‘Okey-dokey,’ she said, sceptical. ‘Will that take all day? Only we’re expecting a delivery.’

‘All day,’ I lied. ‘Can’t you get it delivered to your office?’

Her face pinched in consternation. ‘Ooh, no. It’s furniture.’

‘Sorry. Why did you arrange for it to be delivered today if you’re not going to be in?’

‘Well,’ she said with a little hauteur, ‘I expected you to be in.’

I felt that she had laid out a space for another sorry from me, but she wasn’t going to get it. ‘’Fraid not.’

She flicked her eyes downward and I made a small shuffle further behind the door.

Smiling brightly: ‘OK. You’re not dressed. I won’t keep you in the cold. Hope your interview goes well!’

I smiled back and started to close the door. She popped her earbuds back into her ears and turned towards the steps back up to the pavement.

‘Bella,’ I said, stopping her. ‘You guys own upstairs, don’t you?’

‘Sure,’ she said, as if startled by the implication that any other living arrangement could exist.

‘Have you complained to next door?’ I said. ‘Both next doors. About the noise. The building work.’

‘No,’ Bella said. ‘We’re out all day working, so …’

‘But, the dust,’ I said. ‘The dirt.’

She shrugged. ‘Thing is, it’s their property, isn’t it, so really they can do what they like with it.’

‘I guess so.’

In truth, I didn’t mind Bella as much as I might. She at least kept her low opinion of me heavily gilded with courtesy and cheer – I imagine she has no idea how she comes across. It’s him I can’t stand, Dan, her husband. A prime Mumford. I would happily murder Dan.

The front door sticks a little when it’s closed, and on occasion it needs a real bang to shut properly. This bang dislodged something from the letter flap, and this something fell with a turn that suggested the beat of a white wing.

A postcard from my parents: pretty toy-like buildings lined up on a picturesque quay. Could be anywhere. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Stavanger, Lübeck. Five years ago, Dad had retired, and Mum had decided to join him. So this was victory, for them. They shared a belief – a widespread and wholesome belief – in the fixed path of virtue. School, as a path to University, as a path to a Proper Job (proper – an important qualifier, that). All this was the infrastructural spine that supported Marriage, Mortgage, Family and Responsibilities. But what was at the end of this path? What lay at the sun-touched horizon? What was the reward? Retirement, that’s what.