I wanted to laugh but kept a grave face. I also wanted to say that I hoped the napkins had been starched and folded into water-lily shapes. “Well, goodbye” was what I actually said. “And thank you very much for everything.”

“I shall be phoning your parents this evening,” said Max.

I left the kitchen and started down the stairs. Selina came after me, tottering on her stilettos. I stopped and we faced each other halfway down. “Why didn’t you stand up for yourself, darling?” she asked in a stage whisper, something she was presumably practiced in. I understood I was reinstated in her regard. “Why didn’t you say you wanted to keep the flat?”

“Because I don’t.”

“He wants it for his woman. She’s got nowhere to live and he’s going to put her in there. He will now. You’ll see.”

“Goodbye, Selina,” I said, and once again I ran out of the front door of 19 Russia Road.

Out in the street, observing for the first time that it was a lovely day, I stood breathing what passes for fresh air in Maida Vale and staring appreciatively at Mrs. Clark’s geraniums and the plaster face of a woman in a tiara above her triple window. A more important first time was the realization that I need never live below ground again. My troglodyte days were over. I opened the gate of No. 15 and had taken a single step onto the paved path when a voice behind me called out, “Excuse me!”

I turned around. The man who had spoken had no need to introduce himself. Liv looked exactly like him. “You’re Mr. Almquist?”

“How did you know?”

“There’s a strong family resemblance.”

“You are her friend? She lives here?”

I nodded.

“Please to take me to my daughter,” he said.

I’d have liked a half hour’s warning, a chance to get Liv up and dressed and remove both Jonny and Wim. Silver was all right, he always made a respectable impression. But I had no warning and it was too late to lie. The arrival of Mr. Almquist seemed an unnecessary and certainly unwanted complication. For some reason, halfway up the first flight of stairs, I thought about Max phoning my parents. I wouldn’t be there, would I? Was I too about to turn into a missing person, like Liv?

Going up those stairs with someone from the outside world, a “grown-up” (does one ever think of oneself as grown up? Do I now? Did Max?) was a new experience. It made me look around as we reached each landing and perhaps see what I saw through Håkan Almquist’s eyes. I had never really looked around before, I had always been too keen to reach the top, but now I saw carpeted hallways with small tables standing on them or a single chair, doors open on to rooms prettily furnished but deserted, nearly always empty, immaculately cleaned by Beryl, a flower vase filled with dried grasses on a gilt table, a red-and-white striped settee with perfectly plumped-up cushions where no head ever rested, a glass bowl with fruit in it, but even from this distance you could see the apples and oranges were made of wax.