The Remaining Voice

by Angela Elliott

  The rain obscured the view from the kitchen window, but I knew that out beyond the trees, which pressed in close to the back of the apartment block, lay street after street of beautiful and expensive properties. This was a lovely part of London, but as much as it was a wonderful apartment in a good location, I couldn’t see myself living here. I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in Paris either, but at least after the sale, I could afford buy something more suitable for my needs in New York.

  A noise, like someone crying softly, brought me out of my reverie. I followed the sound down the hall, stopping to look in on the bathroom (cold, white, charmless), and the spare room (the one I thought the nurse stayed in overnight sometimes – bed made, yellow curtains, bedside table and beige-shaded lamp). Nothing. I re-entered Berthe’s bedroom. It was as I had left it earlier. The drawer with the silk underwear was still slightly ajar. I closed it, noticing how the wood caught slightly as I pushed it home. As I did so the air grew close, and a wash of sadness came over me so strongly that for a moment I almost burst into tears. I groped for the edge of the bed and sat down. I was sure there was someone in the room with me. I heard them breathing – heard a whisper of air escape from between their lips and heard the wheeze of inhalation. Fearing someone was behind me, and not able to bring myself to turn round, I glanced in the dressing table mirror. There was no one there. So why did I feel as if someone was about to reach out to me – to press their hand on my shoulder, to caress my hair? I spun round. No, there was no one there. I was alone, yet still I heard the breathing. It was like the rasp of an elderly person just before they breathe their last. I listened, head cocked, my hands shaking, until the sound faded away. Eventually, all I could hear was the rain on the windowpane and the tick of a clock on the living room mantelpiece.

  *

  The inviting aroma of coffee and freshly baked patisseries hit me as soon as I pushed open the door to my great-aunt’s favourite cafe. I took a seat at the rear, all the better to watch the waitress at work and listen to the gossip from the other customers. I ordered coffee and a slice of tarte framboise. When the waitress brought them to me I offered up the photograph of Berthe and asked her if she had ever seen her. The waitress shook her head. She was only a part-timer, she explained. I would have to ask Eloise, the proprietor. She signalled behind her to the women in a white blouse and grey skirt, whose hair was all a tumble. Eloise gave the briefest of smiles and approached.

  “I trust all is well, Madam?”

  “Thank you, yes. I wonder, could you take a look at this picture for me. I believe you may have known her. She took tea here in the afternoon sometimes.”

  Eloise pursed her lips and looked long at the photograph. “No,” She shook her head. “Although…”

  “It was taken some time ago. It’s not very clear, I know.”

  “What was her name dear?”

  “Berthe Chalgrin.” I bit my lip. Perhaps this had been a wild goose chase. Perhaps Eloise would not remember her.

  “Oh Madam Chalgrin. Of course. I knew her. She would come in at eleven for a croissant and tea. Never came in the afternoon. Never drank coffee. She was as quiet as a mouse. I haven’t seen her in a while now.”

  “She died. I’m just going through her effects. I don’t know much about her. I thought perhaps you might be able to tell me something.”

  Eloise gave a half-hearted laugh. “Oh no. Not I. Madam Chalgrin never spoke to anyone. She would sit for a while and look out at the street. She would sip her tea slowly. I got the impression she was very… sad, yes. She was sad. Later on, when she got ill, her nurse would bring her in. They never said anything to each other.”

  “Would you know the nurse’s name?”

  “Ah… it was…. Genevieve. A good French name. She was a coloured woman. Polite. Died you say? Well, she’s out of her misery now isn’t she?” Eloise placed the photograph on the table next to my cup. “I’m sorry dear. I can’t tell you more.”

  I thanked her, and drank my coffee. I fingered the photograph on the table and whispered. “Who are you?”

  *

  Genevieve Carter was a large Jamaican woman who had come to the ‘mother country’ to better herself and found her training as a nurse in great demand. She welcomed me into the home of her new charge, that of a Mrs Grace, whispering: “She’s asleep right now dearie. Come on in. The agency told me you had a few questions. Take the weight off.”

  I sat on a chintz-covered settee in a living room that couldn’t be further removed from the sanitised environment Berthe had lived in, and realised that the tidying could not have been Genevieve’s doing, otherwise the house I was presently visiting would have been much the same.

  “I suppose you want to know something about Mrs Chalgrin,” said Genevieve, smiling kindly. She patted my hand as she sat down next to me. She was a large woman and the settee sagged under her weight. “She was a strange one and no mistake.”

  “Oh but she wasn’t married,” I said.

  “No, no she wasn’t, but I call all my ladies Missus. Makes it easier on them.”

  I nodded and glanced around the room. The water needed topping up in the vase on the window ledge. Most of the flowers (forced tulips in garish colours) had begun to droop and lose their petals.

  “It must have been a shock for you, finding her like that.”

  “No dearie, not at all. Happens all the time. I’ve got used to it. So…what can I tell you?” She inspected the ceiling for a moment. “She’d had a string of carers when I met her. I think she quite wore them all out with her do this and do that. But then they do say cleanliness is next to Godliness.”

  “Do you think she was senile, or perhaps she had an obsession with cleaning?” My father always said ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’. I wondered if it was a family trait. If so then it wasn’t one I had inherited; I was messy beyond belief.

  “Oh no, by all accounts she’d always been that way. Liked everything just so she did. Didn’t like children. Didn’t like noise you see. Didn’t like anything much. I think she was depressed.”

  “Depressed?”

  “Oh sure. Most elderly people get depressed. Nothing to do you see. No one to talk to. No one to care for her ‘cepting me, and she did not want to talk to me.” Genevieve leant in close and whispered: “I do not think she approved of a coloured woman taking care of her.”

  I nodded. “Did she ever talk about Paris?”

  “Paris?” Genevieve exclaimed. “No no. Never said a word about it. She would mutter under her breath sometimes in French, but I didn’t know what she was saying. Probably just cursing me for getting her up for dinner. She liked to lie in her bed. Didn’t like to be disturbed. Didn’t like to get up. It was always such an effort to get her to bathe. Oh dear, she was difficult in those last weeks.”

  “I couldn’t find any photographs, or letters, or anything much at her apartment.”

  “No, no you wouldn’t,” said Genevieve. “She didn’t like being reminded of the past. She would as tap her head and say ‘it’s all up here’, and I used to think that woman’s haunted by something she is, and I’d say a prayer for her. Well she’s with the good Lord now. The elderly… they are set in their ways. Is there anything else dearie, only I’ve Mrs Grace to see to. It’s nearly her teatime. I don’t like her to miss it otherwise she gets difficult later on and won’t settle.”

  I thanked Genevieve for her time. I couldn’t say that I’d learned anything much, other than Genevieve was a good woman doing a difficult job. Berthe remained a mystery.

  Chapter 2

  Paris was all angles in the lengthening shadows. During my taxi ride I watched them disappear altogether, as the afternoon drew to a close. I have never been a good traveller and I felt weary and in need of an early night. I imagined the smell of newly laundered sheets, soft pillows, and a steaming mug of cocoa. I had an appointment to visit the French lawyer early in the morning and I wanted to get a good night’s sleep before I began my inves
tigation.

  That Berthe had maintained her home in Paris year upon year, without seeing fit to either return to, or reap the benefits from a sale of the property, was nothing short of a miracle, and I was excited and intrigued at the prospect of peeling back the layers of her life. I wondered though, just how much I would find out. If her Hampstead apartment was anything to go by then it was more than likely that her Paris home was just as devoid of her presence – perhaps even more so.

  The streets wandered, the buildings becoming grander with every turn. I have always thought of Paris as something of an illusion and as the taxi pulled up outside my chic hotel on the Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, a flutter of white doves filled the pavement and prevented me from crossing to the door. I drew in a deep breath of annoyance, and closed my eyes. When I opened them the doves had become sheets of paper tumbling from the briefcase of a man who was scrabbling to regain control over them. I wanted to be out of the cold, but I stooped down and grabbed a handful of the documents before presenting them to him with a tired smile.

  “Monsieur, vos papier.”

  “Ah. Je vous remercie,” he muttered. He had a classic French look about him: high cheek bones, slight tan, brown eyes. I felt a flutter of attraction and stumbled across the pavement. I wanted to take a long hot bath, after which I would order room service and eat sitting propped up in bed, with a copy of Paris Match to hand. To hell with the nightlife, I wanted to pamper myself and pretend some more that my heart was intact. I made a mental note not to help anyone ever again. I could not trust my emotions. I was likely to fall in love with the waiter if he glanced favourably at me.

  My room was on the second floor, cast in the gloom of the encroaching night. I had a view of the street and nothing much else. It would be noisy. I would not get any sleep, and then I would be irritable. I suppose at least I did not have to put up with the glow of a street light. I rang for room service and asked for my longed-for cocoa, but it was not on the menu. Perhaps Madam would like coffee? No Madam would not. I slammed down the phone and fished around in the bottom of my purse for a packet of cigarettes. I didn’t usually smoke, but I was sure I had one somewhere, and I was so on edge that I needed something to calm me down. Instead, I found an envelope Fletcher had given me. I slit it open with my finger. The key to Berthe’s Paris apartment was wrapped in a piece of thin paper, on which was written the address and a curious note: Je te garde dans mon âme, comme un trésor.

  ‘I will keep you in my … something… like a treasure.’ I shook my head. Damn it, what did the missing word mean? Other than pleasantries, it had been a long time since I had used my French for anything in earnest.

  I searched my memory… ‘âme?’ It came to me in a flash: ‘soul’ the missing word was ‘soul’… ‘I will keep you in my soul like a treasure’. I turned the key over in my hand. But what did it mean and who had written it? Was it Kingston Fletcher, or perhaps Berthe herself? Neither the key nor the paper it had come in held any further clues. It would have to wait until the morning. For now, a bath beckoned, and then food and bed.

  *

  I spent the night as expected – or at least I spent part of it as expected, sleeping fitfully, disturbed by the ever present sound of Paris. At around two I heard raucous singing and took it to be night-birds late home from the Pigalle clubs. I drifted off again, only to be woken half an hour later by a faint repetitive knocking, the location of which I could not place. I thought perhaps I had left a tap dripping and got up to go see, but no, all was well. I crawled back into bed and groaning, pulled the covers over my head. The knocking grew louder. I switched on the bedside light and the darkness receded to the bathroom, the partially open closet and the chink between the closed curtains. I listened hard but the knocking had stopped. I clicked the light off and snuggled back down. No sooner had I started to drift off but the knocking started up again. Whoever was responsible for this was going to get a piece of my mind. I flung open the door and strode out into the hall. The wall lights cast a dim glow across the plush red carpet, which stretched before me into the further reaches of the hotel. I listened at the first door and imagined the possibilities beyond. Was it lovers locked in some noisy embrace? I did not think so, but it was hard to tell. I stopped outside the second door and thought I heard someone improvising a jazz piano solo, but when I listened harder it faded like satiated bees returning to the hive.

  What was I thinking? Of course there would be noises in a hotel. Of course I would be kept awake by the traffic and my amorous and musical neighbours. But really, you would have thought they could have kept their amusements to themselves. I retraced my steps. I would take measures to minimise any disturbance and in the morning I would find a hotel with very few guests and a room at the back where I could sleep in peace.

  “I will keep you in my soul like a treasure.” I whispered.

  *

  Although my first morning in Paris dawned clear, it looked cold and I felt dreadful. I showered and ordered coffee and croissants. In a street somewhere to the north lay Berthe's abandoned apartment. Although I was eager to begin the process of uncovering her life, my visit to her Hampstead flat had left me feeling like a spy. I wrapped myself in my warmest clothes and stepped out into the bright sunlight. A headache threatened. I hoped it did not mean a day of pain, because I was not in the mood for it. I shaded my eyes and headed vaguely north, remembering times when my father had brought me here for visits to old friends and to do those things that American tourists do: climb the Eiffel Tower, and visit the Louvre to stare at the Mona Lisa. Later, when I was able to travel alone, I brought myself to Paris to remind myself that half of me at least was French, and that I really should reclaim my heritage or be lost forever to America. That was before - before Simon had tainted me with his desire for emotional distance, and before I had learned that there are some men for whom love is nothing more than an assignation and certainly not a promise to love and cherish. In the Paris of my youth I had found an innocence and a charm I was eager to experience again, though little of this city is innocent and all of it steeped in a history too decadent for its own good.

  I found a cafe with an awning and seats overlooking a wide tree-lined boulevard. My appointment with the French lawyer was at eleven. I had half an hour to kill. Spring was unfurling soft green leaves that fluttered in the breeze. I sat in the shade to wait out the throb in my head. I ordered an espresso and luxuriated in its aroma. A cat dusted the legs of the chairs with its tail and considered whether to grace me with her presence. When I was a child, I’d had a cat called Robespierre who liked to sleep in the wicker basket on my bicycle. This Paris street cat had something of Robespierre about it, and I clucked and held out my fingers. Cats are independent creatures. This one licked a paw nonchalantly, and looked the other way. A flush of birds, twittering noisily, alighted in one of the alders. The cat and I watched them – the cat being more interested than I. Downy clouds were gathering overhead. It would probably rain later. I sipped my espresso and watched the traffic.

  The cat found a sun-blessed chair and sat prettily, her head dipping to her chest as sleep overtook her. The blur of traffic came to a halt. It had just begun to move again when I noticed the woman across the road. She was looking straight at me and ordinarily I wouldn’t have reacted, but there was something about her, something about the way she was dressed, and her hair. She looked out of place, like she had just stepped out of a silent movie. The cat pricked up her ears, the tip of her tail flicking in annoyance. The woman raised her hand and waved. I turned round to see if there was someone behind me, but no, there was no one. For a moment I thought she was going to start across the road, but then the traffic slowed to a halt, obscured my view. By the time it had cleared again, she had gone.

  I beckoned the waitress for the bill, paid it quickly and crossed the road into the shade of the buildings beyond. I stood for a full five minutes looking up and down. It made no sense as to why I would be so affected by a woman waving to me like t
hat. No sense at all.

  *

  It was ten to eleven. I consulted my notebook. The French lawyer, one Monsieur Laurent Daviau, had an office three streets away. I would make my presence known and then I could visit Berthe’s apartment in the afternoon and take inventory. I did not envisage finding much and with any luck I could be on my way home again within a couple of days.

  I waited, somewhat impatiently, in the echoing foyer on the Rue Auber, for Monsieur Daviau’s secretary to tell me I could go on up to his office. She was a pinch-faced middle-aged spinster in glasses, who hovered over her typewriter with hands clawed and nose upturned. The telephone rang and she acknowledged the speaker briefly, before nodding to me and indicating the stairs. I patted my hair and pulled the belt on my gabardine mackintosh tight. I was not sure my French was good enough for the conversation ahead and I prayed that Monsieur Daviau had a reasonable grasp of English. I need not have worried. He was waiting for me, door open, hand outstretched.

  “Madam Webster? Welcome. Please, come in.” I shook his hand and he stood aside to allow me entry. His lofty-ceilinged office had a well-polished parquet floor. His huge desk stood in the middle of the room, facing the Juliet-balconied windows. There were books and papers everywhere.

  “Please, take a seat,” he said, moving aside a pile of legal documents. I sat gingerly, afraid that I might upset the chaotic order of things.