The Nocturne

Liebestod

    I stuck my head out of my bedroom door, determined to discover the source of the sound. If it was in fact coming from inside the house somewhere? I could hear the music clearly in my room, but when I stepped out onto the landing I heard nothing. This was confusing to me because I knew the source of the sound wasn't coming from anything inside that room. I had searched for it, and short of turning the room completely upside down, I had discovered nothing that could be transmitting or producing it. I decided walk on tiptoes as quietly as I could on these old rickety wooden stairs to see  if I could hear it further up or down the staircase. 

   The  first thing I noticed as I made my descent, was the old Edwardian lights which dimly lit the staircase. I had seen them many times before but I was shocked and surprised to see that they were still alight at this hour. These decrepit relics with their dusty, grimy looking, glass lamp shades which looked like the heads of flowers, I was amazed to find were still ablaze in these small dusky hours of the morning.. I wondered if Madeline chose to leave them on all night? Or if she had just forgotten to turn them off? 

    These lamps with the lampshades like an upside down, topsy-turvy bud were immensely stained and discoloured with use and this meant that these dull lights emitted only a subdued, filmy haze. As I had expected my journey to be it to be made entirely in the dark, at first I was pleasantly surprised by the eerie gauzy glow.  I moved down as noiselessly as I could towards the basement first, past Allegra's door and as I neared the basement I could clearly hear a man's voice raised and shouting at someone, sounding brusque and aggressive. I knew it was Duke's voice. I recognised the cadence.

   I made my way to the bottom step and lent over the banister at the bottom of the stairs to listen in closer. Was Duke shouting at Yasmina I wondered? It certainly seemed that way because I could only hear his voice sounding angrier and more incensed. Were they just arguing I wondered? Having a marital squabble? But I thought that was an odd time to have this, if true,  because it was the middle of the night.

    I lent forward further, closer in,  to see if I could hear them any clearer, but I could still only hear Duke's voice. His tone  sounded callous, hard and flat and he sounded like he was berating someone, and I assumed  that someone was his wife Yasmina. I had already decided he was bullish and a bully, and this only served to confirm my suspicions. He was speaking again now, and he sounded as though he was scolding a child, saying loudly  "So, what if I'm a little drunk! I'm entitled aren't I! I work hard." 

    "But you weren't at work. You've been up in Madeline's flat all afternoon." I heard Yasmina say. Which I thought it was a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Her tone of voice  as she said it  sounded normal, soft and non accusatory. And I knew that what she said was true because I had seen him go up there myself. Then I thought I heard Yasmina say. "Oh, Sorry, Duke, Sorry." The doleful words coming out  in an jumbled rush. "I did not mean it. Sorry. Sorry." I could tell she was backtracking, and I suddenly remembered back to how nervous Yasmina had been at the mention of Duke's name on the first day I had met her in the kitchen. Was that fear I heard in her voice? Was it panic I detected there? I thought that whatever it was, that was going on between them? It was unsettling, It made me feel very uneasy. I hated to hear Yasmina apologise to that brute, her words almost stung my ears. 

     There was a pause for a moment, and that silence troubled me, it worried me almost more than his shouting. I learned even further forward, leaning over the banister hoping that this one curt comment was the end of it. His tone reminded me a little of the way my father used to speak to Ellie my sister, cold, severe and cruel and I realised that, this made me feel furious and wretched both at the same time. Then a burst of anger punctuated the silence, it startled me with its pure force of aggression, like a pugilist taking an unexpected swing. It was Duke's voice again saying "Don't you tell me what to do. You, don't tell me what to do. I tell you what to do."