The Remaining Voice by Angela Elliott Read Free Book Online Page B

it was acceptable. The waiter poured.
    “I’m…” I laughed. “Okay. Can we make a pact? No talk of our past?”
    “A good idea.” He raised his glass. “To the future.”
    “To the future,” I said and clinked my glass with his.
    We talked for an hour or so, mostly about what I’d found so far in Berthe’s apartment, and he asked if I needed someone to appraise the antique furniture. I told him I knew of someone from my childhood who might help; thinking of Jaques Le Brun and how, if he was still alive, he might jump at the chance to root around in such a mess. I did not tell Laurent of the woman or the singing. It did not seem the right time.
    At a little after nine thirty I told him I ought to be going back to the hotel. Tiredness had taken hold and I could barely keep my eyes open. I excused myself to visit the rest room and when I returned he was standing with my coat over his arm, ready to hold it open for me. But it was not Laurent that I noticed as much as the woman standing slightly behind him, with her back to us. My first assumption was that she had been sitting in the next booth, but when I reached out to put an arm in the sleeve of my coat she turned and looked me full in the face, before walking towards the door. It was the woman on the stairs – and in the picture. I knew it was. Was she flesh and blood after all? Had she followed me here?
    “ Qu’est-ce que sais?” said Laurent, following my gaze. The woman was nearly at the door, and barely visible now in the gloom of the restaurant .
    “I… do you know her?” I asked him.
    “Who?”
    “That woman. She was…” Not there. She had gone. I ran to the door and out onto the street. It was dark but there was enough lamplight to see up and down both sides for a hundred yards or so. Apart from an old drunk who sat with his back against a tree, and young couple kissing in a nearby doorway, there was no one in sight. I turned back to the restaurant. Laurent had followed me outside.
    “What is it?” he asked. “Someone you know?”
    “No… no.” I was confused. Did I know her? Did she know me? For a moment, it was as if she was going to say something to me. “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think… I think I’ve seen a ghost.”
    *
    We sat in the bar at my hotel and I told Laurent Daviau about the woman I’d seen on the stairs and then again in the restaurant… and of course, there was the singing – easily dismissed as being a neighbour or a record playing, only I didn’t think it was either of those, given what the I’d been told in the local café. The fact that I had lost the postcard photo of Berthe still annoyed me, but there was the painting. I had not yet verified the identity of the sitter but I had the oddest feeling that it was of my great aunt in her youth – and if that were so, then nothing made sense.
    “And what of the difference in the way she lived?” I asked. “It was as if in London she had no identity.”
    “Surely it is simply a question of an old lady living a solitary life,” said Laurent.
    We ordered coffee, much against my better judgement. It was late and I just had to get a decent night’s sleep or I would be a wreck in the morning.
    I sighed. “But an old lady accumulates things. It’s rare to find anyone living as empty a life as Berthe did in London. I dread to think what I’m going to find in the rooms I haven’t opened yet.”
    “My dear,” said Laurent. “There has to be a simple explanation. I do not believe in ghosts, and you have been suffering from the time difference. It is an old building with old neighbours and people like to scare tourists. I would not listen to tales.”
    “No. It’s not that. I know what I’ve seen. I know there is something going on and I don’t expect you to believe me, but… as crazy as it sounds, I think Berthe is haunting me. If I could definitively identify the sitter in the painting… I’d be happier. At least…” I paused. I was not sure I