Later, my arms were full and I was trying to navigate the landing when I went backward through the wrong door into Henry’s private territory. Two airless rooms divided by frosted glass doors, the shapes of unmade bed and heaped-up chair on one side, and when I turned, a skeletal chandelier listing from the ceiling, a table that looked like someone had emptied a filing cabinet and about a month’s worth of dishes onto it. A portrait of a dark-haired woman, just her naked back and her long neck, her face about to turn to show her profile, but just out of reach, and that forever-not-quite caught my attention. At the other end, a half-assed kind of kitchen, an antique fridge the color of old custard, and an angry, worn-out straw-yellow parakeet in a cage. Things that might have enjoyed some spread in the rest of the house were sardined into this one cramped, chaotic space. I had this sense of Henry and all his stuff gathered there, in the center, the way the pupil of your eye retracts in bright light. Three huge wardrobes stood side by side, giants waiting for a bus. A sofa suffocated under piles of old maps and notebooks, no space left on it to sit, a lidless pen bleeding ink into its grubby cushions. Above that was the biggest map of the world I’ve ever seen, stuck with hundreds of tiny pins. The paintwork was a lumpy, tobacco-stain kind of white, and the floorboards were covered with newspaper and boot prints and bird shit. Something on the stove top smelled like boiled chicken, rich and strong and kind of everywhere. I wondered how the caged bird felt about that. It stared at me, and so did Henry Lake. Two pairs of eyes. One quick-black bird-lacquer, the other, without sunglasses this time, mind-bendingly tired. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone look more exhausted. I didn’t want to look at him for too long, in case it was catching.

“Sorry,” I said. “Wrong door,” and the parakeet twitched.

Henry Lake smiled and wiped his hands on a stained tea towel. He moved to sweep half the contents of the sofa straight onto the floor. “No, come in. Excuse the mess. It’s been ages since I had a visitor.”

Out of politeness more than anything, I put the stuff I’d been carrying down by the door, setting off an epic cloudburst of dust, and I sat on the edge of the sofa while the little bird shivered in its cage and Henry searched for something in the kitchen.

“Do you like olives?” he said, not exactly hanging on an answer. “I’ve got a jar somewhere.”

“I’m all right,” I said.

“Tea? Soup? I’m making soup.”

“I don’t need anything. I’m fine.”

“Hungry work, I’d have thought,” he said, “moving.”

“I’m used to it.”