Sylvia startles at the sudden bark of a man’s voice behind her, and the bright light just as suddenly shining at her back, as if she were the subject of a criminal pursuit. She turns around, squinting. A middle-aged man with tiny, wire-rimmed bifocals is frowning and narrowing his eyes at her disapprovingly, standing with an ordnance map in the open doorway of the house’s ground-floor flat. Behind him are unpacked cartons, stacks of paintings with their stretchers showing leaned against men’s-clubby furniture. A radio natters in another room.

“I ask you again, madam, what are you doing with my rubbish bin?” he demands.

“I—I—I’m sorry, I thought it was put here by the agents,” Sylvia stammers, clanking the lid carefully—painfully—back down on the can.

“You are mistaken, madam. The leasing agents have provided no such convenience. I was told, and I presume you were also told, that the tenants are to purchase their own rubbish bins.”

“I’m sorry,” Sylvia apologizes, her head pounding. “I’ve just moved in this week. I didn’t realize.”

The man surveys her unhappily. “You must be Mrs. Hughes. I was told a Mr. and Mrs. Hughes had been given the larger flat because—” he pauses, continuing to inspect her, “because of their ‘greater need,’ as the agents termed it.”

Sylvia stands uncomfortably, clammy skinned and unwell.

“I was told you have two children,” the man continues.

“I do,” Sylvia answers, breathing shallowly, “two small babies, two years and almost one. They’re upstairs. We’ve all come down with the flu.”

“Yes, I thought I heard babies crying.” The man nods almost imperceptibly, considering this deduction, crossing his arms before his saggy brown suit. “So your husband is upstairs?” he asks.

For a moment, Sylvia eyes the man just as steadily. “No, he’s not,” she answers, offering nothing more, too beleaguered to work up any explanations at all.

The man watches her. “I also required the larger flat,” he says, meting out his words slowly. “In fact, I have it confirmed in no uncertain terms that I saw the first-floor flat and expressed my interest in it before you did. Nevertheless, the agents approved your application rather than mine, and my two growing sons will have to sleep on bunk beds.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Sylvia responds weakly, wincing with effort. “Perhaps it was a matter of credentials. My mother was my reference. She’s a professor in America. She has very impressive credentials.”

Disdainfully, sniffing audibly and looking down at her over the tops of his bifocals, the man scoffs. “I am also a professor, as well as an international scholar of art. I have also lived in America, where I was appointed the art critic for the Buffalo Evening News. My credentials are impeccable. No,” he continues, his voice dropping, mumbling to himself and gazing vacantly at his ordnance map, “no … it was clearly something else.”