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insufficient to tell him who that someone might be.
    Every morning for the rest of that week, Arthur listened carefully for Anthony Johnson to go off to work. But Jonathan Dean and the Kotowskys always made so much noise over their own departures that it was difficult to tell. Certain it was, though, that Anthony Johnson remained at home in the evenings. Peering downwards out of his bedroom window, Arthur saw the light in Room 2 come on each evening at about six, and could tell by the pattern of two yellow rectangles divided by a dark bar, which the light made on the concrete, that Anthony Johnson didn’t draw his curtains. It was a little early for him to feel an urge to visit the cellar again, and yet he was already growing restless. He thought this restlessness had something to do with frustration, with knowing that he couldn’t go down there however much he might want to.
    On the Friday morning, while fetching in the post, he saw AnthonyJohnson come out of Room 2 and go into the bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. Didn’t the man
go
to work? Was he going to stop in there all day and all night?
    Among that particular batch of letters was the first one to come for Anthony Johnson. Arthur knew it was for him as it was postmarked York and written on the flap was the sender’s name and address: Mrs. R. L. Johnson, 22 West Highamgate, York. But the front of the envelope was addressed, quite ambiguously, to A. Johnson Esq., 2/142 Trinity Road, London W15 6HD. Arthur sucked in his lips with an expression of exasperation. And when, a minute or so later, Anthony Johnson re-emerged, smelling of toothpaste, Arthur pointed out to him the possible consequences of such impreciseness.
    The young man took it very casually. “It’s from my mother. I’ll tell her to put Room 2, if I think of it.”
    “I hope you will think of it, Mr. Johnson. This sort of thing could lead to a great deal of awkwardness and embarrassment.”
    Anthony Johnson smiled, showing beautiful teeth. He radiated health and vigour and a kind of modest virility to an extent that made Arthur uncomfortable. Besides, he didn’t want to look at bare brown chests at ten past nine in the morning, thank you very much.
    “A great deal of awkwardness,” he repeated.
    “Oh, I don’t think so. Let’s not meet trouble half-way. I don’t suppose I’ll get many letters, and the ones I do get will either be postmarked York or Bristol.”
    “Very well. I thought I should mention it and I have. Now you can’t blame me if there is a Mix Up.”
    “I shan’t blame you.”
    Arthur said no more. The man’s manner floored him. It was so casual, so calm, so poised. He could have coped with defensiveness or a proper apology. This cool acceptance—no, it wasn’t really cool, but warm and pleasant—of his reproach was like nothing he had ever come across. It was almost as if Anthony Johnson were the older, wiser man, who could afford to treat such small local difficulties with indulgence.
    Arthur was more than a little irritated by it. It would have served Anthony Johnson right if, when Arthur took the post in on the following Tuesday, he had torn open the letter from Bristolwithout a second thought. Of course he didn’t do so, although the postmark was so faint as to be almost illegible and there was no sender’s name on the flap. But this one, too, was addressed to A. Johnson Esq., 2/142 Trinity Road, London W15 6HD. The envelope was made of thick mauve-grey paper with a rough, expensive-looking surface.
    Arthur set it on the table on the extreme right-hand side, the position he had allotted to Anthony Johnson’s correspondence, and then he went into the front garden to tidy up the mess inside, on top of, and around the dustbin. The dustmen had now been on strike for two weeks. In the close, sunless air the rubbish smelt sour and fetid. When he went back into the house the mauve-grey envelope had gone.
    He didn’t speculate about its contents or the