Candy almost remarked that it was no wonder the management kept this part of the hotel out of the sight of guests, but she bit her tongue, remembering what her mother had said about keeping less courteous thoughts to herself.
Up the creaking stairs they went. They were steep.
"I should stop smoking," Norma remarked. "It'll be the death of me."
There were two doors at the top. One was Room Seventeen. The other was Room Nineteen.
Norma handed the passkey to Candy.
"You want to open it?" Norma said.
"Sure."
Candy took the key and put it in the lock. "You have to jiggle it around a little."
Candy jiggled. And after a little work, the key turned, and Candy opened the ill-oiled door of Room Nineteen.
2. WHAT HENRY MURKITT LEFT BEHIND
It was dark inside the room; the air still and stale.
"Why don't you go ahead and open the drapes, honey?" Norma said, taking the key back from Candy.
Candy waited a moment for her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom, then she tentatively made her way across the room to the window. The thick fabric of the drapes felt greasy against her palms, as though they hadn't been cleaned in a very long time. She pulled. The drapes moved reluctantly along dust— and dirt-clogged rails. The glass Candy found herself looking through was as filthy as the fabric.
"How long is it since anybody rented the room?" Candy said.
"Actually I can't remember if there's been anybody in it since I've been at the hotel," Norma said.
Candy looked out of the window. The view was no more inspiring to the senses or the soul than the view out of the kitchen window of 34 Followell Street, her home. Immediately below the window was a small courtyard at the back of the hotel, which contained five or six garbage cans, filled to over-brimming, and the skeletal remains of last year's Christmas tree, still wearing its shabby display of tinsel and artificial snow.