The Girl Upstairs

The Girl Upstairs

The door was open.
Strange.
He’d never even noticed a door there at all, never mind an open one; but, of course, he had been living in the flat for just over a month. With the early morning rush to work and evening struggle home, such details could be missed. Now on this late Sunday afternoon he stood hesitating, the door tantalisingly ajar before him, inviting. It was placed to the left of the staircase on the third floor landing, in a darkened cul-de-sac, at the opposite end to his own flat, leading, he assumed, to the attic. Curiosity moved his hand, pulling the door wide open. A light shining from above the rising staircase surprised him. More astonishing, was the young woman sitting at the top of the stairs. She smiled, waving her hand slightly. ‘Hello.’
‘Eh, hello,’ he replied, perplexed.
‘You can come up if you like.’
Curiosity again took charge. Who was she? Why was she sitting there, seemingly waiting for him? He moved cautiously up beside her, amazed at the roomy space of the attic, neatly divided into bedroom, kitchen and living room, under the sloping roof.
The girl was roughly the same age as himself, late twenties. Long auburn hair flowing around a slightly freckled face, over her shoulders. Her nutmeg eyes appeared docile, then flared mischievously when she smiled at him.
‘I...had no idea that someone was living above me,’ he stammered.
‘Oh, there isn’t,’ she replied simply.
‘Pardon?’
‘Your name is Ian,’ she said.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I know lots of things about you; you work in a bank, you moved in last month, you like jazz music and you haven’t got a girlfriend. I’m Sophie,’ she concluded, offering her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘Me to,’ he said bewildered.
‘D’you like my flat?’ she asked.
‘Yes, yes it’s lovely...but isn’t it a bit cold?’ He shivered slightly.
‘Oh it doesn’t bother me.’
That was obvious. It was October, the attic unheated, so it felt, yet Sophie was lightly dressed in a cream coloured frilly blouse and a knee length navy blue skirt which wouldn’t have been out of place in Summer.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ she assured him.
‘How long have you been here,’ he asked.
‘Oh, ages,’ she replied, sweeping back her hair. ‘At first alone, then with my boyfriend Angus.’
‘So you’ve got a boyfriend,’ Ian muttered, rather disappointed.
‘Not any more.’
‘Did he find someone else?’
‘He got put away.’
‘Away?’
‘In prison.’
‘Ah I see. Well, that’s not necessarily a reason to split up.’
‘For murder.’
‘Oh...yes...mmm...I can understand you not wanting to be acquainted with a person who could...’
‘He got twenty years, but his lawyer reckons he’ll be out in ten. He managed to convince the judge that it was all heat of the moment and not premeditated.’
‘Ah, it happened during an argument?’
‘You could say that. We did have a blazing row.’
‘With a neighbour?’
‘With each other.’
‘And...somebody tried to stop you and got killed?’
‘No, we were alone.’
‘Then who got killed?’
‘I did.’
Sophie’s face remained so straight, that Ian felt almost compelled to laugh for her. After all, what she had just said was either complete nonsense or a joke. He paused a moment, studying her expression for any delayed traces of humour. Seeing none, a third possibility entered his thoughts...if she was earnest, then she must be off her head.
‘It was you he killed?’
‘Yes. And despite what the judge was told, he meant to, I’m sure.’
‘But Sophie...’
‘He was jealous, but the stupid thing is he had nothing to be jealous about.’
‘Sophie, you said...’
‘I mean, I wasn’t preparing to run off with somebody else or anything.’
‘You said...’
‘But I had to tell him.’
‘Tell him what?’ Ian asked, suddenly diverted.
‘That it was over...us...we were finished.’
‘That’s what caused it?’
‘Yes,’ Sophie sighed, cupping her knees with her hands. ‘Angus wasn’t a psycho all the time. Mostly he was a quiet as a lamb. He had these funny turns, mists he called them; blue ones, yellow ones, red ones. The red ones were the worst. Then he was capable of anything.’
‘Which brings me back to my point, you said he killed you?’
‘Yes that’s right.’
‘But how...I mean...’ he started, considering at the same time just what it meant. He had shaken her hand, which was warm and moist. The air between them was sweetly thick with her scent. ‘Well that means you must be a ghost!’ he blurted. Yet what kind of ghost was warm and wet and used perfume?
‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed.
‘But Sophie, that’s impossible!’
‘Why?’
‘Look, I’m no expert, but as far as I know ghosts are phantom like, cold and insubstantial, not warm, sweet smelling and pretty.’
‘D’you think I’m pretty?’
‘Ah...yes...but that’s beside the point - ghosts aren’t supposed to smell of lilies.’
‘It’s rose blossom actually. What’s pretty about me then?’
‘This is hardly the time for detail.’
‘Tell me,’ Sophie drew closer to him, eyes filled with curiosity. ‘Is it my nose, my mouth,
my eyes? Angus thought my eyes were beaut...’
‘Sophie!’ Ian gripped her hard by the shoulders. ‘You are not a ghost!’
‘Ian!’ She grabbed him back. ‘They buried me six months ago. If that doesn’t make me a ghost, what does?’
They remained locked together, eye to eye for a moment, before releasing each other, like combatants retiring to their corners after the bell. Ian muttering to himself inside, I’m not getting through, I can’t make it clear. What is more disturbing, meeting a real ghost or someone who’s convinced herself that she is one? Whatever Angus did or did not do, it seems to have completely unhinged her.
‘All right,’ he huffed. ‘Tell me how you “died”.’
‘Like I said, it was my own fault really.’ Sophie began fiddling with the buttons on her blouse. ‘I’d been meaning to break with him for months but never had the courage. I knew he’d get mad and...’
‘Misty?’
‘Exactly. I thought I could do it in a subtle way, not rejection, more moving away,
withdrawing my affection, if you know what I mean.’
‘You’d found someone else?’
‘No not that. I just didn’t love him anymore. It happens.’
‘Yes I know...all the time.’
‘There was no spark, no wobbly knees like at the start. All we had left as far as I was concerned, was sex.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Angus was a top performer in bed.’
‘Really?’ Ian said, determined not to be phased.
‘Yes...a sort of cross between the Boston Strangler and Casanova. I thought that once the sex dried up he’d get the message. I had a headache for a whole month but he still didn’t twig.’
‘Very inconvenient.’
‘Worse than that, he became all considerate, said it didn’t matter, it would all sort itself out.’
‘Quite a problem.’
‘What was I supposed to do? He was pushing towards living together, probably marrying, yet all I wanted was to see the back of him!’ Sophie’s buttons were coming under considerable strain.
‘You were in a corner.’
‘Big time. I could’ve run away I suppose. Get out of town as they say. But I didn’t fancy that.’
‘So you told him...how you felt.’
‘Yes. It was a Tuesday evening. We were watching the telly. He suddenly looks round and starts going on about how cramped my flat is, how much bigger his place is...we could be living together by the weekend!’
‘A sneak attack.’ Ian was wondering just how far he should string along with her story.
‘You’re telling me,’ Sophie gasped. ‘All my alarm bells start ringing and I know I’ve just got to spit it out whatever happens.’
‘I assume he got angry?’
‘It was a bit of a slow burn at first. I don’t think he believed me. But when he finally cottoned on, it was like pushing the plunger.’
‘He exploded?’
‘In all directions. I don’t remember all the details. I know that he was shouting, I was shouting, the neighbour downstairs was banging on his ceiling and I think there was a dog barking somewhere. The it all went black.’
‘Angus’s red mist?’
‘Yes. Apparently he caved my head in with a heavy iron frying pan - my mum’s Christmas present last year.’ Sophie fell silent for a while, as if remembering better times, then sighed deeply. ‘Angus ran for it once he realised what he’d done. They picked him up a few days later on his way to Newcastle.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It was said at the trial.’
‘How could you have been at the trial if you were dead?’
‘The same way I can be here now telling it to you.’
‘Naturally,’ Ian said, sorely tempted to snap his fingers. It was obvious that this lovely Summer girl was completely deranged. Had she escaped from somewhere...was she dangerous...was it Angus who had suffered the fate of the frying pan and Sophie who had slipped away from an asylum, back to the scene of the crime...to seek another victim?’
‘You’re not listening are you?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I was telling you about the trial and my funeral.’
‘Funeral?’
‘Very sad. It’s weird watching your own coffin go into the ground, everybody with their heads bowed, the vicar, “Ashes to ashes” and all that stuff. I felt sorry for mum and dad. They were really broken up. I wanted to comfort them, tell them I was all right, but they couldn’t see or hear me.’
‘It must have been terrible for you.’
‘Yes...that was the worst. I thought when you died, you went to Heaven or down below, but I just sort of drifted. It was so lonely being around my family and friends, all of them so sad that I was gone. I was already just a memory, right in the middle of them, yet...forever apart...can you understand that?’
‘It sounds worse than being in prison.’
‘Yeah, that’s it exactly. I was in a prison without bars. I could go anywhere I liked, anywhere in the world, see things, hear things but...never touch...never talk...never hold...’ Sophie’s eyes welled with tears as she spoke. Ian felt a sudden urge to comfort her, hesitating as he once again realised the absurdity of the situation; a ghost with moist hands, sweet scent and now, tears...what next?
‘That’s why I came back here,’ Sophie continued. ‘Thank God the landlord had boarded up the place after my death, so it stayed empty.’
‘And you’ve been here ever since?’
‘Yes.’ Sophie seemed to shrink into herself as she replied.
‘It must get lonely here too.’
‘Oh it’s not so bad. I keep myself occupied. I’ve got plenty of time to read all those books I bought, and I watch a lot of television.’
‘Television!?’
‘Yes, the landlord must have forgotten to cut off the signal.’
Okay, Ian decided, this has gone far enough. Ghosts smelling of perfume was weird, but ghosts watching television was bizarre. I’ve got to snap her out of this somehow, he thought, but before he could speak Sophie stood up and walked to her living room.
‘Look, I’ll show you.’
Ian followed, searching his mind for some argument he could use to bring the poor girl back to sanity.
‘See,’ Sophie declared, pointing at the flickering television screen. ‘They’re showing Casablanca after the commercials. We could watch it if you like.’
A sigh ran through Ian from his hair roots to his toes. Sophie was indeed lovely; deranged but very attractive, obviously certifiable yet enchanting, possibly dangerous but so seemly vulnerable in her madness, that the risk was worth it. A Summer bloom in a shivery attic, a ghost you could hug, anomalous, delicious, lunatic, irresistible. What could he say against her beauty? Her mind was wandering, that was obvious, perhaps through loneliness like his own, forming a more acceptable fiction, a strategy to deal with unhappiness. Did it really matter what she was, or what she believed she was? Only the moment was important and Sophie was the prettiest moment he could imagine. His misgivings unravelled with every step he took towards her, sitting on an old battered leather sofa, a siren in slip-ons. Following a perfume path to her side, two disparate souls enveloped by the hazy shadow of fading day, diffusing from the skylight above them.
The film moved on, as did the earth around them, in timeless shadows. Somehow Sophie snuggled closer to him, his arm found a way around her shoulders and, before the end credits, their lips had become acquainted. As Bogart disappeared into the mists, they were intertwined like seasoned lovers; Sophie radiant, Ian dreamily acquiescent.
‘I’m glad you haven’t got a girlfriend,’ she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder.
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘It’s obvious. You’ve been living downstairs for over a month and no sign of anyone special.’
‘Well...that’s right...I haven’t anybody at the moment.’
‘I’m also glad you’re nothing like Angus.’
‘I wouldn’t speak too quickly, I might be a closet sadist.’
‘I don’t think someone who wears Batman underpants could be a sadist.’
‘How do you know that?’ he gasped, shooting upright.
‘I’ve been watching,’ Sophie answered sheepishly.
‘But how did you get into my flat?’
‘I’m a ghost remember. I can go anywhere I like.’
She must have a key, Ian thought. Good God, she’s been rummaging around through my clothes cupboard. What the hell am I dealing with here?’
‘Oh don’t worry,’ Sophie assured, picking up his concern. ‘I haven’t peeked at anything “intimate” though I’ve been sorely tempted. You’ve got a very nice body.’
‘I...I...’ Ian was too flabbergasted by the thought of her sneaking around in his private world to finish the sentence.
‘Angus was pure beefcake but not very cuddly. You’re nicer to snuggle up to.’
‘And more clear headed.’
‘Oh he wasn’t all bad. He was sweet sometimes and his jokes were always funny.’
‘Handy for a homicidal maniac.’
‘Yes, he was always struggling with a terrible dilemma - whether to be a stand up comic or a baby crusher.’ It was again such a straight faced delivery from her that Ian wondered if he’d missed the joke or she had. Either way he was lost for a reply, so left it, concentrating his mind on how to get his key back. He could hardly sack the place or force the information out of her. What else did she know about him? How many of his drawers had she been spying in? Perhaps she had met mad Angus in that asylum and they’d both been sent out into the world with a box of keep-you-calm pills as an experiment that had gone very wrong. She may have clobbered him with the frying pan and has come back, like some saccharine psycho, to the scene of the crime? There again she may have made the whole story up, lost and confused in her own sloping roof Never Never Land. What am I supposed to do, he sighed inwardly, fear her, desire her or feel sorry for her?
Sophie, oblivious to his dark thoughts, switched off the television with the remote then smiled broadly at him. ‘It’s cosy isn’t it...here...us two?
‘Yes,’ Ian managed to say. ‘Very.’
‘Could sort of get used to it.’
‘Well...I...’
‘You still haven’t said me what you find attractive about me.’
‘Ah...’
‘My eyes...my legs?’
‘Well, Sophie...’
‘Angus was also crazy about my bottom,’ she got up and turned slowly around. ‘What do you think?’
‘Well...I...’ Ian stammered. ‘I think...that you’re lovely all over.’
She sat down again, kissed his cheek then his lips. ‘You’re sweet.’
‘So are you,’ he smiled.
‘It’s such a long time since I’ve kissed anyone,’ she sighed, cupping his hand against her cheek. ‘Or been touched.’ Sophie stared long into his eyes then carefully moved his hand to her breast. ‘Do you like that?’
‘Yes,’Ian whispered, frowning yet not wanting to move away.
‘So do I,’Sophie breathed. ‘Very much.’ Her eyes burned into him as she pressed his hand harder. ‘You’re not cold anymore.’
‘On the contrary,’ he coughed.
‘Oh...such a long time,’ Sophie gasped, eyes tight shut with pleasure. ‘Such a long time Ian.’
‘Sophie...like I said I’m no expert, but I know that ghosts aren’t supposed to feel as soft and warm as you do...and I’m damned sure they’re not supposed to get horny!’
‘I’m a special sort of ghost,’ she sighed. ‘Special for you...if you want me?’
‘Sophie for God’s sake!’ Ian pulled away sharply.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Just stop it. Stop all this nonsense. You’re not a ghost, you’re flesh and blood. I don’t know what you’re doing up here but you’re no more ghost than I am!’
Sophie hung her head making no reply. Ian sat back cursing and congratulating himself at once. A lovely girl he thought, a very lovely girl offering herself to me. I must be crazy to refuse and yet...no, it’s not right to take advantage of her unbalanced mind, her vulnerability, her loneliness...even as a cure for my own.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sophie whispered. ‘I...thought you liked me.’
‘I do, honestly Sophie I do,’ Ian exclaimed. ‘Just tell me...why have you made up this ghost story?’
‘You really do like me?’ She was suddenly like a small child. ‘Really like me?’
‘Yes...yes I do...very much.’ Ian felt the weight of his words.
‘Enough to stay with me?’
‘Listen Sophie...look...I’m not the type...not the type for one night stands.’
‘I don’t just mean tonight...I mean forever.’
‘Sophie!’ Ian threw his hands up. ‘Don’t do this to me. We hardly know each other and what I do know about you doesn’t make any sense. First you confuse me with some crazy story about Axe Man Angus making a ghost of you, then you almost pull me into bed, and now you talk about “Happily ever after.” What the hell am I to make of you?’
‘I’m sorry...I didn’t put it right. You don’t understand.’
‘Now that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all evening. No, I don’t understand, but I’m willing to give it one last try.’
Sophie took his hands gently in her own, smiling weakly. ‘Ian listen...I realise that this all seems confusing and weird, but I can explain, I really can.’ She looked at her lap as if searching for the right words. ‘I...I...haven’t been absolutely straight with you.’
‘Ah, then you admit that the ghost bit was nonsense.’
‘No...that’s real.’
‘Oh for God’s sake!’
‘Look I’ll show you.’ Sophie led him to the kitchen and showed him some dark stains on the floorboards. ‘This is where Angus hit me...that’s my blood on the floor.’
Ian frowned, bending down to take a closer look. ‘It could be blood, but that doesn’t make it yours,’ he said, standing up.
Sophie held his arms lightly, looking straight into his eyes. ‘Ian...I’m going to show you why you’re here.’ Her voice was calm, her face clear, sad, her manner redrawn with a lucidity which surprised him. ‘I’ll show you why you can touch me...why I talked about forever...why you’re not cold anymore.’ She took his hand and led him downstairs to his apartment.
‘Wait a minute,’Ian said. ‘I’ll get my key.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ Sophie heaved a sigh, then walked through the door. Ian’s mouth was still wide open when she reappeared and grabbed his hand. ‘C’mon.’ He was suddenly in his hallway, being pulled through the dark passage to the kitchen. ‘Wait a bit,’Sophie said. ‘I’ll have to concentrate hard to turn the light on.’ Ian instinctively reached for the light-switch, gasping when his hand disappeared into the wall.
‘There!’ Sophie huffed. Ian blinked in the harsh light, then blinked again at what it revealed...his body lying on the cool linoleum floor! Still gaping, he looked at Sophie, at his corpse, then back at her.
‘I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for an ambulance,’ Sophie shrugged. ‘It was already to late when you first saw me.’
Ian sank to his knees beside his body which was stretched out on it’s side, eyes closed as if asleep. He stared and stared but it still wouldn’t register. He shot a questioning look at Sophie.
‘It was the geyser,’ she said. ‘It should have been cleaned years ago. Carbon monoxide...the place is full of it.'
‘Why didn’t you warn someone?’ He shouted.
‘How could I. Nobody can see or hear me. I’m only real to you because...’
‘You’re no more a ghost than I am,’ he quoted. ‘I’m surprised you kept a straight face.’
‘I’m sorry Ian...really sorry.’
He crouched down again. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance?
Sophie shook her head.
‘Then why didn’t you tell me straight away?’ He confronted her once more.
‘I...I was afraid you’d run off,’ she replied shakily. ‘That I’d never see you again. I thought...I thought if we could get to know each other better...talk for a while...and then...when the moment was right...’
‘The moment...you mean before or after my funeral!?’
‘I wasn’t trying to trick you Ian, honest. You were already dead...that’s why you could see the door to the attic...why you met me. It wasn’t a trick, you’ve got to believe me. I just...I just...didn’t want to be alone anymore.’ Sophie bowed her head unable to meet his gaze. Ian gently lifted her face.
‘Now that’s at least something I can understand,’ he said softly, holding her close. She held him tight, snuggling her head under his chin, while Ian tried to unscramble the tangled mess in his mind.
Dead!
Everything set back to zero.
Future in the dustbin.
No long tunnels, fragrant gardens, long lost relatives, just a strange lone girl who may or may not be as innocent as she seems.
Dead - and all of Sophie’s forever to consider being dead. His life redefined by death; from the womb to the gravestone and thereafter the edited highlights...an eternity of replays.
‘You’re not angry anymore?’ Sophie interrupted.
‘What?’ Ian moaned softly, still entrenched in thought.
‘You’re not angry with me?’
‘Angry?’ he pulled away from her, suddenly focused. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I am. I’m dead, that’s what I am! What am I supposed to feel, to think?’ He waved his arms about helplessly. ‘I feel cheated, yes cheated! I was here, new flat, new job; this morning I had a future, I had a life...and now...’ he motioned feebly at his stiffening corpse.‘A carcass, as dead as a stupid cow in a slaughterhouse. Dear God I’m already history and I’d barely got started!’
‘I...I know how you feel,’ Sophie stammered, reaching out to him.
‘Really?’ Ian kept his distance.
‘Really. I went through the same. It just wouldn’t sink in, even when I was standing by my grave. I just stared at it, forcing myself to realise that my body was in the ground, yet I, me, the thinking feeling me still existed...somewhere...close but distant...everywhere and nowhere...oh I can’t put it properly, but now you must understand. This is the hardest part Ian...the most awful...you can’t go back.’
Ian rolled his eyes to the ceiling as if her last words had been chiselled onto his soul. He paced around aimlessly, Sophie looking after him, unsure of what more to say.
‘Everything back to zero,’ she heard him mutter as he knelt again beside his grey faced remains.
‘It’ll be hard for your parents,’ she said. ‘It was for mine.’
‘They were always worried how I’d get on without them,’ Ian sighed. ‘Now it’s the other way round,’ He felt Sophie hand rest on his shoulder.
‘At least they have each other to share the grief.’
‘I don’t want to see them,’ he replied firmly, standing up. ‘I don’t want to see my own funeral, to watch them grieving...it will be too painful.’ He faced Sophie with a tortured expression. ‘Why isn’t death the end of everything?’
Impossible, it was all impossible, the questions, the answers. Life was difficult enough yet definable - a beginning, an end. If it had been good then death could be a glorious rounding off, if bad, death would bring relief from the suffering; but now...now...to be dead yet still in anguish, what then? Where do the dead go to find peace?
Sophie was close by him, an unbearable warm, soft caress on his cheek. ‘There’s no use tormenting yourself, Ian.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said quietly. ‘How can I be dead yet still feel...stiff as a board and still be aware, walk through doors...be everywhere and nowhere?’
‘I don’t know the answers,’ Sophie sighed, ‘but I do know that you don’t have to face this alone...unless you want to?’
‘If there’s no rest in the grave, then where?’
‘I’ve no idea, she replied. ‘Perhaps we could search for it together?’
‘Have you any idea where to look?’
‘We could start upstairs?’
‘Sophie’s haven,’ Ian smiled.
‘We could make it one together.’ She did nothing to hide the imploring look in her eyes. ‘We can make it anything we want to, I know how.’
‘An attic paradise?’
‘Eternity is a long time to be alone, Ian. Besides, we don’t have to stay there. We can go anywhere we want to, be as close as we want to.’
‘My golden opportunity to be seduced by a ghost.’
‘You could call it a fortunate meeting of like spirits.’
‘Did Angus clobber you out of jealousy, or your awful sense of humour?’
Sophie didn’t flinch. Her eyes were wide, staring forward as if she was already far ahead of him in their dream. ‘You did say you liked me...really liked me...is it still so?’
Ian made no reply. He stared, mutely, at his dead twin. The silence filled Sophie with terror.
‘You still think I tricked you...that I cheated you of your life?’
‘No...no,’ he said, unable to completely erase the accusation from his voice.
‘Maybe I did...I don’t know.’ Sophie swayed back and forth, hand to her forehead. ‘I don’t know...I thought...I really believed there was no chance for you. How could you have seen me if you were still alive? No...you were right, I should have been honest, should have told you. Oh, Ian you’ve got to believe me, it wasn’t deliberate. You...you don’t know what it’s like to be alone, absolutely alone...nobody anywhere...unbearable! Forgive me...please.’
Sophie stood with her back to him, round shouldered, trembling. Ian’s turmoil was now complete; death was as complicated as life, and just as confusing. Was the crumpled figure before him his only refuge? If spirit and feeling were eternal, then so were pain and suffering...the anguish shaking her. No Heaven, no Hell, just abandonment, endless drifting.
Had there been any chance for me? A desperate, lonely ghost-girl trying to play it cool, right on the edge of doubt. Her light, her love only for me. Yes...I should have noticed the fear in her eyes when she mentioned forever...the clinging world she created for herself...a haven one moment, a prison the next...one wayward soul running scared in the hereafter.
Recrimination is for the living. So perhaps, is mistrust. Sophie is here, to hold, to comfort, to love...yes...love is also eternal...maybe the one shield we have against the dark beyond. Could it be that she’s my only warmth in a barren afterlife?
Ian laid his hands gently on Sophie’s shoulders. ‘Sophie...listen...perhaps we can start again...get to know each other properly...how does that sound?’
She faced him slowly, eyes full, sombre...so different from the girl who had greeted him on the stairs. ‘Sounds fine...if you think you can trust me?’
He cupped her sad face in his hands, lightly kissing her lips, feeling her relax against him. Alone together in the grey light, the world already distant, emptied of meaning. All that was precious locked in their kiss. Sophie took his hand. ‘There’s nothing more for us here.’
Ian nodded, taking one last resigned look at his remains, then following her through the hallway, the landing and up the stairs. Behind them the door closed, slowly dissolving...leaving only a white, newly painted wall.