Some of you may remember scenes from the 1982 film Sophie’s Choice? In one, Sophie, played by Meryl Streep, is in an apartment in New York, chatting quietly to a friend about her life, and the choices she had had to make. In the background you can hear not only the noise of the city, but also the inevitable sounds of laughter, of crying, of shouting, of other people, living in their apartments in the building.
I am no stranger to living in what I gather is called a multi-occupancy building, having lived in Army Officers’ Messes until I got married. When Celina and I first moved into the newly converted Amber House in 2012, we naively imagined that all the other twelve apartment owners would live there! We had our first Amber House Supper Party and hosted 22 people. Then we began to realise individuals bought property for different reasons, for a home, for a rental investment, as a second home and the people who live in the house would reflect this reality.
If you wanted a little microcosm of life in England, you need look no further than our last ten years in Amber House, and that’s not looking for the ghosts of the older people who lived here when it was originally Dresden House and a home for ‘distressed gentlewomen’.
So, some illustrations:
Alice was a semi-retired journalist …. but lonely. Along came Mike, charmed his way into her heart, promised her the world and delivered zilch. She found salvation in a bottle of wine. One Sunday evening she appeared at our apartment door, swaying and slurring her words, clearly needing help. She’d lost her own key (a spare was with a neighbour who wasn’t in!) ….. and probably her mobile …. and had no money. One couldn’t help feeling anything but pity and sorrow – we popped her into a local hotel, paid her night’s accommodation and she promised to get in touch. She disappeared! Two months later I cleared some of the bottles from her empty apartment as she sat on the floor. A month later she’d died – she was in her mid-60s!
One of my triptychs around our apartment door
A loud unexpected crash in the middle of the night had me looking for the culprit. James and Edward had obviously had a lovely night and, until it was time for Edward to go home, everything had been OK. Making his way down the wide stairs, Edward missed his footing and tumbled. A flying foot made contact with the large wrought-iron balusters, knocking three out.
“Evening Sir! I am making enquiries about noise from the apartment above you!” said the policewoman. “Have you heard anything?” Well, we had and we knew the chap renting it and we’d heard the ‘ding dong ding dong’ of a heated argument – but it was only later when Peter was back from hospital and he came to explain what had happened did we see the cut on his face from a flying handbag! Domestic abuse!
“You don’t know me, but I found this in my car, which has been broken into.” The woman had rung our doorbell and was holding a little bag. In the words of a friend of mine – ‘long story short’: one of the Amber House apartments has been rented to a couple – it transpires the chap’s got a criminal record for handling drugs and has a liking for expensive watches. The ‘this’ the woman had found in her car was a receipt for a Rolex watch in his name from a jeweller in Brighton, from a couple of years ago. No one can get to the bottom of this particular story and, short of confronting Kris, an uncommunicative and somewhat menacing chap, we never will. Time to move on, turn the page …..
“I have come to say goodbye Richard. I am off home to Jamaica for Christmas.” said Ivy who lived with her adult daughter in the apartment across the hall. Ivy was in her late 80s and had retained that wonderful rich accent, despite living in England for decades.
“Will you be coming back, Ivy?”
There was a long drawn-out “No.” followed by “I don’t think so!”, her enigmatic smile broad across her face, repeating her declaration: “I don’t think so!” Her son hasn’t told us to the contrary, so we assume Ivy is still with us, well into her 90s.
Others have experienced a neighbour above them thoughtfully working in their mini-gym – with all the attended personal and mechanical noises associated with exercise. A misdirected letter caused us alarm a few years ago; a bailiff threatening to ‘remove goods to the value of £500’ over some unpaid bill. I told them the person didn’t live in our apartment, or in any other apartment in the building for that matter, but that didn’t stop our doorbell being rung at 0230. The Entryphone camera revealed two unsavoury characters …. we didn’t respond! Amongst those renting, we have had a chap who used to work at Rolls Royce as a leather matcher, a couple who were both locum doctors, two men who worked in The Ivy in Brighton, a landscape gardener and his Art teacher partner and a couple whose middle names were Richard and Celine (not to be confused with that couple who live in Apartment 2!)
But all the incidents of the last 12 years are overshadowed by Cameron’s death. Cameron and his partner Chatrin lived in an apartment two floors above us. Cameron was assaulted in Brighton in the early hours of 21st December 2020, was taken to hospital, given a thorough health check and discharged. At home in Amber House his condition deteriorated over the next few days and he died on Boxing Day, following multiple organ failure and sepsis (See PC 334 Sepsis May 2023); he was 34. Four years on, no one has been charged with the assault and the family have no closure; disgraceful!
My pen and ink sketch of Amber & Gilmour Houses
Writing about Amber House should not be complete without some mention of our landlord, Southern Housing, but I have run out of space so will have to leave that for some future postcard – sounds gripping huh!
Richard 5th July 2024
The Algarve, Portugal
postcards 