Just following orders... (1)

            I'd been sober for two months at the time this happened...

            It had never really been a problem for me anyway, the drink.  Not until my GP said it was time to deal with my depressions decisively, and referred me to the local mental health unit.  There, virtually the first question I was asked was 'Do you drink?'  I said 'yes', because I did.  A bottle or two of wine a week, maybe.  A few beers now and then.  Very occasionally, a half-bottle of scotch, which would last a few days.  Pretty normal in comparison to some people.  I hadn't been a drinker at all, either, during my teens and twenties, and most of my thirties.  I didn't see it as a problem. 

            But they did.

            "Before we can deal with your mental health, you need to stop drinking."

            I could have done that easily enough.  But they weren't convinced.  I was referred to an alcohol unit and told to go to daily support groups.  There, I was mixing with seriously hardened drinkers.  People who'd lost homes, jobs and health because of alcohol.  People who sat there shaking, staring at nothing.  People who drank in a day what I drank in a month.  It made no sense to me.  Why was I here? 

            But the die was cast.  As soon as I was told it was my problem, it became my problem.  Like a teacher telling you one day that you are stupid... and you go on to fulfil their judgement, and be stupid.  Even though you're not.

            I thought to myself  What am I worrying about?  I'm not like this.  There's nothing wrong with my drinking.

            And I began to loosen up a bit.  I began to drink more.

            But as I was saying... I'd been sober for two months.  I'd even taken a holiday abroad and not touched a drop, or felt the need to.  I was actually quite settled for the first time in a few years, too.  I'd moved into a studio flat following my divorce.  One small bed-sitting room with a tacked-on kitchen area and a toilet with shower.  It was meant to be a stop-gap until something better came along.  But five years later, I was still there.  It was the simplicity I liked.  Minimalism as a necessity.  And all bills included in the rent.  It was a cheap way to live.  And I'd started doing care work, which didn't pay well.  Beggars can't always be choosers, as mum used to say.  That was another bonus.  She lived 200 yards away, so I could keep an eye on her in her twilight years.

            It was in a large house that had once been a residential home.  Twelve studios in total over four floors.  Mine was on the first floor.  The landlord, Graham, had bought the place quite cheaply when the home closed down.  He was a jack-of-all-trades and had done all the flat conversions  himself, and alone: sound-proofing, plastering, unit installations, plumbing, electrics.  A main boiler in the basement serviced every flat with heating and hot water.  There were washing machines down there, too, for tenants to use.  Plus a huge fridge-freezer for any who needed it. 

            Only seven of the flats were permanently occupied.  The other five were still 'under conversion'.  Graham said he'd hoped to have them finished within two years of my moving in.  There were bigger ones, he said, that might be better for me once I was more settled.

            "No one ever leaves once they're here," he said cheerily, when he'd first shown me around.  "It's cheap and convenient.  The sound-proofing is the best, too, so you won't get any noise."

            I liked him.  He was about my age.  There was something off-beat about him, too, with his long grey hair, his battered clothing, his predilection for using a cigarette holder for his roll-ups.  He said he wasn't in it to make money.  He just wanted to provide affordable housing for decent people.  He didn't even ask me for references.

            "You've been a home-owner," he said.  "You've got a job.  I can tell you're alright."

            It was a friendly house.  I got on okay with the other neighbours, though we generally kept to ourselves.  They seemed pretty much loners, like myself - divorcees, singletons, refugees from the madding crowds.  People who seemed to be in-between things: stuck somewhere between this stage of life and the next.  There wasn't much coming and going of visitors.  In the basement flat at the back of the house lived Phil.  Like me, he was a care worker.  He was in his thirties and getting over a split from his girlfriend.  Alcohol figured in his consolations.  I shared a can with him some evenings, while he was battling aliens on his computer screen.  In the front basement was a retired chap called Oliver.  He seemed quite well-educated.  Our few brief chats covered ground I'd not trodden before.  He went off travelling a lot, so no one saw him much.  He basically used the flat as his UK base.  On the floor above mine was Nigel, a taxi-driver who used to wake me up by revving his engine outside.  He had an ex-partner and kids elsewhere, so was often away.  Above him was a single woman in her forties, Mandy, who worked in a local factory.  She got a rent reduction because she did some caretaking duties in the house: cleaning the stairs down, keeping things tidy, etc.  She had right-wing views that bordered on lunacy, but we managed to pass the time of day.  Next door to me was an older woman, Kath, who worked at the local supermarket.  She didn't say much to anyone.  I thought I heard her crying some nights.  Finally, next to Nigel, was Carl.  He was a self-employed plasterer, in his mid-thirties.  Like me, he kept fit.  He played some football and golf.  Of all of them, I saw him and Mandy the most - usually in the laundry room.  As the months went on, we bonded over a few little complaints we all had.  We wondered when Graham was going to get the flats finished.  Also, there was still a bit of an 'institutional' feel from the residential home days.  A few little touches would help.  The front hallway needed redecorating.  The carpeting could do with replacing.

            Graham usually came to the property at weekends - sleeping over on a camp bed in one of the empty flats.  I always assumed this was to carry on with the work, but he didn't seem to do much.  He had a small office down next to the boiler room.  It was a clutter of tools and brushes, insulation bales, tubs of paint, cable reels, pipework, cladding.  Over the months, I noticed he used to sit in there a lot, drinking tea and smoking, fiddling with paperwork.  After a while, he stopped coming quite so frequently.  He said he'd acquired other properties, and was having to work on them, too.  Divide his time.  Sometimes, we didn't see him for weeks.  Once or twice, he visited if someone reported a problem.  Mandy had water running down her walls when it rained, so he got up on the roof and fixed some tiles.

            Then I got a problem one day.  The extractor unit in my kitchen kept stopping and starting.  I rang him about it.  He told me to stop using it.  There was probably an electrical problem with it, and it might cause a fire.  He said he'd replace it as soon as he could.

            Several months later, I was still waiting.  I caught him on the premises a couple of times and reminded him.  He said he was waiting for a new unit to arrive.  I thought I'd seen similar units in a local electrical store, but I said nothing.  I guessed he knew what he was talking about.  So I waited.  My flat filled with steam every time I cooked.  I had to open the windows, even in winter.  Not that it mattered much, because the flats were always warm.  Too warm, if anything.  Other tenants kept their windows open, too. 

            Graham didn't like this.  He left us a note downstairs one weekend.  He said he'd rather we turned the main thermostat down than that he should shell out to heat the sky!  The stat didn't seem to work properly, though.  It was either too hot or too cold.  And everyone had different needs, temperature-wise.  I preferred a cooler environment.  Kath next door felt cold all the time, though.  It was one of the problems of having the one boiler servicing all the flats.  But we didn't like to complain much.  It was still cheap and all-inclusive.

            Finally, Graham came one day and replaced my extractor.  A short while afterwards, a bigger problem arose.  The boiler broke down. We had no heating or hot water at all.  He came out immediately for that.  It took him a few days to fix, and he did it himself.  It was winter, too, so he gave us all convector heaters to use.  For hot water, we had to boil kettles.  Fortunately, the showers were independent units. Once he'd fixed it (the pump had packed up), he serviced the boiler.  It was soon back to normal.

            Time went on.  My five-year anniversary in the flat passed.  Things were still okay.  It was late October.  I'd just had my holiday, and - as I said - I hadn't touched a drink for two months...

            A few days after my return, I wasn't feeling right.  At first, I thought it might be jet-lag.  But I'd never had it like this.  I felt tired a lot.  From the Friday of my return to the following Monday, I found myself sleeping all night, then still needing to nap during the day.  I thought I might be going down with something.  On the Sunday, I even made a jokey post on Facebook:

          I think the government is putting something in the water to stupefy us!  I can't stop sleeping.  14 hours yesterday (yawn!)

            On the Monday evening, the main doorbell rang - an unusual thing, considering the household that we were.  I waited, thinking someone else might get it.  Then it rang again, so I went down.  There were three very worried-looking people outside - two men and a woman.  One of the men was Carl's business partner.  The other was his cousin.  The woman was his sister.  They'd just been to call on him (he had his own front door, up the fire escape at the side), but there was no answer.  He hadn't turned up for work that day and hadn't rung to say why.  They'd tried calling him all day, but never got an answer.  His work van was still sitting on our driveway outside.

            "Have you seen him at all?" his brother asked.

            I thought back.  "I saw him on Friday, in the laundry room.  He keeps himself to himself.  We all do, really."

            "Did he seem alright?"

            "Fine," I said.  "I quite often don't see him for days."

            At that moment, Mandy came down to see what was going on.  She'd seen him on Friday, too - but not since.

            We went around with them and up to his door.  We rang and knocked repeatedly.  Silence.  There was one window (all his flat had) and the blinds were open.  The flat was in darkness.

          "Something's wrong about this," Carl's sister said. "I'm calling the police."

          When they arrived, we gathered downstairs and watched.  They battered the door down and went in.  The lights went on.  After a few seconds, one of the officers stepped back out and came down to us.

            "Carl's in there, I'm afraid," he said.  "I'm sorry.  It's not good."

(to be continued)

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