The Staircase

A small boy in pyjama bottoms ran across the roof of Kiri’s house, took a big swig of rainwater from a dirty flowerpot and then, taking careful aim, peed over the parapet.  

Although she loved the tall terraced house of which she was the ridiculously lucky owner (thanks to recently-deceased Uncle Henry, who wasn’t even her uncle) and enjoyed shooting up and down the many flights of stairs, and although she had five bedrooms and could choose whether to spy on the neighbours in the street below, or on their back gardens  – jungle one side, concrete the other - or peer from her attic at the self-important chimneys, finials, and ridge tiles like rows of broken teeth;  no matter where she chose to make her bed, night after night the noise from her neighbours’ TVs, PCs, tablets, MP3 players and games consoles disturbed Kiri’s sleep and prevented her from studying. 

The English bond façade and ornamental plasterwork above her bay windows belied the fact that Kiri’s house – the only one in the street occupied by its owner, was virtually empty, as she couldn’t afford to furnish her home, so the interior acted as an echo chamber, amplifying every sound that came through the walls. 

On occasions far too numerous she’d spoken politely to the people next door, who apologetically but temporarily turned down/turned off/unplugged the offending appliances, while telling her they could do nothing about the drummer practicing his triple grooves and choke crashes on the floor above, who was driving them crazy too. 

So she’d spoken politely to the drummer on the floor above, who  told her it was his living, and impolitely shut the door in her face.  

And she had spoken politely to the police, who dutifully recorded her complaint then filed it because they had far more serious crimes to deal with in this particular niche of west London. 

The houses were late Victorian, built more for show than stability, with shallow foundations and thin party walls - the idea being that as a terrace they would hold each other up, although it had been known for terraces of houses on sloping streets like this one to topple over, with the houses following each other like dominoes as they slid and clattered down the hill: contents, occupants and all irrevocably intermingled.   

The other houses were rented out room by room to students, teachers, nurses and refugees who had escaped a fate worse than death in Afghanistan, Sudan or Syria, travelled to this country without a visa (because none were being granted) and if they survived the journey and the dangerously overcrowded detention centres (the one in Dover had just been firebombed) would have had seven pounds a day to live on and a hole to live in while waiting decades as personae non gratae for the British government to finally grant them asylum, without recognising their qualifications, which would have got them better jobs than shelf-stacking. 

Her empty house also amplified Kiri’s sense of loneliness, as she could hear laughter and crying, toddlers tantrumming, and people arguing, showering, snoring, having sex and flushing loos. All that heaving humanity, only a brick’s thickness away.  

However once a fortnight, on Thursday evening after a long days’ work at J.T. (Jobbing and Tight) Architects, Kiri came home, scrubbed the wooden table in her ground floor kitchen and set out a simple supper of French bread, butter, smoked fish, salad, cheese and fruit, because on Thursdays she was happy to be joined by a bunch of students from her year group at university, who came for a drink and a chat  before getting down to the serious business of revising for the final exams upon which their uncertain futures depended. 

To entertain them, Kiri put on some of her favourite music. For a while it was that song C’est Dit by Calogero : “It’s been said that your friends are your only riches. It’s been said …”.  

So on dry spring evenings, clutching cheap bottles of wine and packs of beer and with music still ringing in their ears, they followed Kiri up the stairs. “Wow. All this space!” sighed Angela. “Original wainscotting,” noticed Nana-ya.  “If you ever need a house-mate ” smiled Simon, “Just say the word, Lovely - I’ll be round like a shot.”  But Kiri wasn’t sure she was ready yet to share her home, her life and her idiosyncrasies.   

Up on a flat, asphalt-covered part of the roof, enough space had been cleared among the rusty tools and troughs of dead tomato plants to set up an old work bench and a few miscellaneous garden chairs, and here the students sat for an hour or so throwing questions at each other about Building Regs K and L, comparing burning, flooding or falling down building case studies, and deciding who was liable. Then at 8.30 prompt they all downed drinks and spent another hour in silent concentration answering old exam papers, before swapping them to mark each other’s work. All in preparation for the dreaded test at the end of term which, followed two weeks later by the hand-in of their dissertations and an interview with a panel of architectural  eminences, comprised their Professional Practice  examination – otherwise known as  RIBA Part 3.  

The other students had already decided that if they passed, they’d either form partnerships or go abroad. “I’ll go back home” said Nana-ya. “People will always need roofs over their heads”. Kiri had grown fond of the young Ghanaian, but she knew that once summer was over she was unlikely to see Nana-ya or any of the others again.  

Kiri also needed to pass, or she’d never progress beyond the status of Architectural Assistant, tasked with drawing window schedules and calculating brickwork dimensions, with a pathetic salary most people wouldn’t believe because they’d seen all the American films in which the protagonist was a stylishly affluent architect. Part 3 was Kiri’s passport out of Jobbing & Tight to a bigger practice, a half-decent salary and a responsible role – hopefully with some creative autonomy. She wanted to draw arabesques across the sky in rippling lines of steel, like Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry. But right now there were so many books to read and absorb that night after night Kiri became more and more anxious as she paced around the house, unable to think let alone sleep because of the incessant, insidious noise.  

“SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! I’m trying to sleep!” screamed Kiri as she pulled back both fists and hammered hard on the wall that separated her by a mere 4 inches from one or other of her neighbours.  And she brought other weapons into play – her rarely-used rolling pin, her meat hammer, her wok, her Doc Martens.  But she ended up with bruised knuckles, damaged paintwork and at best a couple of hours’ respite. Too many people, too much life, too little sleep.  

The house had been altered many times during its long history. The first owner – a middle-class cooper from Dumfriesshire with his wife, five children, two elderly parents and a live-in maid, was followed in time by a succession of progressively poorer families packed into smaller and smaller subdivisions of the house by hard-headed landlords. 

Like all the other buildings in the street, Kiri’s featured a traditional staircase which dog-legged its way up the middle of the house, but because of the reconfigurations  the house had undergone over the years, this staircase had taken on a life of its own, making unexpected twists and turns as it wound its way up to the roof.  

And at certain points - where the steel beams that supported the landings penetrated the brick walls on either side - sounds were transmitted with such clarity that should she choose to put her ear to the wall, Kiri could hear every word of her neighbours’ conversations. 

It was here she was finally touched by the lives of other people.  

So instead of making the most of the moonlight hours, pouring herself a black coffee and playing Bill Evans through her headphones while she tried to read another chapter of Sarah Lupton’s latest book on Contract Law, at one or two o’clock in the morning Kiri was to be found lying on the floor halfway up the stairs, inexorably drawn to those intimate touch points. She felt like one of those eavesdropping angels in Wings of Desire, even though she felt she had no business hearing about the lustings and cravings, remorses and regrets or illicit activities of total strangers.  

Now it so happened that Maurice, the freeholder of no. 29 next door, lived abroad, and Jerry G, his estate manager in London, was happy to pocket Maurice’s money and leave his tenants to their own devices.  Jerry G was never at his office and could rarely be contacted by email or phone, so the tenants’ complaints about leaky ceilings, blocked toilets and dodgy wiring went unheeded and they usually ended up doing or paying for the repairs themselves.  And as all the rents were paid promptly and by bank transfer because the occupants were scared of being chucked out, Jerry G had little reason to visit the property - or keep track of the number of people actually living there, or by what nefarious means they were paying for their rent. 

One of Maurice’s tenants was Hope, a qualified midwife, who had fled the civil war still raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. More than once her family had been forced to flee their home. Hope had been raped by a group of masked men – she didn’t even know which side they were on – and they had taken her brother away. She was now working as a checkout assistant at Tescos in Tufnell Park.  

But despite her own decades-long legal battle to gain official Refugee status and permission to work here, Hope had been doing her best to help her sister’s son Akile get to the U.K. too, to apply for asylum and find any kind of work – legitimate or otherwise – to pay for his wife and two children to join him.  Akile hoped to complete his studies in civil engineering, his wife Kimboti dreamed of working as a French teacher, and the couple wanted their children to have proper schooling. 

By listening to Hope’s phone conversations with Akile, Kiri vicariously followed the young man’s hazardous progress. Unable to apply for asylum while in his own country and with no legal route to the U.K., Akile had handed over his life’s savings to smugglers and travelled by road and sea for over a week curled up in a wooden crate in the back of a container lorry. One of the lucky ones, he had escaped discovery at Tilbury docks and, battered, bruised and half-starved, was now living in the broom cupboard in his aunt’s two-room first-floor flat.  

Hope was terrified her nephew would be found and deported, and knew he’d arouse suspicion every time he was seen entering or leaving the building. So she had furnished the cupboard with a camp bed and TV and Akile only came out when the coast was clear to use the bathroom and stretch his legs. Anything was better than a crate. 

On the other side of the wall Kiri listened with growing concern as Akile and his aunt discussed his next moves. Then one day she braced herself, walked round to no. 29 and rang Hope’s doorbell. Hope came downstairs and opened the door.   “Yes?” “Hello –  hope you don’t mind - I’m  Kiri, your next door neighbour. Just thought I’d introduce myself. Can you use some apples?  My Mum has too many this year” “Oh - of course. Thank you.” Once over the threshold, Kiri whispered “I know he’s here”.  “I have no idea what you’re talking about” said Hope, starting to close the door. “He can live in my house. I have plenty of room. I swear no one will know”. Hope ushered her upstairs.  

A few hours later under cover of night and in his bare feet Akile quietly climbed down the fire escape from Hope’s kitchen into the overgrown garden below, found a hole in the fence and entered Kiri’s house by the back door.   

A couple of days later Akile was followed by his friend Babak from Iran, then Khadija and Aaisha arrived from Afghanistan and Tabora from Syria. There were others. And the women brought their children. Some of them had risked theirs and their children’s lives crossing the sea in dingies overladen with terrified people, none of whom knew how to swim. 

Soon Kiri’s house was humming with activity and every room was full – even spaces that weren’t really rooms. The staircase became a community hub. The women sat side by side chatting and the children played with lego on the landings, posted toys through the bannisters or bounced balls down the stairs. If anyone from outside asked, Kiri explained she was running a creche.  

The women taught the kids English and Babak, a lawyer, helped the adults to fill in their asylum claims. Some of the men got zero-hour contract work as bricklayers and the women as night cleaners or kitchen staff, no questions asked.  They knew this wouldn’t be forever. Kiri continued at J.T.A.   They pooled their resources, Kiri got the groceries delivered and they cooked and ate together. Her guests came in and out via the gate at the bottom of the garden and the neglected  tradesmen’s route - hidden by overgrown trees - that threaded along the rear of the properties. Few of the neighbours asked questions. They had enough concerns of their own. 

Akile talked to Kiri about the importance of structural integrity, while Babak taught her about Tort.  The little girls wanted to be architects, like her. She wondered why. 

The Thursday evening before the Part 3 exams, Kiri’s housemates – now numbering over thirty - were asked to close their doors, turn off their lights and keep quiet. But try telling that to a four-year-old.  

The music was playing louder than usual when the students arrived and made their way up the stairs. Then at 9 o,clock when they were half way through last year’s paper, a little boy in pyjama bottoms appeared from nowhere, ran past their table, picked up a plant pot and drank the contents, tipping mud and water all over himself. He looked towards them and laughed before dropping his trousers and shooting a long, satisfying wee over the people on the street below. 

Kiri, horrified, rushed over, scooped him up and bundled him downstairs.  The others, too wrapped up in their thoughts, just carried on as if nothing had happened. 

Kiri took huge risks that summer, but she helped a lot of people and passed her Part 3. She was still too young to know or care that as you grow older, stairs grow steeper.