a sliver of the dining room through the other panes, or if the curtains aren’t hanging straight, then I’ll have to go back up to the flat and start again.
I’ve gotten quite good at getting this right, but it still takes a long time. The more thorough I am, the less likely I’ll find myself on the path behind the house cursing my carelessness and checking my watch.
The door is particularly bad. At least in the last place, that poky basement in Kilburn, I had my own front door. Here I have to check and recheck the flat door properly six or twelve times, and then the communal front door as well.
The flat in Kilburn did have a front door but nothing at all at the back, no back door, no windows. It was like living in a cave. I didn’t have an escape route, which meant that I never felt really safe in there. Here, things are much better: I have French doors that lead onto a small balcony. Just below that is the roof of the shed that is shared with the other flats, although I don’t know if anyone else uses it. I can get out of the French doors, jump down to the shed roof, and from there down onto the grass. Through the yard and out the gate into the alleyway at the back. I can do it in less than half a minute.
Sometimes I have to go back and check the flat door again. If one of the other tenants has left the front door unlocked again I definitely have to check the flat door. Anyone could have been in.
This morning, for example, was one of the worst.
Not only was the front door unlocked, it was actually slightly ajar. As I reached for it, a man in a suit pushed it open toward me, which made me jump. Behind him, another man, younger, tall, wearing jeans and a hooded top. Dark hair cropped close to his head, unshaven, tired green eyes. He gave me a smile, and mouthed “Sorry,” which helped.
Suits still freak me out. I tried not to look at the suit at all, but I heard it say as it went up the stairs, “. . . this one’s only just become available, you’ll have to move fast if you want it.”
A rental agent, then.
The Chinese students who’d been on the top floor must have finally decided to move on. They weren’t students anymore, they graduated in the summer—the party they’d had had gone on all night, while I lay in my bed underneath listening to the sound of feet marching up and down the stairs. The front door had been unlocked all night. I’d barricaded myself in by pushing the dining table against the flat door, but the noise had kept me awake and anxious.
I watched the second man following the suit up the stairs.
To my horror the man in jeans turned halfway up the first flight and gave me another smile, a rueful one this time, raising his eyes as if he was already sick of the rental agent’s voice. I felt myself blushing furiously. It’s been a long time since I made eye contact with a stranger.
I listened to the footsteps heading up to the top floor, meaning they’d gone past my flat door. I checked my watch—a quarter past eight already! I couldn’t just go and leave them inside the house.
I shut the front door firmly and turned the lock, checking that the bolt had shot home by rattling the door a few times. With my fingertips I traced around the edge of the doorframe, feeling that the door was flush with the frame. I turned the doorknob six times, to make sure it was properly closed. One, two, three, four, five, six. Then the doorframe again. Then the doorknob, six times. One, two, three, four, five, six. Then the lock. Once, and again. Then the doorframe. Lastly the knob, six times. I felt the relief that comes when I manage to do this properly.
Then I marched back up to the flat, fuming that these two idiots were going to make me late.
I sat on the edge of my bed for a while with my eyes lifted to the ceiling, as if I could see them through the plaster and the rafters. All the time I was fighting the urge to start checking the window locks again.
I concentrated on my breathing, my eyes closed, trying to calm my