legends · 4 min read ·
Salvage Invoice
Three salvaged doors open onto the same clerks' corridor, and a fourth arrives with a file in the buyer's name.
**Greaves Architectural Salvage — Invoice 7741**
**Customer:** Mr. P. Tovey, 2 Mill Cottages · **Date:** 3 October
- **Item · Description · Price**
- 1 · Pine door, 4-panel, painted green, with latch · £120
- 2 · Pine door, 4-panel, painted green, with latch · £120
- 3 · Pine door, 4-panel, painted green, with latch · £120
- 4 · Oak architrave, set of 3 · £60
*Total: £420. Delivery included. No returns on salvaged items.*
*Yard note: doors 1–3 are from the demolition of the Elm Court mansion block, 1998.*
· · ·
**Delivery note — 2 Mill Cottages (driver J. Pike, 6 October)**
Delivered three doors and architrave to the customer's barn. Customer asked for them to be stood against the east wall. The doors are heavy and the paint is the same green on all of them. The green is a particular colour, a faded sage with a blue undertone that I last saw on the doors of my school.
Customer signed for them. He asked whether the doors came with frames. I said no.
· · ·
**Buyer's complaint (P. Tovey, 9 October)**
*Dear Greaves,*
*I bought three doors. I set them up in a row to see how they'd look, leaning on the barn wall. When I opened the first, I found behind it the barn wall. When I opened the second, I found a corridor. When I opened the third, I found the same corridor.*
*I mean the same, to the last detail. The same brown lino with the cracked tile at the third square. The same radiator under the same window. The same smell of floor polish and boiled vegetables. I opened door 2 and walked ten paces down the corridor and turned round, and door 3 was at the other end, open, and I could see through it into the barn, and in the barn, at the far end, I could see myself standing with the first door ajar.*
*I'd like to return them.*
· · ·
**Yard reply (Greaves Salvage, 11 October)**
*Mr. Tovey, we do not accept returns. We would however like to hear more about the corridor. Please describe the doors at the side. Are they numbered?*
· · ·
**Buyer's complaint (P. Tovey, 14 October)**
*Yes. Each one has a number in brass, screwed on at head height. 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D, and so on, to 4J, on both sides. They are all shut. The corridor ends in a window. Through the window is a courtyard with a bench and a dead plane tree.*
*I have been in the corridor four times. I did not try any of the side doors. On the fourth visit I noticed that the doors on the left-hand side were slightly open. A fingertip of light under each. And I could hear typing. Someone, in each room, was typing at a different pace.*
*I looked at the third door when I came out. It had its own number on it, in the same brass. It said 4K.*
· · ·
**Yard reply (Greaves Salvage, 17 October)**
*Mr. Tovey, we have checked the records. The Elm Court block was demolished in 1998. The block had a corridor like the one you describe on each of its six floors. The doors came from the fourth floor, which was a records office for the borough council. When the block was cleared, the records were boxed and taken to a tip. The clerks went home.*
*We believe the doors are still on the clerks' time.*
*There is no need to return them. We recommend you close the barn and leave it. If you do open the doors, please do not take anything out.*
· · ·
**Buyer's complaint (P. Tovey, 29 October)**
*I have closed the barn. I did not intend to go back. But I went in on Tuesday evening to fetch a ladder, and there were four doors against the east wall, not three. The new one has no paint on it, only bare pine, and a brass number, 4L, and a card in the letterbox slot with my name on it.*
*I took out the card. It is a typed memo, in the old style, on pale green paper. It says: **Please sign for the file. Mr. P. Tovey, 2 Mill Cottages, 1 volume.** And beneath, a date: tomorrow.*
*I have not opened the door. I am in the house. I can hear typing coming from the barn.*
· · ·
**Yard note (Greaves Salvage, 1 November)**
Invoice 7741 has been marked *paid in full.* The customer signed for the file at 09:15. We have no record of the delivery. We have no record of the customer after that time.
A fifth door was found stacked in the yard on Monday, painted green, with a brass number 4M. Its label reads: *Mr. P. Tovey, Elm Court Records, Room 4M. Open.* It is open. Behind it, in the dimness, a man is typing.