The Vampire Across the Hall

The Vampire Across the Hall

  By Daisi Malone

  As told to Leann Richards

  Copyright Leann Richards 2011

  The Vampire across the Hall

  As soon as I set eyes on the place I knew this was the apartment I was meant to buy. A small cosy corner, imperfect, a crack in the sink, some gouges in the wall and two hooks in the ceiling, but it felt right. As I gazed over the courtyard and glimpsed a thread of blue sky I decided, it was mine!

  I had reached an age when it was time to grow up and leave my drunken and drug addicted friends behind. I was tired of their neediness, their demands for money, and their total disregard for my feelings. Sure I was erratic, unreliable, unsociable, depressing, crazy at times, but damn it, I had an illness, didn’t they get that?

  But I digress. I dumped my drunken needy friends and moved to Newtown.

  People familiar with Sydney would find this ironic. Newtown is about 6 kilometres from the city centre and adjacent to Sydney University. It is also the home to every drunken, drug addled mess of old Sydney Town. But it is a haven for eccentrics and bohemians, with a little art house cinema, lots of dark cafes and most importantly, bookshops.

  So I bought my little apartment, stacked it to the ceiling with books, found a corner for my lovebirds, Meep and Moop, and tried to settle in my very own slice of paradise, Daisi Malone’s slice of heaven at the Presidio.

  My slice of heaven is not only cosy, but noisy. Each morning around 6 the noise of shattering glass bottles echoes through the air, at 7 the first planes roar overhead and by 8 the trains are sounding their whistles and rattling the walls. At night the Indian restaurant patrons fill the air with conversation and laughter and the neighbour’s various party noises ring out filling the cavernous courtyard.

  I invested in ear plugs to preserve my sanity.

  This was high density inner city living and in the course of my day to day activity I began to meet the neighbours. There was the nice couple with children, Mark and Anna, the maintenance man, George, and the man across the hall.

  I remember it was a cool night in March when I first met Madden.

  Chapter 2

  Even my heavily glazed doors could not insulate the glee club noise. Once a month they sang the worst of the eighties and as the night progressed they got drunker and louder. That night I left my noisy home in a huff and visited the movies for a brief respite.

  Returning around midnight, I spied a tall gaunt man in black standing outside my door. He slouched, his head bent in either pain or grief or perhaps it was just too heavy for his skinny frame. When I reached the door, he looked at me with sunken brown eyes. His face was white, his eyebrows loomed over a long nose and sharp cheekbones gave his features the aspect of a rock carving.

  He looked down at my 155 centimetres and smiled slowly.

  “Hello.”

  “Um..Hi” I replied “Can I help you?”

  “I heard screaming “; his voice was deep and rough.

  “Oh? Screaming? You must mean singing. Don’t worry it’s the glee club.”

  He grinned, a tight smile stretching his cheeks until his skin seemed almost translucent.

  “Glee club?”

  “Oh the fools across the courtyard, it’s singing, not screaming, although it sounds like somebody’s in pain.”

  “I see” he replied and held out his hand. “I’m Madden by the way.

  “Hi, I’m Daisi.” I grinned; he was kind of interesting in a strange way.

  “It’s nice to meet you Daisi.” He smiled and turned to his door.

  I walked into my apartment and immediately heard screaming. Actually it was singing, but the glee club was particularly drunk that night.

  So began my weird acquaintance with Madden.