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time they would meet again, and be glad to. It was the best that could be done for the situation in which they found themselves. In a way it was the best he could do for both of them.

5
    By the time Herz reached Chiltern Street the sun had clouded over and the wind freshened, foreshadowing a dull evening. He put his key in the door and stood for a moment in the little hallway, experiencing as usual both relief and a sense of anticlimax. He was still not used to the silence that greeted him, although he had craved that silence at various points throughout a day which had proved exhausting. He moved slowly into the kitchen and filled the kettle, then, abandoning the notion of making tea, moved equally slowly into the sitting-room and settled himself gratefully into a chair. Adventures such as his lunch with Josie now proved disappointing, yet their conversation had agreeably filled the afternoon. Now there would be no more conversation. He looked around him as if seeing the flat for the first time, unusually aware of its constraints. It was too small, but being small was, he supposed, ideally suited to one who lived alone. On this cold May evening it took on the proportions of a cell, decreed by some invisible agency as appropriate to a lifestyle which could no longer accommodate company. He supposed that it was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and wondered why, at moments like these, at the end of the day, it was no longer gratifying. Its work was done: all that was left for him to do was to come to terms with its restricted amenities, and to reflect, as always at such times, that it was foolish to expect mere living conditions to supply a degree of contentment which only humans could furnish.
    And yet he loved the flat. Its coming into being he regarded as nothing short of miraculous. He remembered as if they had taken place yesterday the events that had brought it about. Once again it was Ostrovski who was the provider, as if he were the unlikely convenor of their destinies. One day he had paid a visit to the shop, looking as he always did simultaneously prosperous and ramshackle, his over-large coat slung over his shoulders, his hands playing with one of his numerous sets of keys. Even in winter he was deeply tanned. Herz had greeted him with his usual mixture of deference and resignation. Ostrovski was, in that unsuspecting moment, still his employer, and, if such duties could be ascribed to him, his patron.
    â€˜Make coffee, Julius. I need to talk to you.’
    He had done as he was told, preparing to hear the usual diatribe against the harshness of the economic climate, his impatience with the property market, with which he had mysterious dealings. It had been rumoured that Ostrovski owned several shops in various parts of London which he bought and sold as the fancy took him, always on the lookout for the end of a lease or a failing business, news of which would reach him in his perambulations or while drinking coffee with cronies in the cafés he frequented or in those odd clubs in which card games took on the function of a day’s work. Herz knew nothing concrete about him, supposed him still to be living in Hilltop Road, looking more mournful now that he was old, no longer the cocky entrepreneur keen to spot a gap in the market. He commanded considerable funds, that much was clear, and yet his income was insubstantial, as likely as not to vanish overnight. He seemed never to be in a hurry, yet his eyes were sharp, observant. At any moment it seemed as if he might disappear, move out of town, as if his misdemeanours had caught up with him. Yet Herz had never heard a whisper of complaint against him, no suggestion of illegality. He behaved like a minor financier, but with a hint of penurious origins. His dealings were as ever obscure. As far as anyone knew he operated alone, making the best of uncertain beginnings, which he had managed to supplement by native shrewdness. He was an unavoidable