I kept telling myself not to be such a baby. It was perfectly fine. I’d been here before; I knew what I had to do. But this time it was different. I was on my own. I pressed the button to the left of the door, a buzzer sounded; I pushed open the door from the street, and walked inside. I looked up. Although there was no-one there, I sensed someone was watching me. The foyer was poorly lit and empty apart from a few chairs and a round glass-topped table with a few old newspapers in varying stages of disarray.
I didn’t linger, I had work to do. I walked past the lift doors, all of them open and waiting for someone to step inside. I knew not to use these. I carried on until I came to a door. It was green. I didn’t remember a green door. I looked all around me. The only other way was through an orange door, which was ajar. I didn’t remember that either. I started to feel the panic rising within me and I fought it down. I gingerly pushed the orange door open and peered inside. It was a cleaner’s cupboard. I backed out and pushed open the green door. A long corridor opened up in front of me, glaringly lit by fluorescent tubes. I hurried along, feeling vulnerable in the unaccustomed brightness. At the end, and through another green door, I found a small, old fashioned lift, pulled the door open, and closed it again behind me, pushing the top floor button as I did so. The lift didn’t stop until it reached the top, floor 36.
This time the corridor was unlit – the only light came through the open doors along each side. I didn’t know the source of the light, and wasn’t going to stop and find out. I found the door I was looking for, hidden up a side passage. I opened it, and climbed the steep stairs immediately behind it. One last door and I had reached the roof.
I stepped out into the London night air. My heart was still racing partly through my irrational fear of someone out there, partly my fear of heights, each fear making the other worse, until I could bear it no longer. I quickly did what I had come to do, and fled back down the stairs, back the way I had come.
As I hurried along the dark corridor on the 36th floor, I glanced to the side as I passed an open door, and nearly jumped out of my skin, as I glimpsed a person in the room looking back out at me. It was some moments before I realised I had seen a reflection in a mirror – it was me. I tried to pull myself together, but I was trembling as I reached the small lift, and pressed for the ground floor. The lift was still there – why wouldn’t it be? Where else would it have gone?
As the door opened once more, I caught my breath as I saw a man wearing dark clothing, in the corridor. He smiled at me. “Everything all right?” he enquired.
“Yes thanks,” I replied, desperately hoping he hadn’t noticed my fear. It was only the night watchman doing his rounds.
I’d been at the Weather Centre for several weeks, learning the job from others. Now I had to work on my own. The day shift was no problem. Going up to the roof to do the weather recordings was fine. During the day; the offices were full of normal people doing normal jobs. Standing on the roof was OK as long as I didn’t go near the edge, though even with the safety rails, my fear of heights started to make my knees turn to jelly.
But I never did get used to the evening visits when the hollow sounds of footsteps echoed along the corridors, the windows looked out on a black sky, and my fertile imagination conjured up all sorts of improbable happenings.
I was 17, fresh out of school and new to the buzz and clamour of London streets. The others seemed so street-wise and self assured. I grew up a lot in the two years I worked there, but I never got over my fear of dark, empty office buildings.