Apartment 16 Read Online Free PDF Page B

reason, imprisoned.
    Under the soles of her boots the carpet was crispy. With the dim hall lights on, a host of dead moths visible through their glass shades, she could see how the carpet was worn down to the weave. What had once been a complicated pattern of red and green was now mostly the colour of compressed straw along the middle. Worn down by her great-aunt’s feet.
    The furniture in the long hallway was definitely antique. Dark and shiny wooden legs appeared between bales of yellowing newspaper. Embroidered cushions on the chairs were partially hidden by blanched telephone directories. Elsewhere, carved wood, mother-of-pearl inlays, and frosted glass with intricate decorations peeked out from among the garbage sacks, as if humiliated by their surroundings. Apryl was no historian, but even she knew they’d stopped making cabinets, clocks and chairs like this in the forties. And if it wasn’t for the piles of trash and stained walls the apartment might have looked elegant. Or maybe not.
    The wallpaper had once been a cream silk, with silver stripes running vertically through it, but was now mostly yellow and discoloured by brown clouds where moisture had dried near the dirty wainscoting and above the skirting boards. Beneath her fingertips, the walls felt fuzzy like the worn fur on a stuffed animal.
    In the kitchen there was cracked yellow lino and a perimeter of ancient enamel appliances. Dark wooden cabinets were fixed to walls once painted buttercup but now blemished like ivory. The gas rings on the stove were dry and dusty, the deep sink bone dry. Only the surface of the kitchen table showed signs of use. There were lines made by a knife on the chopping board and crumbs in the bread bin. A solitary chair, with a tartan pattern on its cushion, was tucked beneath the kitchen table.
    The scant evidence of her great-aunt’s domesticity suddenly made her sad, right down to her toes. But it was the sight of the silver teapot on the tray decorated with birds of the British Isles, next to the stub of a packet of lemon cookies on the table, that thickened her throat with emotion. She thought she might cry.
    There was a single china cup beside the teapot, a strainer, a sugar bowl and a tea caddy. The gold rim of the cup was chipped, probably the last of a set. Maybe a wedding gift when she and Reginald were married. Apryl touched the handle, but couldn’t bring herself to raise the fragile vessel. This was Lillian’s cup; she drank tea out of it. Up here on her own in the kitchen, at this little table by the plastic bin with the swing lid, surrounded by the relics of nearly a century on this planet. Apryl sniffed a tear back. She could see why rich people sealed themselves off inside retirement villages in Florida and rode around in golf carts wearing polo shirts. What was the point of being different if you ended up like this?
    She wiped at her eyes. ‘You could have come and lived with us.’
    Inside the cupboards on the walls she found a motley assortment of crockery – three china dinner sets, incomplete and now combined in an incongruous medley of patterns. There were some old pots and pans in the cupboards. She doubted the pots had been used in years, except for the one with a rind of dry milk inside. And besides the three tins of soup and some packets of sweet cookies, there was nothing to eat. Inside the fridge she saw a plastic bottle of lumpy milk. Her great-aunt lived on tea, cookies and soup and made it to eighty-four.
    Stephen said nothing had been touched since Lillian died. And how did she die? Was it in here?
    Apryl dropped her backpack from her shoulder and leant it against the kitchen table. She couldn’t shake the sense of being an intruder in a stranger’s home. Already she was dreading the thought of spending a night here. Would there be clean sheets? Had her aunt died in bed? She suddenly wanted to call Stephen and get him up here and not let him leave until she knew everything.
    With an effort