Listening in the Dusk Read Free

fellow-lodgers, she was just one more young woman unlucky in her search for work. And it had only been five weeks after all; nothing at all remarkable about it so far.
    Still, this was one more reason why she welcomed the coming of twilight, the beginning of darkness. Soon, the world’s workers would be on their way home, and she would no longer be the only one with nothing to do. There they would all be, slacking off after their day’s work, indulging in a bit of leisure, maybe leaning idly out of their windows, just as she was doing, watching the lights coming on here and there in the houses opposite, while beyond the still faintly-gleaming slate roofs the massed clouds, grey on grey, gathered themselves towards the coming of the dark.
    Twilight. Bat-light. Though of course there were no bats now,not in December, not in the middle of London: and even if there had been, she could not have borne to watch them; not after what had happened.
    With every advance of darkness, Mary felt a little bit safer. If anyone looked up now, all they would see would be the pale blur of a face that might be any face. Besides, no one would look up, why should they? They would be hurrying along, head down, eyes on the pavement, minds focused on getting to wherever they were going, out of the cold and damp. But even as this vaguely reassuring thought crossed her mind, someone did look up. A woman, of indeterminate age, hair and face almost invisible under a plastic rain-hat, was pausing outside this very house, looking it up and down with an air both uncertain and purposeful .
    Mary withdrew her head so precipitately that she banged it quite sharply on the raised sash. With violently beating heart she retreated into the recesses of her room, already scolding herself for so ridiculous an over-reaction.
    A strange woman happening to glance up at a house — why on earth should it be anything to do with her, Mary? This was a city of six or seven million people — which was precisely why she had come here in the first place — and the chances of any random one of them being one of those she had reason to fear was so remote that …
    And at that point, she heard the knock on the front door. Really loud, and once again Mary’s heart was beating wildly, irrationally; and she tiptoed to her door, full of dread, opening it softly, just a crack, to try and make out what was going on.
    Her landlady answering the door, of course. Voices. The landlady’s voice buoyantly welcoming — as it always was, to absolutely anyone, in absolutely any situation — and then the other voice, the strange one. Yes, strange. A total stranger.
    So that was all right. It was nothing to do with her. All the same, when she heard the double set of footsteps beginning to mount the stairs, she found herself holding her breath again. Softly, she closed her door — it would never do to be caught peeping — and through the crack listened tensely to the approaching sounds. How far up were they coming? There weretwo sets of tenants on the floors below her; doubtless this was a visitor to one of them. But no … On came the laboured footsteps … past the first floor … past the second … on and on, with agonising slowness.
    Outside her door, they paused, and Mary’s heart missed a beat. It was for her , then, a visitor for her ! An unwelcome visitor — for all visitors were unwelcome — and there could be no news for her but bad news.
    Mary cowered, tensing herself for the knock on her door …
    But it was all right! With a rush of utterly disproportionate thankfulness, she heard the footsteps start up again … on past her door … across the landing, and then on up the narrow uncarpeted stairs that led to the topmost part of the tall house, the lumber-room, and the big gurgling water-tank that murmured all night long, the pipes clucking and whispering up and down the old walls. She had found it frightening at first, these unfamiliar intermittent sounds when she was trying