I’d never before heard him offer to do anything for her, still less wait on her. I handed him a mug of the milkless tea she preferred and he surprised me again by showing he knew her tastes and tipping into it two spoonfuls of sugar. This made me long to ask him if he meant to find somewhere for them both and take her away. Neither Silver nor I knew if he had a room to live in like Jonny or if he’d given it up when he began regularly spending nights with Liv. I longed to ask. Something about Wim, his remoteness, his seeming lack of ordinary human impulses, fears, needs, hopes, as usual held me back. So I made the tea and took a mug to Silver with one of the newspapers and hoped, when I came out of the bedroom again, that Wim would confide in me. He didn’t. He ate bread and marmalade, three or four slices of it, and hunted around the uninhabited rooms in the flat for two bars of chocolate he said he’d put in a safe place the night before. I read the other newspaper, the one Silver hadn’t got. Still unable to find his chocolate, Wim departed through the window.

It was a cool morning with a sharp wind blowing. Clouds like the froth on soapy water scurried across the sky. I watched Wim climb the mansard swiftly and gracefully. It was the last time I was ever to see him go up on the roof.

I closed the window, keeping the cold out.

Mr. and Mrs. Houghton had gone away on holiday. Before they left Mrs. Houghton gave me a key to the house. “To keep an eye on things” and, ironically, to perform the very tasks we’d used as an excuse for being in another elderly couple’s home, watering the houseplants.

I had had the key since the previous Monday and nearly mentioned it to Wim that morning. The houses in Randolph Avenue at this particular point in the terraces were exceptionally tall. I wondered if Wim would like me to take him into the house and let him climb out of one of the top-floor windows. Would it be a betrayal of trust? Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Houghton had asked me not to take anyone into their house. Probably they took it for granted I’d invite my boyfriend in. They had met him and liked him. Wim would do no damage, would steal nothing, would want to take no advantage beyond climbing out of a bedroom window and perhaps climbing back again. I couldn’t decide. I’d ask Silver.