs, heading off God knows where. The tapping started up again and I closed the door gently. Outside in the hall I leaned on the wall and let my jaw drop in wonder. Oh my God. No wonder