'Very quiet,' she explained, 'keeps his door closed. Comes and goes late at night. Doesn't have a job, but always has money.' That didn't sound so bad. 'A nice man, though?' I asked.
'Oh yes,' she said, smiling with her big white false teeth, 'very nice.' And then one night there he was, rattling his key at the lock as I arrived, looking over his shoulder at me. I didn't introduce myself. We just nodded to each other and turned our backs. He closed his door and I closed mine. I didn't see him again for an age. Never heard his latch click, or any sound from his apartment. For a big man he had to be very light on his feet.
Then one hot Monday morning in June I had my bag snatched on the tube platform by this – child – no more than fourteen I swear, but strong and fast enough to break my shoulder strap and hightail it out of the station. The policeman I complained to at Tottenham Court Road took details indifferently, another statistic to be tallied. I cancelled my cards, bought a new wallet, then realised I was missing my spare keys. When I got home, Maria's husband Ari stopped me on the gloomy landing, where he was repairing a junction box. A tiny man, as soft and grey as a waterlogged potato, very gentle. Always giving advice, not all of it good. He told me I should change my locks just in case.
'More expense,' I complained. I was up to my limit for the month, with still a week to go, so the lock stayed as it was.
The good thing about London is you don't get brownouts. The bad thing is, I didn't know how to fix an English fuse. On the Thursday of that week I came home late to find the stairway in total darkness. I managed to grope my way up to the second floor, then heard someone on the landing above, and there was something about the sound that told me it wasn't right. I felt my heart beating faster and set my shopping bag down, listening. There was an angry shout, a scuffle of boots, the sound of someone being punched or slapped, and suddenly that someone was coming toward me at great speed, stamp stamp stamp, crashing past me and downwards, out of the door at the bottom of the stairwell.
'Are you all right?' asked a deep male voice, cultured, out of breath, and I said yes, and in the flare of a match I found myself being introduced to Mr Midas Blake.
He had long dirty-blonde hair to his shoulders, a stubbled chin scarred at the jawline, pale sensitive eyes. My God. Beautiful, but big and crazy-looking, at least a foot taller than me.
'You sure you're all right?'
'Yes,' I said again, puzzled now.
'Your shopping got knocked over.'
'Did it?' I couldn't see – too dark. How could he tell?
'I'll fix the lights. I'll bring up your purchases.'
And that was it. He showed me to my apartment and waited with another match while I dug around for my key. As soon as I was through the door he pulled it shut behind me. A few moments later I saw the hall lights go on and found my shopping stacked neatly on my doormat. No sign of my neighbour. I nearly crossed the landing and rang his bell, but decided to let it go. In cities it's hard to figure out where privacy begins.
The next morning, just after eight o'clock, there was a knock on my front door. Naturally I was looking as unattractive as I could possibly make myself, face cream, bendi-curlers and old sweatpants, and there he was, a big gold god, smelling of something fresh and citrus, standing awkwardly in faded shorts, a grey T-shirt and Nikes, unsure where to place his great hands.
He explained that someone had tried to burgle my apartment last night, and pointed out scratchmarks on the front door. He'd seen the guy off before he could do any real damage. This morning he had reported the matter to the police.
I offered my thanks, made coffee, told him more about myself than I intended. His size was daunting. The palest eyes stared out beneath a heavy brow, so that he appeared permanently angry. I explained about losing the keys, how the police would blame me for keeping my home address in my purse, how I couldn't afford to change the locks let alone install a proper security system.
'You have to do something,' he said. 'These front doors are as thin as cardboard. You could put a fist through them.' When he asked me to come and see the security set-up in his own apartment, I accepted his offer.
I found myself standing in a mirror image of my own rooms but the decor was radically different. The flat was filled with talismen and mystical paraphernalia, found-art, totems, prayer-wheels, trompe l'oeil wall paintings, mandalas and plants, greenery everywhere, thick green stems bursting from all the corners of the lounge, explosions of red petals, terracotta pots of every size. The kind of place a hippy would have if he was rich and had taste.
I was enchanted by Midas Blake, placed under the spell of a charismatic man. His speech was slow and earnest, his manner accidentally charming, as though he had no idea that he was attractive. He seemed aggressively prepared to protect his privacy. A simple question would crease his brow in fury, as if he would hit you for daring to pry. He was the first man I'd ever met who looked capable of killing. We spent over an hour together. He told me he was good with plants. He enjoyed 'helping people out'. He was Greek by birth, but had been raised in London. I left knowing little more than this.
I returned to my own apartment, to the tiny studio I'd built with its drawing board, racks of pens and – concession to modern technology – computer, and attempted to immerse myself in work. But with no freelance projects coming in I knew I would soon have to consider a full-time office job. The break came when Daniel Battsek, one of the few friends I'd made during my marriage, called me with a commission. He'd taken over a key position in the marketing department of Buena Vista in Kensington Village, and had some ideas for a movie poster he wished to explore. He was prepared to pay half up front, which would allow me to cover my overdue mortgage repayment. I was off and running.
Much about London puzzled and bothered me. Ari warned me that conmen targeted single women in the nearby flats, and that many of the victims were nurses working at the Middlesex Hospital. He said these men could sense when a woman had been hurt, and gave me a funny look, as though he figured I was especially vulnerable.
Maybe I was. I know I spent too many evenings in with the cable remote and a tub of Marks & Spencer's Chocolate Chunk, which is the ice cream for depressed women who need to move up from Haagen Dazs. The clouds held in the heat all week, and I kept every window in the apartment wide open, the British summer not lasting long enough to require the purchase of an air-conditioning unit. On Saturday night the weather broke, thunder rolled and great fat raindrops began to fall. I was running around shutting the windows when Midas Blake knocked.
'Why close the place up?' he asked, looking around. 'What's a little warm rain on the floor?'
And I thought, he's right. Why do I always act on the instincts my father bred in me? I leave the windows open, it gets a little wet…
He said, 'I've just opened a bottle of very cold Chablis. I shouldn't keep it all to myself.' His eyes stayed on mine as he spoke. I accepted his invitation and followed him across the landing. Shifted from my territory over to his. He poured the wine into glasses that released the faint glissando of evaporating frost. We drank, and he talked in a strange soft way that made me listen to the rhythm of his voice but not the words. When he went to the open window and leaned out to look at the sky, fat spots of rain stained his shirt. He turned and spoke so quietly that his words just appeared in my head. I remember little of what passed between us, but before we parted he said something odd, something about how we mustn't be scared of going out into the night because there were darker places in our hearts. It sounded familiar, a Robert Frost quote paraphrased. He smiled, and something about his expression chilled me. It was the only time I saw him look helpless, imprisoned by his own image. At the end of the evening – against my better judgement – I kissed him goodnight.