Three months after the evening at Kobielski’s, I packed up the crate with my things and moved in with Louise. Her grandmother, a silent old woman who sat on the window seat all day, couldn’t stand me. She had a gift for looking straight at me and ignoring me at the same time. But I didn’t care. I was with her granddaughter; I had nothing to do with her.

Louise wasn’t exactly what you’d call a beauty. She was quite thin, with black hair and huge eyes that bulged in their sockets. But her forehead was high and smooth, and occasionally something seemed to pass over it like a shadow. I always liked to look at her. Her face. Her hands. The way she moved. Once, when we were lying in bed, I said to her, ‘Would you walk up and down for me?’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘Just a few steps across the room?’

She got up and walked up and down in front of me. I watched her for a while, then we both burst out laughing and she threw herself on top of me and I buried my face in her body and inhaled her scent.

I liked her voice, too. It had a very special timbre, and there was something rough and raw about it when she was preoccupied. Louise often talked about her work at the Black Buck. She cleaned the rooms there, made coffee and ironed the little crocheted doilies yellowed by cigarette smoke. She picked up quite a bit about the guests, and had some very odd experiences, but really I just wanted to listen to her voice and watch her lips move as she talked.

Once in a while we’d sit on the sofa and watch a film on TV, but she would fall asleep every time. Her head would drop onto my shoulder, and I could gaze at her face as long as I liked.

I would have been happy for things to carry on like this for ever. But then her grandmother died. We found her one morning on the floor in front of the window seat. Her arm was twisted oddly underneath her torso, and her head was propped against the chair leg, her eyes open. When we walked into the room it looked as if she was staring at us.

I didn’t know how to deal with Louise’s grief. I felt useless around her. I wanted to do something for her, but a few days later, when I started tidying up, she planted herself in my way.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I’m taking this stuff out.’

‘Leave those things where they are!’

She stood in front of me, hands on hips, looking me dead in the eye. I’d never seen her like this. For the first time since we’d met, she seemed like a stranger.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Don’t get in a state.’

‘I’m not getting in a state. And I want you to start looking for work. Gran’s pension’s gone now. The money from the Black Buck won’t be enough.’