She was a 90-year-old Rapunzel. Or at least, that’s what she liked to imagine. Her hair was thin and wispy, but when she held the thickest clump above her right ear, she could almost believe that it kept going down, down, down, draping out the window sill and past the four floors, skimming the warm pavement below.
It was survival: romanticizing her entrapment. It kept her thoughts away from the reality of her situation. Muggy, suffocating air, a tattered pullout sofa, one window. A cubicle goldfish bowl. When she peered out the window, she often saw a passerby stopped on the sidewalk, eyes hungry for a fascinating glimpse into her infamous, broken flat.
Sometimes they were mothers, pushing strollers with plump, happy babies. Some of them lived in Standish House with her, and would have to leave their babies on the ground floor while they carried up their shopping. Sometimes it was her daughter, Elaine, stepping out of the Soho Wine Supply off-license next door for a cigarette break, glancing up with a look of motherly concern. Sometimes it was the contractors for EMI, stout men with clipboards in hand and hardhats that looked foolish when there was nothing falling from the sky. The men would come all this way, scan the block of twenty flats with a disinterested expression, take a measurement, and be gone.
This time it was a young boy. He was at a position where she could see him, but he couldn’t see her. After a moment of looking up, eyes squinting against the sun, he grew bored waiting for the princess to appear and plopped onto the curb to eat his ice cream.
The soft serve cone, his face painted like a tiger, the confetti glued to his sticky jumper…that’s right, she remembered, the annual Fitzrovia Festival was today. She had attended the first one, three years ago, with her family. It had been billed as “The people live here festival.” The event had been shaky, people were uncertain quite how to celebrate, but it had been a joyous occasion. It was wonderfully loud: music, dancing, shrieks of laughter. She had seen children of old friends pulling along their children. Elaine had asked if she wanted to go with them this year, but she could tell that Elaine was hoping she’d say no, so that’s what she said. It had been her one good deed a day.
The festivals were spearheaded by the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association, where she used to participate in knitting events on weekends back before her leg flared up with phlebitis. After that, she had tried to call her friend from the Association, Suzanne, to see if she could host the knitting group for tea and a chat in her flat. That’s when she realized that her phone line had been cut off.
The Tower newspaper, which Elaine delivered religiously to her each morning along with her black coffee in a warm paper cup, teasingly promoted the event:
WE NEED YOU TO TAKE PART IN OUR FESTIVAL — CAN YOU RUN A STALL — PLAY MUSIC — WEAR A FUNNY COSTUME — HELP TO TRANSPORT GOODS — SELL RAFFLE TICKETS — MAKE SANDWICHES — SERVE TEA — HANG BUNTING — BASH-THE-RATE — JUST ENJOY YOURSELF?
Last month, she had been tucked into the left column of the front page: TRAPPED BY BROKEN LIFT. There she was, Mrs. Trompeto, the “oldest resident on the block.”
It is thought that the 40-year-old lift will cost £200 to repair, and that's money EMI doesn't want to spend.
After all, why waste resources fixing something that's about to crumble? She had stuck the front page onto her fridge with a bright green magnet.
Back when the lift was still functioning, she was disheartening, angry even, at the thought of having to forcibly leave her home in six weeks time. The flat was littered with memories and smelled like sweet must. But, ever since the lift had shuddered to a stop, the flat had just seemed cramped and musty. It was like the people of EMI had fumigated her home, made it suddenly undesirable to her: theirs.
The boy was almost done with his ice cream, now holding just the stub of a cone in his fingers. His face was smeared with chocolate. Quickly, she finished her sketch that she had been haphazardly scribbling in the background of everything. It was drawn on the napkin that had come wrapped around her coffee. Hands shaking, she fiddled with the hatch and gently pushed the window open. Pens are not made for the left handed, she noted as she saw the underside of her thin wrist, blackened with ink. She slipped the napkin out of the crack. One good deed a day. She watched it flutter down, indecisive on its direction. It neared the boy but, in its final falling moments, swerved off to the side. It settled in the gutters, not anywhere near the wake of the boy’s steps as she’d envisioned would result from her dramatic flourish.
It lay on the street and began to soak up muddy water.
