The Remaining Voice Read Online Free PDF

recognise it. My heart pounded and a wave of heat, like desert sand, blew through me. I was shaking - but why? What was there to be afraid of? I was simply going to open up an apartment that had been closed for a very long time. I would probably find mouse droppings and old newspapers, and nothing much else. I could not let my fears get the better of me.
    I reached the third floor landing and leant on the bannister awhile. Dust danced in the shafts of light coming through the small-paned window behind me. The walls were cream coloured, the woodwork dark with age.
    “I will keep you in my heart like a treasure,” I said, fitting the key in the lock. It was difficult to turn and for a moment I thought I might have to go back downstairs and rouse Monsieur (call me Armand) Pascal again, but then I heard the tumblers groan and the door gave, grudgingly.  I did not open it all the way. I allowed it only a three inch gap. A susurration, warm like summer air, issued forth, as if the apartment was a living being and I had just nudged it awake. The lightest of touches on my shoulder made me spin round. I almost lost my balance and fell headlong down the flight of stairs, but I reached out and grabbed the bannister. My hat, set until then at a jaunty angle on my head, soared like a bird and came to rest on the first step of the last flight up. When I looked, there was no one on the landing. There was no one on the stairs either above me or below. I was completely alone .
    I pushed the door all the way open on the dead air of decay. The smell was of mould, damp, dust, cobwebs and age. A deep hall lay ahead of me. There was just enough light to see a great shuttered window, to my immediate left, with drapes that had lost their colour in the gloom. I stepped onto a dusty carpet, and reached out to unlatch the shutters. They groaned their complaint in the hazy air, as a shaft of sunlight pierced the inner reaches of the apartment. Further along, to the left was second, similarly encased window. Between the two stood a gilt chair with velvet upholstery that may have once been pink, but was now faded and mouldy. On the opposite wall were two doors and between them a huge mirror with ornate frame threaded with cobwebs so that when I observed my reflection it was to see the ghost of Miss Haversham. I had not realised I was so gaunt looking, nor so badly attired in my spring gabardine and chequered scarf. I rubbed a spot clean on the mirror and touched my hair. I had no one to dress for, though Laurent Daviau must have seen something he liked, unless he was a perpetual lady’s man.  I sighed; exploring Berthe’s former home was going to be dirty work. What did it matter what I looked like?
    I made footprints on the carpet back to the door and closed it, sealing the apartment once more from the outside world. Turning back inside, I saw for the first time the room beyond the hall. The black interior gave out only the looming shape of bookcase or some such piece of furniture on the far wall. The sound of singing startled me. It was coming from behind one of the doors to my right. I tried the first but it was locked. The second opened onto the kitchen. A dirt-dulled haze came in through the window. The room had a high ceiling, with an old fashioned stove against one wall and range of shelves and cupboards piled high with crockery and pans against the other. In the middle stood a table, doubtless once scrubbed clean, though now layered with grime. A scullery and I thought probably larder too, opened off at the end by the window. The singing had stopped and I assumed that it had been from the apartment above. I retraced my steps and walked into the main room, bumping up against a low table.
    At first my eyes could not make anything out, but gradually they became accustomed to the quality of the light and I made a path to the window between a chair and a painting, propped against some boxes. The window, shuttered against the world, as had the