Winchester Words

Ernst closed the inner door, leaving the front door slightly ajar for air, as was his habit. He placed a foot each side of the long rolled up carpet that lay the whole length of the room and walked almost its length before making two right-handed ninety degree turns to arrive back by the windows. They overlooked the little service road behind the flat. He peeked through the yellowed net curtain at the bird feeder. It swayed gently. Maybe the wind, or from still settling, after being placed on its hook by his newly acquired neighbour. Ernst smiled. He knew several neighbours by sight but had little to do with them. Ian had known people, having lived there longer and by virtue of being a confident outgoing sort of person. Several of those original neighbours had passed away before Ian or had moved away or were now too old to get out. This young fellow was newish. Generally, Ernst was wary of people. He had good cause to be. Nevertheless, this chap, Wayne, Ernst thought he had called himself, seemed quite sincere. He had, on their first encounter, fallen into the category of yobbery that Ernst considered most young people to now occupy. He felt perhaps there was more to this young man than he had become accustomed to believing. Realistically he recognised that most people were more complex and nuanced than he gave them credit for. It was more convenient to have a blanket view of people in general. Pigeonholing people into unambiguous stereotypes was quicker and, given he had no desire to engage with virtually anyone, it made little difference. On the few occasions when he had allowed people to enter his consciousness and become somewhat more rounded, he had either grown to like them, only to be hurt by their rejection of him, or disappointed at their shallowness. This neighbour, he decided, he would keep at a distance but felt that he had perhaps the potential to be more than a stranger. 

Ernst turned away from the window. He twitched the nets over the second window in order that the pleats hung evenly spaced before spinning back into the room. He stood in an open space measuring almost a metre in width. The windows and outer wall of his flat at his back, he had in front of him a desk with a chair. This occupied a sort of Cul de sac at the end of a narrower corridor running toward the corner of the room. The gangway then turned left back up to the main thoroughfare that led left back towards the front door and right towards the kitchen, bathroom and other two bedrooms. Ernst spent a lot of time at the desk.

It was a fine office desk with green leather top and four drawers each side of the kneehole. It had been his fathers. One of several pieces of quality furniture that Ernst had been passed by his father over the years as he upgraded his own. Well, it would have looked fine had more of it been visible. The front edge was slightly curved. Each side of the sitter, at the top of the desk, just below the writing surface was a pull-out shelf that extended at ninety degrees. Below each was a shallow drawer with dividers containing a vast array of clips, rubbers, pencils, rulers, pins, sticking tape, and a collection of staplers, hole punches and treasury tags. It was neat but overfilled. The writing surface was partially visible underneath bits of paperwork, cuttings and a large magnifying glass. Most of the green leather was obscured by a towering stack of shoe boxes. This sat on all three edges of the desk that did not have the kneehole, into which the chair slotted. At the back, facing the chair the shoe box pile was increased in height by a free-standing shelf sitting on the desk. Boxes, two high, filled up the space under the shelf and the stack above, rose over six foot blocking any view of the room behind. It made a cosy nest within the larger room. When out, the sun shone through the windows warming Ernst’s back, and bright or not, daylight from the windows fell helpfully across the desk, making reading easier. Ernst spent a good part of everyday at the desk. The boxes that surrounded him had all manner of things which could be predominantly classed as administrative. Some had collections of letters; each correspondent having their own shoe box. There were photographs in other boxes. Banking items, newspaper cuttings, maps, address books, lists of things to do, instructions for numerous appliances and a host of other papers was secreted into the boxes, all of which had handwritten labels itemising their contents. 

Ernst pulled the chair out, twisted it a quarter turn before sinking into it. Air sighed gently out of the cushion. His eyes scanned the desk before lifting to the stacked boxes and then swivelling the chair slightly his eyes drifted along the gangway back towards the heart of his home. The two large windows were behind him and to the right, in a wall that was lined with bookcases, tucked under the windowsill. Opposite the windows and forming the other side of the gangway, were two, matching chests of drawers with rectangular marquetry inlay on the fronts of each drawer. Ornate metal drawer pulls hung against the shiny mid-brown cherry wood. They matched the desk and had come from his father. The tops were covered with pieces of grey felt that poked out at the edges of the boxes that were piled on top. These were larger than the shoe box boundary of the office space. The sizes varied but were matched in height with the partner to each side. The stack was four boxes wide and five high, reaching above Ernst head. Unlike the smaller ones these had few labels on. Some were the boxes that the item had been purchased in, therefore the contents could reasonably be ascertained, though it was no guarantee since sometimes boxes were repurposed. Mostly the brown cardboard was blank. Here and there a pencil written message recorded the contents, date of order and price paid, this particularly for those that contained unopened products. Though he could only see down to the end of the alley, Ernst knew the shape, height and often the approximate weight of most boxes.

As the passage turned back up to the bedrooms and kitchen corridor there was a split. Turning to the left lay mostly bookcases and ornamental items, whereas to the right as the passage led through the living room door into the hallway, the boxes were more uniform. Banana boxes were close stacked both sides. On the left they sat atop more dark wood furniture. This time sideboards with sliding or hinged doors that contained a profusion of glassware. On the right the banana boxes were piled floor to ceiling.  This corridor was dark. A little light filtered through from the kitchen on the right, but the bedroom on the left was, like the other two bedrooms, always quite dark. This was partly a function of the windows not being clean, the fact that the curtains were permanently drawn and the volume of boxes and assorted items stacked against the walls and in piles within the rooms. The open doorways were further restricted by the hanging clothes, both impeding access for Ernst getting in and light getting out. Familiarity allowed Ernst to negotiate the corridor effortlessly. He knew where to lift his foot over the joins in the various carpet runners that lay overlapped beneath his feet. He could reach behind the large wardrobe beside the doorless entrance to the kitchen and find, by touch, the light switch if he needed it at night. He knew at what point to swivel slightly sidewards to get past the metal ladder for accessing the attic, at the end of the corridor, when going to the bathroom. As Ernst’s memories of the old world he had known in London faded with his increasing age, his detailed knowledge of his internal geography of his flat and its contents grew. It was comforting. The complexity of the place made it feel bigger than it was and it occupied his mind. There were always projects to undertake. Resorting boxes that had been laid down for approaching twenty years. Venturing into the backrow of banana boxes lining the corridor, was infrequent, but always quite exciting. There was always that element of surprise about what he would rediscover. At times he barely remembered where some of those things he found had come from. The puzzling that would ensue, questioning whether these things were items he had acquired form his father or a friend; or moreover, whether, when and where, he had bought it himself, was intriguing. It gave him a warm sense of amused comfort, mystery, joy, well-being and satisfaction.