Miss Winton might have left the shop then, for her purchasing was over, but the dark-haired young girl had leaned down and was patting the head of Miss Winton’s dog. She smiled while doing that. Mrs Neck said:
‘Miss Winton’s in the flats too.’
‘Ah, yes?’
‘This young lady,’ explained Mrs Neck to Miss Winton, ‘works for the Runcas in the penthouse we hear so much about.’
‘Today they are coming to photograph,’ said Bianca. ‘People from a magazine. And they will write down other things about it.’
‘Again?’ said Mrs Neck, shaking her head in wonderment. ‘What can I do for you?’
Bianca asked for coffee beans and a sliced loaf, still stroking the head of the dog.
Miss Winton smiled. ‘He has taken to you,’ she said to Bianca, speaking timidly because she felt shy of people, especially foreigners. ‘He’s very good company.’
‘Pretty little dog,’ said Bianca.
Miss Winton walked with Bianca back to the block of flats, and when they arrived in the large hallway Bianca said:
‘Miss Winton, would you like to see the penthouse with all its fresh flowers and fruits about the place? It is at its best in the morning sunlight as Mr Runca was remarking earlier. It is ready for the photographers.’
Miss Winton, touched that the Italian girl should display such thought-fulness towards an elderly spinster, said that it would be a pleasure to look at the penthouse flat but added that the Runcas might not care to have her walking about their property.
‘No, no,’ said Bianca, who had not been long in the Runcas’ employ. ‘Mrs Runca would love you to see it. And him too. “Show anyone you like,” they’ve said to me. Certainly.’ Bianca was not telling the truth, but time hung heavily on her hands in the empty penthouse and she knew she would enjoy showing Miss Winton the flowers that Mrs Runca had so tastefully arranged, and the curtains that had been imported specially from Thailand, and the rugs and the chairs and the pictures on the walls.
‘Well,’ began Miss Winton.
‘Yes,’ said Bianca and pressed Miss Winton and her dog into the lift.
But when the lift halted at the top and Bianca opened the gates Miss Winton experienced a small shock. ‘Mr Morgan is here too,’ said Bianca. ‘Mending the water.’
Miss Winton felt that she could not now refuse to enter the Runcas’ flat, since to do so would be to offend the friendly little Italian girl, yet she really did not wish to find herself face to face with Mr Morgan in somebody else’s flat. ‘Look here,’ she said, but Bianca and the dog were already ahead of her. ‘Come on, Miss Winton,’ said Bianca.
Miss Winton found herself in the Runcas’ small and fastidious hall, and then in the large room that had one side made of glass. She looked around her and noted all the low furniture and the pale Afghanistan carpet and the objects scattered economically about, and the flowers that Mrs Runca had arranged. ‘Have coffee,’ said Bianca, going quickly off to make some, and the little dog, noting her swift movement and registering it as a form of play, gave a single bark and darted about himself, in a small circle. ‘Shh,’ whispered Miss Winton. ‘Really,’ she protested, following Bianca to the kitchen, ‘don’t bother about coffee.’ ‘No, no,’ said Bianca, pretending not to understand, thinking that there was plenty of time for herself and Miss Winton to have coffee together, sitting in the kitchen, where Mrs Runca had commanded coffee was to be drunk. Miss Winton could hear a light hammering and guessed it was Mr Morgan at work on the water-pipes. She could imagine him coming out of the Runcas’ bathroom and stopping quite still as soon as he saw her. He would stand there in his brown overall, large and bulky, peering at her through his spectacles, chewing, probably, a piece of his moustache. His job was to attend to the needs of the tenants when the needs were not complicated, but whenever Miss Winton telephoned down to his basement and asked for his assistance he would sigh loudly into the telephone and say that he mightn’t manage to attend to the matter for a day or two. He would come, eventually, late at night but still in his brown overall, his eyes watering, his breath rich with alcohol. He would look at whatever the trouble was and make a swift diagnosis, advising that experts should be summoned the following morning. He didn’t much like her, Miss Winton thought; no doubt he considered her a poor creature, unmarried at sixty-four, thin and weak-looking, with little sign that her physical appearance had been attractive in girlhood.
‘It’s a lovely place,’ said Miss Winton to Bianca. ‘But I think perhaps we should go now. Please don’t bother with coffee; and thank you most awfully.’
‘No, no,’ said Bianca, and while she was saying it Mr Morgan entered the kitchen in his brown overall.
One day in 1952 Miss Winton had mislaid her bicycle. It had disappeared without trace from the passage in the basement where Mr Morgan had said she might keep it. ‘I have not seen it,’ he had said slowly and deliberately at that time. ‘I know of no cycle.’ Miss Winton had reminded him that the bicycle had always had a place in the passage, since he had said she might keep it there. But Mr Morgan, thirteen years younger then, had replied that he could recall none of that. ‘Stolen,’ he had said. ‘I dare say stolen. I should say the coke men carted it away. I cannot always be watching the place, y’know. I have me work, madam.’ She had asked him to inquire of the coke men if they had in error removed her bicycle; she had spoken politely and with a smile, but Mr Morgan had repeatedly shaken his head, pointing out that he could not go suggesting that the coke men had made off with a bicycle, saying that the coke men would have the law on him. ‘The wife has a cycle,’ Mr Morgan had said. ‘A Rudge. I could obtain it for you, madam. Fifty shillings?’ Miss Winton had smiled again and had walked away, having refused this offer and given thanks for it.
‘Was you wanting something, madam?’ asked Mr Morgan now, his lower lip pulling a strand of his moustache into his mouth. ‘This is the Runcas’ flat up here.’
Miss Winton tried to smile at him. She thought that whatever she said he would be sarcastic in a disguised way. He would hide his sarcasm beneath the words he chose, implying it only with the inflection of his voice. Miss Winton said:
‘Bianca kindly invited me to see the penthouse.’
‘It is a different type of place from yours and mine,’ replied Mr Morgan, looking about him. ‘I was attending to a tap in the bathroom. Working, Miss Winton.’
