It's Only Temporary Read Online Free PDF Page A

was aware that Victorian architecture was very desirable once it had been returned to its former glory with a few modern niceties thrown in for good measure. This was something that had passed this street by it seemed.
    Canterbury Villas was a somewhat misleading name for the building I was looking at I felt. It appeared to be the upper floor of an electrical fittings shop which made up the end corner of the terrace. I could see a single window facing me and a bay window which overlooked the corner, this I hoped was the living area. At least I would not be forced to look at the rather unsavoury looking public house “The Star” which was directly opposite.
    With my heart sinking I muttered ‘It’s only temporary’ to myself and crossed the road.
    Mr Wynn answered the door; he was a large, which is a polite way of saying fat man who appeared to be lost. As he was dressed as a country squire, tweed jacket, corduroy trousers and a flat cap, although it took a moment to take this in due to the smog of cigar smoke emanating from the enormous smouldering tree trunk he had in his mouth.
    ‘Mike?’ he said shaking my hand in a way that nearly removed it from my arm. ‘Here’s the key, top of the stairs on the right. No pets, parties or drugs. Understand?’
    In shock I nodded.
    He then gave me a serious look, taking the cigar from his mouth for added effect and waving it at me as he spoke, ‘In fact no smoking of anything at all. Clear?’
    I nodded again; still unable to find the words to express the horror I was feeling.
    ‘Righto,’ he said as he moved passed me towards a large red Jaguar car. On his way back to his country pile in Surrey I assumed.
    ‘Are you not going to show me around?’ I asked.
    He looked at me and laughed, ‘I am sure you won’t get lost! Remember top of the stairs on the right.’ I could see he was still laughing as he pulled away.
    I looked up the very dark, worn stair case with its grotty carpet and taking a deep breath I climbed the steps to the landing. The door which faced me had the figure three painted on it and I tried the key. As it opened I was instantly dismayed to see the grotty carpet continued into whatever part of the apartment this room constituted.
    As I stepped inside I could see that the room was about ten feet square with a high ceiling. The walls were painted what at some long distant point had been magnolia and there was a sink with a wall mounted water heater in one corner. I moved over to the window and realised it was the smaller of the two I had seen from the outside, it afforded me a front row view of the pool table in the bar of “The Star” across the road.
    This I assumed would be a sitting room and although in a dishevelled state was in fact about the same size as the room I used to store my books and records back in my apartment on campus. I turned to explore the rest of the apartment, only to find there was no door leading out of the room other than the one I had come in through. Confused I made my way back out onto the landing and checked that the painted number did in fact say three. I opened the door to the left of the landing which had no number and found it was an extremely grubby bathroom. There were two further doors both locked, which had the numbers “Two” and “One” painted on them.
    This didn’t make sense, how did I get to the rest of the apartment and what was to stop anyone entering the stairwell using my bathroom? I went back into the first room and it hit me.
    Oh god, it could not be true.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3.
     
    It was true!
    The bathroom was communal and the room I was standing in was not part of the apartment, it was the apartment! A sense of despair descended over me, ‘It’s only temporary,’ I said louder than I intended. Once I had started to calm down from the shock I realised that there was another problem, my apartment on campus was