legends · 4 min read ·
Rules for Residents, Flat 6
A residents' handbook and three handwritten notes explain what to do if someone knocks at the wrong hour.
**WELCOME TO WHITLOCK COURT**
*Residents' Handbook, 7th Edition. Please keep in a safe place.*
**1. Rubbish.** Bins are collected on Mondays and Thursdays. Do not leave bags in the corridor.
**2. Noise.** Quiet hours are 22:00 to 07:00. Please be considerate.
**3. Visitors.** Visitors must be signed in at the front desk. Overnight guests may stay no more than seven consecutive nights.
**4. Keys.** Lost keys will be replaced at the resident's expense. Do not copy keys.
**5. Heating.** Communal heating runs from October to April.
**6. Windows.** Windows must not be opened beyond the restrictors.
**7. The lobby clock.** The clock in the lobby is maintained by the building manager and must not be adjusted by residents.
**8. Post.** Post for former residents should be left on the shelf by the mailboxes. Do not forward it.
**9. Flat 6.** *[This entry has been struck through by hand in blue ink. Beneath it, in the margin, in a neat different handwriting, is written: "Do not let her in."]*
**10. Emergencies.** In the event of fire, leave by the nearest exit and gather at the car park.
· · ·
*Handwritten note, tucked into the handbook, first page:*
*To the new tenant of 6. I'm the one who lived here before. I'm leaving this because nobody told me. The old rules say 9 is Flat 6 and that's all they say, because the management took the rest out of the print run when they reissued. I have the old copy. It says what you'll need.*
*Rule 9 (original wording): "The resident of Flat 6 shall at no time answer the door between the hours of 02:00 and 04:00, whatever the reason, and whoever is calling, including residents of the building known to them."*
*I didn't take it seriously. I kept to it for a few weeks because I'm someone who keeps to rules. Then one night someone knocked at ten past two, and it was Mrs. Pelham from 4, who I'd spoken to in the lift, and she was crying. She said she'd locked herself out. I let her in. I put the kettle on. I want you to know that I was kind.*
*She sat at my table and thanked me and drank her tea, and looked round the flat, and I realised she was counting things. The chairs. The cups. The windows. She said, "It's smaller than the others."*
*I said all the flats on this side are the same size.*
*"No," she said. "This one's been made smaller. It's the only one they could get anyone to live in."*
*Then she asked me for the spare key.*
· · ·
*Second note, in a different pen:*
*That's the thing. She wasn't Mrs. Pelham. I found that out in the morning. Mrs. Pelham had died in March. The woman at my table was wearing her coat and her face and she knew all about the lift, but she wasn't her. She wasn't anyone. She was a shape that wants to be let in somewhere and then not be let out.*
*I gave her the key because it was the only thing she asked for. That was a mistake. It's the only thing that matters. If she has your key, she's a resident. If she's a resident, the rules protect her too.*
*I've gone now. I'm in a bedsit by the station. I can't tell you what to do except that you should have the locks changed, which the landlord won't allow, and keep the chain on, and never answer between two and four.*
*Also: the clock in the lobby. Rule 7. Do not adjust it. I did once, by two hours, to try to move the time forward. It doesn't forward. It only makes the hours longer.*
· · ·
*Third note, pencil, small, along the bottom of the page. A third hand. Possibly the most recent.*
*I did everything the rule said. I kept the chain on. At ten past two last night she knocked, and it was the old woman from 4, and I didn't open it, and she said through the door, very kindly: "It's all right, dear. You needn't let me in. I've already got a key. I only knocked to be polite."*