What had I done? I’d moved my entire life to a place I didn’t know. To up sticks and move so far, alone, in my thirties was an insane thing to do.
Suddenly I missed my old room in Edinburgh. I missed the grey view from my small window. I missed the street outside, the near-constant sound of other people. I missed knowing which cafés were good and which were tourist traps. I missed the smell of the place, the malty toasted scent from the breweries, the odd sea-salt-tinged gust from Leith.
I stood up.
No, I was not going to think like that. That was my old life, the one I’d escaped. I would commit to this new life and forget what I’d left behind me.
Then, and only then, would I be happy.
I wiped my face and checked my phone. Thirty percent battery. It was getting late. What I needed was sleep. Yes, a good night’s rest. I’d feel better in the morning.
I checked the front door. The shadowy silhouette of the elm tree outside shimmered through the mottled glass of the door’s single small window. Soon it would be properly summer and the dusk would creep along the horizon until it became dawn again. True darkness was not a real thing in Scottish summers. Everything just turned a dull, dark grey. The door was locked, but I slipped the chain on as well. Then I climbed the stairs to my new bedroom.
I shut the garden gate door and covered the mattress with the single towel I’d brought with me. I couldn’t remember where I’d packed my pyjamas, so I undressed down to my underwear and slipped into bed under the towel. I frowned at my sad makeshift sleeping arrangements. I should have bought bedding. After a thought, I got back up, grabbed my hoodie and bundled it into an improvised pillow.
I lay in the growing gloom.
God, it was going to need so much work. Furniture. Insulation. Possibly a new boiler. New wiring.
I kneaded my forehead with my knuckles.
It was probably unrealistic to think things would go smoothly. Moving house was stressful. One of the top three most stressful things, even. Up there with divorce and death. Weren’t there more stressful things though? Like escaping war. Or the death of someone you loved. Or serious illness. Now I thought of it, there seemed like a million and one things that should be more stressful than moving house.
I asked myself these things and realised, like I sometimes realise at the end of a long day, that I hadn’t really spoken to another living person in a while. Sure, I’d spoken to the receptionist who handed over the anachronistic key to my anachronistic lock. But when had I last properly engaged another human being in conversation?
How many years had I spent just talking to myself?
I wished I could think of someone to call, to talk to about my day, to tell them that I’d arrived safe, but I couldn’t think of a single person. I’d left everything and everyone behind. I thought of the miles and miles of countryside all around me. Instead of soothing, the silence felt claustrophobic. I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and—not for the first time in my life—pretended they belonged to someone else, someone giving me a hug and telling me I’d be okay.
A creak came through the wall behind me.
I tensed up in bed, ears pricking.
Calm down. It’s just the neighbour.
By the sound of the creak, they were really close by. Literally inches from my head.
I sat up in the dim grey light and listened.
On the other side of the wall, there was a shuffling, like footsteps moving around the room next door.
Could they hear me as much as I could hear them?
Had they followed me upstairs?
I leant closer to the wall.
There was a sudden bang right by my ear.
I fell back, clapping a hand over my mouth.
A loud screech reverberated through the wall. What on earth were they doing? It sounded like they were moving heavy furniture around. It was hard to figure out the sounds through the old walls. Something about the stone warped the noise. I scrabbled for my phone and checked the time. Who moves furniture around at eleven at night?
I watched the wall in the near darkness as the clunks and thuds continued. I didn’t know anything about my neighbour. Their character. What they looked like. But I could hear every move they made in uncomfortable intimacy.
Maybe they worked nights. Maybe they were nocturnal.
I lay back down and pulled my hoodie-pillow over my head.
