Unbound (5 page)

The apartment, a small studio, is in Whitechapel, a neighborhood nor far from downtown London, centrally located, with good subway connections. At least, that’s what it said in the description. I was incredibly happy when I found the place online and jumped at it immediately, since the price was right too. Not that I had any idea what kind of a neighborhood it was in or how far it would be from work—but on the map it looked relatively close and the photos were fine, the rooms looked clean and halfway decently maintained. I had to pay a three-hundred-pound deposit in advance, converted from dollars, into the landlord’s bank account, but he assured me that I’d get it back when I moved out as long as nothing in the apartment was damaged. We had a lively email exchange and he seemed really nice.

I finally find the number I’d jotted down where could reach him at in my little notebook. Someone picks up after only the second ring. It’s a woman. “Can I speak to Mr. Scarlett, please?” I say politely.

For a moment, the line goes silent.

“There’s no Mr. Scarlett here. You’ve got the wrong number,” the woman tells me.

“But …that’s not possible. Listen. I’m Grace Lawson. I’m renting the little apartment in Adler Street. Mr. Scarlett gave me this number, so that I could get in touch with him when I got here. I arrived from America today and I really need to speak with him.”

“Sweetheart, I told you there’s no Mr. Scarlett here. As much as I’d love to help—you’ve got the wrong number.”

That just isn’t possible. “But you live in Adler Street in Whitechapel?” I try once more.

“I live in Spitalfields,” the woman says, distinctly annoyed. “And I don’t know any Adler Street.”

Spitalfields is right next to Whitechapel; I’d seen that on the map. Perhaps I just got the neighborhoods mixed up. Or the street name is wrong.

“Are there apartments in your building?” I’m clutching at straws now. I wait with baited breath.

“Yes, there are apartments here,” she answers. “But they’re all occupied, there aren’t any available for rent, as far as I know.”

The air escapes from my lungs. That was my last hope. When I don’t answer right away, I can hear the woman on the other end sighing, annoyed.

“Listen, I can’t help you, OK, love?”

“But Mr. Scarlett …”

“I’m really sorry, dear. Have a nice day.”

There is a click. She hung up.

I sit there, frozen, with the receiver in my hand. I feel rising nausea and I suddenly go cold, as I realize what this all means.

The man I thought was my landlord was obviously a con artist who just wanted to get his hands on the three-hundred-pound deposit. The apartment doesn’t even exist—but how was I to know that? It looked real online, affordable, and close to the center of town.

I mentally slap myself. That was probably the whole point! That’s what made me find the offer appealing and I had no chance of checking it out properly from the US. I was satisfied with the email confirmation, which probably isn’t worth the paper I printed it out on. Gosh darnit!

But that’s not even my biggest problem. If the apartment doesn’t exist, I can’t take my black monster suitcase and move in. I have no roof over my head, and no idea how to find another affordable apartment quickly enough. I could stay at a hotel or a bed and breakfast, of course, but that won’t work in the long run.

Hot tears are stinging my eyes. It’s not just about the money I’ve lost and the fact that I now have to search for an apartment again. It’s that I feel so let down. By London. By my dream of a lovely time here. I hadn’t imagined it would be like this.

I wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands and quickly go over to Annie’s office. Luckily, she’s alone right now; her colleague’s desk is empty.

“What’s wrong?” she asks at once, sounding worried, as I let myself fall heavily onto the free desk chair.

In a broken voice, I tell her what happened to me. By the end, I have to fight back tears of anger and disappointment.

“It’s so unfair,” I complain.

“And what did you say the bloke was called, who pretended to be your landlord?”

“Will Scarlett,” I tell her.

“You know that’s a famous character out of Robin Hood, right?”

I look at her blankly. “No,” I admit. I feel dumb. I’d better get used to that feeling, as it seems to be a permanent condition. In order to explain myself at least a little, I add: “I don’t know much about literature.”

Also that seems embarrassing. But, as I already told Jonathan Huntington, I like working with numbers, not letters. When I find art appealing, it’s not the written word I’m drawn to but works of art, paintings, and sculptures—something concrete.

And even if I had been better read, the connection probably wouldn’t have made me suspicious. I would have just assumed it was a coincidence. I mean, these things happen, sometimes people have funny names.

I shake my head and sigh. Other people aren’t as easy to cheat as I am. Which probably says a lot about how incredibly naive I am. Naive and dumb. And homeless.

“Shit.” I say it out loud before I’ve had time to think about how inappropriate the word is. But it does me good. There’s no other word to describe my situation, after all.

But I look over at Annie. Did I just shock her? The corners of her mouth are twitching.

“Yes,” she says, “it’s pretty shitty.”

We both start to laugh at almost the same moment.

“Perhaps your fake landlord really is a modern avenger of the poor. Then at least you can comfort yourself with the thought that your deposit has gone to a good cause.”

Haha. I smile, but then I turn serious again. “Do you think there’s any point in going to the police?”

Annie nods. “We’re definitely going to do that, it won’t hurt,” she says, and I love her for that; ‘We.’ Does that mean that she’s not going to abandon me? “But that won’t solve your accommodation problem.” She peers at me, frowning.

“I could go to a B&B for now,” I say, but even I can tell how pathetic I sound. Exhaustion has finally hit me with its full force, and the thought of having to spend ages looking for a suitable room depresses me more than I can say. My eyes are glistening with tears again; I can’t help it.

“No.” Annie looks at me staunchly. “I’ve got a much better idea.” Grinning broadly, she places her arms on the desk and bends over toward me. “For now, you’re coming back to my place.”

“Do you mean it?” The offer sounds so tempting that I can hardly believe it.

She nods. “I share an apartment in Islington with two nice guys. We have a spare room at the moment; you can definitely stay there tonight. And then we’ll work something out. What do you think?”

What do I think? I think that I’m the luckiest person in all London and that my world is suddenly OK again and that I could hug Annie French.

“You’re the greatest,” I say, and as we smile at each other, I can tell that I’ve made a new friend.

“That’s settled then,” she replies, with a mischievous smile. “And now back to work.” She looks at the clock. “The department meeting starts in ten minutes. Have you read through the reports?”

I confirm that I have and she nods, satisfied. Her colleague Shadrach Alani returns and takes a stack of papers from his desk. He smiles at me. “You coming?” We leave the office together and I feel at ease with my fate once more.

We take the Northern Line and in twenty minutes we’re at the subway stop with the pretty name, Angel, where we get off.

“We still have a bit of a walk from here,” Annie explains and I groan inwardly because the suitcase is a real impediment. I wish we were already there.

But once we’re walking, I forget about the weight I’m dragging after me and look around fascinated. Islington is a really pretty neighborhood. An unbroken row of two-story houses, some modern, some old but lovingly renovated, extends along the tree-lined street and there are all kinds of small stores and boutiques with weird and wonderful displays: vintage clothes, art, furniture, gourmet food, and baked goods. My heart leaps when I realize this is the London I definitely want to conquer.

Annie sees my look of longing and laughs. “Fancy going on a lengthy shopping trip with a Londoner sometime soon?”

I nod enthusiastically. “You bet I do.” Perhaps I’ll have a chance to discover my new roommate’s fashion secrets after all.

We walk a little further then Annie turns left onto a short street that ends in a cul-de-sac ending at a wall. Almost all the houses here look identical: two-story, brown brick buildings with pretty white-bow windows. There are only a few completely white ones, and one single three-story brown one. Annie stops in front of it.

“We’re here,” she announces, and indicates an entrance at ground level. Standing in front of it, she presses the top bell several times, while from the sidewalk, I examine my new home with curiosity. My tiredness seems to have vanished into thin air. Actually, it’s rather lucky that the Whitechapel apartment didn’t work out, I think. This will probably be much better.

“Don’t you have a key?” I ask Annie, feeling confused, when I see that she is still ringing the bell.

She grins. “Yes, of course I do. But I don’t fancy carrying that thing up the stairs.” She points her chin at my monster suitcase.

“What floor do you live on then?” I ask, horrified when it dawns on me that I probably can’t carry my luggage up the stairs. It’s going to be rough.

“Right at the top—but, as I said, I think the staff are on their way.”

And in fact the door bursts open then and there and there’s a young man standing in the doorway. He has light brown hair and looks athletic and well built. He looks at Annie in shock.

“What’s up? Did you forget your key?” His accent is very obviously American, which makes me like him right away. A compatriot, hooray!

Annie holds up her fat bunch of keys and jingles them. “No, I didn’t.”

The young man raises his eyebrows. “And you couldn’t open the door because …”

“There was no point. The thing is, we need you. It’s an emergency.” She turns to me and indicates me with an upturned hand. “Marcus, may I introduce Grace Lawson from Chicago–Grace, this is Marcus, an exchange student from Maine who’s come to spend two semesters in our beautiful city. Grace is the new intern at our company and unfortunately currently homeless—it’s a long story, we’ll tell you about it later—so she’s going to be staying with us tonight, in the spare room.”

Marcus seems to have only just noticed me and he looks at me with just as much curiosity as I had just done. Then he notices the suitcase next to me.

“I see—Marcus, the butler, right?” he says, but he’s smiling. He obviously finds it as difficult to be mad at Annie as I do. He bounds down the front steps and sticks out his hand when he reaches me. “Hi, Grace.”

“Hello, Marcus.” I shake his hand and marvel at the firmness of his grasp.

“Well, let’s get you moved in then.” He grins. “We Americans need to stick together.”

Annie rolls her eyes behind his back as he heaves the suitcase up and carries it up the steps to the front door. He disappears into the house with it.

“It’s really nice of you,” I call after him. “Thank you very much.”

“Think of it as a favour we’re doing you, big boy. You need to get in shape,” adds Annie. When I look at her blankly, she explains: “Marcus is studying sport science and he’s got a few more competitions coming up this summer—in athletics.”

“And lifting weights will help?” I ask, skeptically.

“He likes it, believe me. He’s really eager to help,” she reassures me, as we climb up the long flight of stairs to the top floor.

“I just wonder how long he’ll feel that way, if you keep taking advantage like this,” I answer, because the whole thing still makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Marcus is already waiting for us in front of the open door of the apartment. He doesn’t have the suitcase with him anymore, it’s probably already inside. He’s breathing heavily, which makes me feel even guiltier. He probably already hates me. Not a good start to my night at the apartment.

“Thanks,” I repeat timidly. “That was really great of you.”

“No problem.” He smiles and lets us go in first. The hallway, which starts at the door, is long, with high walls and old wooden doors branching off it on either side. There are colorful pictures and posters on the walls, and books on the narrow shelves between the doors, giving it a very cozy feel. There’s an orange sheet fastened over one of the doorframes and the whole apartment smells good, like a combination of Asian spices, which immediately makes me realize I’m starving. No wonder. After all, I haven’t eaten anything substantial all day—only a few of the cookies that were on the table at the meeting.

“It looks as if the men in London are being nice to you today,” Annie whispers in my ear, as we hang our jackets on the coat rack behind the door, which is so full that it looks like it’s going to collapse at any moment. She gives me a playful dig in the ribs and when I realize that she’s alluding to our conversation about Jonathan Huntington, and I go bright red again. But before I can answer, she’s already walking down the hallway to the door at the very end. “I’m going to see if Ian needs my help with the cooking. Show her to her room, would you, Marcus?”

I stand there awkwardly in the corridor with Marcus the athlete. He must be about the same age as me, perhaps a little older, and he’s wearing a white t-shirt that shows the firmness of his impressive muscles, and tight jeans. He has a nice smile, and he’s attractive, I can’t deny it. But if I could choose which of the men in London I’d prefer to be particularly nice to me from now on I’d definitely still choose Jonathan Huntington …

“OK, this way,” Marcus says, interrupting my thoughts. He leads me a little further along, to the door next to the one with the sheet hanging over it, and pushes it open. I look past him and am pleased to see a spacious room with a bed, a desk in front of the two windows, a closet, and several bookshelves, which are empty. It looks very clean and is obviously unoccupied. My suitcase is on a rug by the bed, on its own. “That’s your room for tonight, then,” he explains, although I had already guessed as much.