The Woman at Number Six

At nine the locksmith asked if there was another way in. The woman opened the door herself. She had moved the kitchen table into the hall to make room for us. Its four legs were wrapped in socks. Not those, she said, when I reached for a blue pair. Those are new. The bailiff asked how long she'd lived there. Thirty-one years, she said. He wrote thirty. She watched him do it. We began with the sitting room. Two armchairs, a television, a cabinet full of drinking glasses wrapped in pages of old newspapers. She had packed them herself, each glass inside another, the smallest in the largest, like Russian dolls, she explained, though none of us had asked. The sofa would not clear the landing. She told us to turn it on its back. We tried. It caught the banister. She came out, took the lighter end and showed us where to lift. The bailiff said she needn't help. I know, she answered. At eleven we stopped for lunch. The locksmith ate a sandwich on the bottom stair. She offered him a plate. He said the paper would do. There was a mark above the fireplace where something heavy had hung. I asked if she'd forgotten it. No, she said. That's where it was. The bailiff returned with a form. He wanted her signature beneath the list of things removed. She read it twice, took a pen from her handbag and changed three chairs to four. Where's the fourth? he asked. She pointed to the kitchen. A wooden chair stood beside the sink. One leg was shorter than the others; a folded newspaper held it level. That one's staying, she said. The bailiff explained that nothing could be left in the property. She listened with her arms folded, then lifted the chair herself and carried it to the van. By three the rooms were empty. She walked through them once, testing the windows, closing the cupboard doors, turning off the taps. The locksmith fitted a new cylinder while she waited on the stairs. He tried the key. It would not turn. He tried again, harder. She looked up from the landing. You have to lift the handle first, she said. It's always been like that. He lifted it. The lock turned cleanly. She went down the remaining stairs without asking for her keys.