Five

‘Mama, she never threw anything out. Nothing. I’m not kidding. You should see the clothes in her room. There’s like a hundred dresses and suits and coats and stuff. Going back to, like, the forties. It’s all still here. Like a fashion museum or something. We inherited a goddamn museum. The Lillian collection. And some of the dresses are so beautiful.’ Apryl walked back and forth in her great-aunt’s bedroom, her cell phone pressed to her ear.

But she knew her mother could never comprehend what she’d uncovered in her great-aunt’s rooms. Not unless she saw it herself. Which she never would, due to her pathological terror of flying. And Apryl felt unable to describe her discoveries adequately, or to impress upon her mother the atmosphere of the apartment: the faded grandeur, the ever-present sense of loss, the chaotic defence an old woman had built against the world outside, the disturbed inner life still evident in unoccupied rooms with shrines and rituals and habits long maintained but now just plain mystifying.

Two of the rooms, the smaller bedrooms at the end of the cluttered hallway on the right side, were choked with debris. In each room she’d found a single bed with an ancient eiderdown coated in a fur of dust. About the beds, cardboard boxes and old suitcases filled with bric-a-brac were stacked. What she was to do with any of it remained a mystery. An inventory would take weeks, even months to complete.

At least Lillian’s bedroom remained uncluttered around the two giant wardrobes and clothes drawers. There was also a huge bed and a beautiful bureau with three locked drawers, the keys for which she couldn’t find, but she guessed Lillian’s personal papers must be stored inside. And she’d never seen so many perfume bottles arranged in a herd on top of the chest of drawers. Cosmetic companies never made glass like that any more, nor the porcelain jars for cream and makeup, most of their contents hard and cracked like the baked soil of distant planets.

‘Mama, I’d like to bring the clothes back. I think they all fit me. Isn’t that crazy? I tried on two fur coats and three hats and it was like they were made for me.’

‘Honey, where are you gonna put it? In your tiny place? I’ve no room here, you know that. And think of the cost, sweetheart. We just don’t have the money for that kind of thing and now you’re talking of giving up your job too. I’m worried.’

‘Don’t be. Mama, we’re not going to be short of green soon.’

‘We will be if you carry on like this. You have to be realistic, honey. The apartment could take a long time to sell.’

‘I can cover the shipping from my savings. But Lillian’s stuff I want to keep will have to come to you first and go in the basement.’

‘Honey, it’ll cost a fortune. You can’t bring it back here – you’ll have to sell it in England.’

‘No. I’ll be careful. I can stay here until the apartment is sold and just work my way through all this stuff. The furniture will have to go. I don’t know anything about antiques, so we’ll have to get an expert to value them. But the really personal stuff I want us to keep. Mama, it’s so beautiful. It’s just the clothes and the photos and a few other things.’

‘Oh honey, I don’t know about this. You were only going there for two weeks to empty the place and sell it, and now you’re talking like a crazy thing.’

‘Mama, Mama, this is our history. We can’t just throw it out. I mean, the photos of Lillian and Reginald, they’re just heartbreaking. They were so glamorous. Like movie stars. You just won’t believe it when you see them. That’s someone in our family up there on those walls. A woman with so much taste and class and style. She’s like my icon already. You know how much I love that look.’

But her mother sounded tired; she should never have agitated her like this. Added to the strain of her only daughter being overseas, the intrusion of anything new or foreign into her immaculate New Jersey bungalow would be the cause of severe anxiety. She should have broken all this to her mother slowly, but Apryl couldn’t contain her excitement.

The forties and fifties had long been the inspiration for her own retro stylings back home in New York, where she sold alternative and vintage clothing in St Mark’s Place. And had done for starvation wages for the last five years, which had slipped by and left her without much of a CV, or apartment, or standard of living. But this cache could raise thousands on eBay. Not that she was intending to sell it all; she intended to wear the majority of these outfits to the retro clubs downtown and in the Village when she got home. This was her inheritance; her aunt wore these clothes back in the day.

The dresses were so exquisitely made; she’d found six immaculate silk and taffeta ball gowns, two dozen suits in cashmere and wool, and twice as many figure-hugging black and cream dresses, folded into cases, that her great-aunt must have worn into the sixties with, perhaps, a single strand of pearls. And the sight of the costume jewellery had made her shriek out loud: three boxes stuffed full of colourful brooches, necklaces and earrings all tangled together.

The vintage underwear they stopped making in the early seventies, and some of her great-aunt’s girdles and corsets were made at least as far back as the forties. She’d long fantasized of such finds in used clothing stores and garage sales, and had never stopped scouring factory closures and charity stores for vintage accessories for her own wardrobe, or to sell in the store. There were enough clothes in her great-aunt’s room to start a business from scratch or fill an auction room. There were at least thirty packets of real nylons unopened in the top drawer of the dresser, with names like Mink and Cocktail Kitty. Some of the older stockings were still sealed inside tissue-paper sheets within flat cardboard boxes, the manufacturer’s details embossed regally on the lids.

Lillian could not have discarded any of her clothes. As decades and styles changed, she seemed to have preserved and stored everything until she stopped buying new clothes some time in the early sixties. She had no contemporary clothes at all. So she must have worn old classic styles right up until she died. If she had done, the family resemblance was uncanny; Apryl rarely wore anything that didn’t look as if it had been made in the fifties.

Only the shoe collection disappointed. Apart from a pair of velvet pumps with Cuban heels and two pairs of silver sandals, Lillian had worn out all of her shoes. Heels were sheared down to wood and leather uppers were split or scarred with deep creases, all unsalvageable. It was as if her great-aunt had done a lot of walking, but very little in the way of replacing her footwear.

‘Mama, look, don’t worry, it’ll be OK. Everything will be fine. I’m just real tired. I’ve been up since five thirty. All this is so exciting and sad and I don’t know what. I still can’t get my head around the fact that Great-aunt Lillian lived here. Knightsbridge is like Park Avenue. With the money she had in the bank and the sale of this flat, we’re going to be rich, Mama. You hear me? Rich.’

‘Well we don’t know that, honey. You said it needed renovating.’

‘Mama, this is prime real estate. These places get snapped up right away. Even in this condition. It’s a penthouse, Mama.’ She heard the front-door bell trill like a little hammer going crazy inside an iron bell. ‘Mama, someone at the door. I gotta fly, and anyway my cell is nearly out of juice.’

‘Your cell? What are you calling me on your cell for? It’ll cost the earth.’

‘Love you, Mama. Gotta fly. Call you soon when I know more.’ Apryl air-kissed the phone then ran from the kitchen to the front door to let the head porter in.

‘I guess I really want to know what she was like. Especially at the end. I mean, she’s left all of this. In here . ’ To unravel, she wanted to say. Lillian had not made it possible for her to just throw things out and sell up. It was as if the dead woman was enforcing an involvement in her crazy existence. Apryl sighed as she sat in the kitchen with the head porter. ‘I promise not to keep you long – I’m just beat myself. I’m so wrecked I’m starting to hallucinate. So maybe this isn’t the best time for me to start asking questions, but. some of this is kind of freaking me out.’ She couldn’t keep the emotion out of her voice. She coughed and took a slurp of her black tea; she usually drank coffee, but Lillian was all out.

Stephen was no longer on duty and had taken his tie off, but even though it was after ten, he still wore the white cotton shirt and grey trousers of his uniform, which suggested he didn’t have much life besides his service to the building. While Apryl sat at the table in the kitchen – the only room serviceable enough to entertain a guest – he leant against the counter and held the mug of tea she’d made for him.

He nodded. ‘It must be a lot to take in. I was thinking it might have been easier for you to deal with as you never knew Lillian. But of course, having not known her is probably just as taxing in a different way. You want to know her before you let this place go.’

‘That’s about the size of it. And already I’m seeing things here that remind me of me. If that makes any sense.’

Stephen smiled, as if in prelude to a confession. ‘It does. I noted a resemblance right away. In your eyes. But it’s ironic. Often the residents are closer to us porters at the end than they are to their own families.’

‘And I guess no one ever thinks of you guys.’

‘Oh, we don’t mind. We’re paid to do a job. But when you work in people’s homes for a long time, you can’t help becoming a part of their lives. Like family.’

‘You liked Lillian, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. The day porters did too. But I don’t think the night staff ever saw her. Not once.’

‘Why was that?’

He shrugged. ‘She always made sure she was home and indoors in plenty of time before it got dark.’ He could see Apryl was confused, and tried to elaborate. ‘It’s what happens when you spend a twelve-hour shift here. We never pry, but you just can’t help noticing things. And we’re paid to be observant.’ He was preparing her for something. She could see he was a man with impeccable manners and very professional, who didn’t want to speak out of turn, or be garrulous. Maybe it was against staff policy. But she was tired now and just wanted him to be straight with her. If Lillian never had visitors or friends, the staff at Barrington House were the people to talk to. It looked like the porters were all Lillian had at the end. And the very thought of a life recollected only by them made her morose again.

She gave Stephen a tired smile. ‘Please, Stephen. You can be candid. I just need something to go on before I hit the hay. My curiosity is killing me.’

He nodded. Looked at his feet. Ran his tongue over his gums. ‘Like I said before, she was very eccentric.’

‘But in what way, specifically? I mean, did she talk to herself out loud and—’

‘Yes. Yes she did. Half the time she lived in her own world. In her head. And she never seemed particularly happy when she was there.’

Apryl felt her mouth sag.

‘But there were often moments too when she was completely lucid. She was unfailingly gracious. She had beautiful manners, your aunt. Real quality. Though we never really passed more than the time of day with her, on her way out. Once every day. At eleven, like clockwork. But. ’

‘Go on.’

Stephen’s smile was awkward. ‘It’s not often you see a woman wearing a hat these days. With a veil. But Lillian never went out without one. Or without her gloves. And only ever dressed in black. Like she was in mourning. She was quite the local celebrity. Everyone around here knew her. And took care of her. Local residents and shopkeepers and the cabbies would all bring her back when they found her wandering about confused.’

‘What do you mean, confused?’

Stephen shrugged. ‘She’d go out as right as rain, your aunt. But then get all upset and have to be brought home. Most of the time she’d perk up when she came within sight of the building. And eventually, if I could spare them, I had one of the porters follow her whenever she left the building. Or I’d go myself. She never went far, but never seemed to take the same route twice. She’d always turn up in a different place.’

‘It sounds terrible.’

Stephen shrugged, his expression helpless. ‘But what could we do? We’re not nurses.’

‘I wonder what was going on in her head.’

‘Before she set off she’d always say, “Well, it’s cheerio, Stephen. If I don’t see you again, take care my dear.” And she took the same bag with her. A small case and her black umbrella, as if she were going on a trip. But every day, she’d be back within a couple of hours. More than anything else we worried about her getting lost. Some of the cabbies would stop when they saw her and say, “Hop in, Lil, I’ll drop you home.” And if she was ready, she’d climb in and say, “I shan’t get any farther today. Not today. But I’ll try again tomorrow.” Same thing every time, without fail. They all said so. And they’d bring her back. In a way, I always thought it refreshing to know there’s still a sense of community, at least among the local workforce. They all knew your aunt Lillian.’

‘What about the flowers? There must be a thousand in that room.’

Stephen shrugged. ‘She never told me what they were for, or why she collected them. But she came home with them, for as long as I can remember. Roses every time. She was caught twice taking them from the front gardens of Chesterfield House in Mayfair. Fortunately, I know the head porter, so there wasn’t any trouble. But it could be awkward. She’d even get them out of bins, and walk out of florists and forget to pay.’

‘And how did she die? It says heart failure on the death certificate.’

Stephen wiped at his mouth. He was having difficulty meeting her eye. He tried twice and failed.

‘Please, Stephen. Tell me.’

‘She died in the back of a cab, Apryl. She’d had quite a fright out there. On one of her walks. A cabby saw her first. Really distressed. She had made it as far as Marble Arch too. The furthest I’d ever known her go, and that’s quite a distance for a woman of her age. But that day, she was different. You see, usually, when someone found her, she’d be talking to herself and striking at the air with her umbrella or cane. Nothing odd about that. We’d all seen her do it. Very involved in an argument with someone who wasn’t there. And usually this would happen, this agitation, just before she turned and headed for home. Or, as I said before, when she was picked up and escorted back here. But the morning she died, the driver said she looked ill. Really worn out. She was leaning against the railings of the park. Very pale and almost ready to keel over. She’d used up all her strength getting so upset about something. So he stopped and helped her into the cab. But she never broke out of the trance like she usually did. She seemed. to be in shock. Just wasn’t aware any longer of where she was, or where she was going. The driver put his foot down and phoned the main desk to tell us to call an ambulance. But she died on the way here. It looked to me like a massive stroke. That’s what I thought. And the oddest thing. well, she came out of her trance just before she died. As the cab entered the square. The driver saw her in the mirror. Upset. Really upset at the end. Well, afraid, you could say. Of something. Almost as if someone was sitting beside her.’

Apryl looked into the dregs of her tea. After a long, uncomfortable silence she spoke. ‘Wouldn’t a care home have been a better place for her?’

‘Yes, probably. But she did have a carer, and when she was here Lillian was fine. Eccentric, but capable and lucid and able to look after herself. She was quite a strong woman for her age. It was only when she went out – only when she left the building – that she. well, had a funny turn.’

Lillian could have been suffering from anything: Alzheimer’s, dementia. If only she and her mother had known. ‘Poor Aunty Lillian,’ she said.

But Stephen didn’t seem to be paying attention. He was preoccupied with his own thoughts. ‘But the strangest thing that day,’ he suddenly said, ‘was her bag.’ The head porter frowned at his shoes in puzzlement. ‘She had a plane ticket in there. To New York. Along with a passport that had been out of date for fifty years. It seemed she really was planning on leaving us for good that last time.’

After Stephen left, Apryl ate some pasta parcels with pesto she’d bought from the little store on Motcomb Street and then ran a bath. There was no shower, or even a shower attachment to fix to the cloudy steel faucet. So she sat on the little cushioned stool beside the tub and watched the thick cascade of water splash with a hollow sound against the worn enamel. It set off a whole series of clanging and gassy whooshing sounds behind the discoloured and patchy walls of the bathroom. Waiting for the tub to fill, she went and unpacked the few clothes she’d brought with her and put her vanity case on the dresser in Lillian’s bedroom.

She found herself looking for things to do. Trying to distract her mind from dwelling both on the prospect of sleeping alone in the apartment, and on what her great-aunt spent her time doing at night. The two end bedrooms had long been out of action and were just used as storage, so it was doubtful Lillian ever went in there other than to make deposits. The living room was never used for anything beside the delivery of fresh flowers to cover the dead flowers of the window shrine. That room was sacred to her aunt. And the furniture in the dining room was covered in dust sheets. There was no television or even a working radio in the apartment either. Earlier, she’d found an old broken radio set with a Bakelite casing, wrapped in newspaper and plunged deep inside a box of pewter tankards. But apart from that and a few books in the bedroom, none of them recent titles or publications, she couldn’t even begin to guess how her great-aunt occupied herself during so many nights indoors and alone. No wonder she talked to herself; Apryl had been there for a day and she was ready to do the same thing.

After her bath, in which her eyelids closed themselves three times and abandoned her to a doze – lasting until the water cooled – she made her way to the bedroom and shut the door. The bed linen under the ancient quilted eiderdown looked clean, but she couldn’t bring herself to climb beneath the sheets. On top of a wardrobe she found some blankets and made a temporary nest with them on top of the covers.

When she turned off the side light, the profound darkness of the room shocked her a little; made her pause before lying down. But she forced herself to quell her silliness; she was just too tired for it. In fresh underwear and a Social Distortion T-shirt, she curled into a fetal position facing the door, like she always did when sleeping in a strange place.

As she settled down, she listened to the purr of the occasional car passing below the window of the room, down in Lowndes Square. She cast her slowing thoughts out there, into London, rather than let them turn and begin exploring the apartment, reaching to the strange and cluttered rooms upon which a darkness and heavy silence had fallen.

Pulling her knees further up and into her stomach, she clasped her hands together and sandwiched them between her warm thighs, like she’d always done since childhood. And was immediately aware of herself slipping into a thick slumber, one that would last for hours, all night. Down she went, and away. At last her mind was still. Though the room beyond her closed eyelids was not.

She dismissed the rustle and the subtle padding of feet on the floor, moving swiftly from the door to the foot of the bed. It was only her roommate, Tony. Tiptoeing the way he did, in a kind of hasty walk to fetch something he had left in her room earlier. Too tired to open her eyes, in a very distant and shrinking part of her consciousness she knew he would be gone soon. Gone.

What did he want now, then, standing at the foot of the bed and leaning over her? She felt the long presence extending across her feet, the indentation of a knee at the foot of the mattress.

She snapped awake in a panic, sweat cooling on her forehead. Utterly disoriented, she stared into total darkness. Sat up. Said, ‘What do you want?’ Which went unanswered and left her unable for a few seconds to understand where she was or how she came to be there.

Until her memory supplied a few vital details. There was no Tony here, no roommate. She was in London. In the new apartment. Lillian’s. Then who.

With one hand she smashed about the bedside table looking for the lamp. Found it. Groped around for the switch. Whimpered. Clambered onto her knees, her body feeling painfully vulnerable while exposed to the standing figure so close by in the darkness. Her fingers found the old ceramic fixture with the clunky switch and clicked it. The heavy base of the lamp rocked on the table. Then suddenly the brownish room flooded with pale light.

No one there. She was alone in the room.

Her every fibre and sinew relaxed with relief. She gulped at the air like she had just sprinted up a flight of stairs. It was the drapes wafting in a draught, or the old floorboards correcting themselves. Like they do in old buildings you are unaccustomed to.

She put her face in her hands. Shock drained from her, to be replaced with a blush of foolishness.

But the experience of such acute alienation, and the terror of intrusion, shook her sufficiently to make her try and sleep more lightly, by sitting up, with the bedside lamp on. And she left it shining all night. Something she hadn’t done since the first and only time she had watched The Exorcist.