Apartment 16 Read Online Free PDF Page A

afford the service charge – it’s about how much I make a year back home. So I won’t be here long.’
    At a guess, when they eventually sold the place, neither she nor her mother would need to work for a long time, if ever again. They’d be rich. Just the word seemed incongruous, even silly, when applied to them. But there was no one else with a claim on the inheritance. Lillian died childless, and Apryl’s mother, like Apryl, was an only child. End of the line. And at twenty-eight, if she didn’t get a move on herself, the Beckford family would vanish with her. The last spinster.
    ‘It’s all a bit of a fairy tale. My mom is just gonna die when I tell her about this place. I mean you porters and everything. I could get used to this.’
    Stephen nodded, his smile polite but stiff. He seemed weary, but also preoccupied by something, though not by the tattoos peeking from under the sleeves of her shirt. Reflected in the mirror of the elevator they looked like the open pages of comic books.
    ‘So you never knew your aunt Lillian?’ he asked warily, as if weighing up something awkward he would have to tell her.
    ‘No. My mom kind of remembers her, but not well. And Lillian wasn’t that close to Granny Marilyn either. They just kind of went their own ways during the war. Which I never got, being an only child. I’d have loved a sister. We just guessed Lillian died years ago. I mean, my grandmother’s been dead for fifteen years. And my mom was too busy raising me to find out about Lillian. I was quite a handful.’ She was rambling, she knew it, but was too excited to care.
    Stephen bit his bottom lip, then sighed. ‘Your aunt wasn’t well, Apryl, I’m afraid. She was a lovely woman. Very kind. And I’m not just saying that. We were all very fond of her here. But she was old and her mental health hadn’t been good for a long time. Not for the ten years I’ve worked here, and my predecessor said as much. A few years ago we arranged to have meals delivered. And a carer visited her every week. The management used to cash her cheques and pay the bills on her behalf.’
    ‘I never knew. Must make us sound terrible.’
    ‘I didn’t mean to suggest anything. It happens all the time in this part of town. People become estranged from their families. Cut off. Money can do that. But Lillian’s state of mind was getting worse. A lot worse in the last few years before she passed away. She shouldn’t have been here really. But this was her home and we all pitched in – the porters and the cleaners – to make it possible for her to stay.’
    ‘That was very kind.’
    ‘Oh, it was nothing really. Just milk and bread and fetching things she needed from the shops. We do try and be helpful. But we were always concerned she might have fallen or’ – he paused to clear his throat – ‘become lost.’
    ‘Didn’t she have any friends?’
    ‘Not that I noticed. Not a single visitor since I’ve been here. You see . . .’ He paused and rubbed at his mouth. ‘She was quite eccentric. That’s the politest way I can put it, and I mean no disrespect.’ He looked uncomfortable as he said it. Even his voice dropped. Crazy he meant.
    But she wanted to know everything about the great-aunt who had left her and her mother a whole bunch of real estate in London. Once it was sold, she’d make sure those who’d made the old lady comfortable toward the end were rewarded in some way. Her mom wouldn’t object. She’d feel guilty too. Just like Apryl did right now. Though neither of them should. It was never wilful neglect on their behalf: Lillian had been a distant relative who lived on the other side of the earth.
    ‘Do you remember her husband? Reginald?’ asked Apryl. ‘I think he was a pilot in the war.’
    Stephen looked away, his pale blue eyes flitting, glancing above and around her head as if he were inspecting the lights in the elevator, which were dim and cast a grubby shadow over the mahogany panels and brass