It was a very small room and very plain. I hated it. But Paris was expensive and it was all I could afford. When I’d moved in I’d had plans for redecorating. Nobody, I thought, could live in so hideous a room for long. High cold light came in from a high cold window. A large ornate wardrobe gave a semblance of style, but it had doors that refused to stay shut. The rest of the furniture was cheap and ugly – a narrow bed, a trestle table, a wooden chair, a cramped miniature cooker. Opposite the wardrobe, over the mantelpiece, was a small mirror. It was badly cracked, as if a former tenant, driven to despair, had savagely attacked it. The world it now reflected was jagged and prismatic and the face that looked back at me was disjointed and crazy. That object at least I felt belonged to me. The facilities of the room were as limited as the furnishings. There was no basin, no tap. All water had to be collected in a tall enamel jug from the communal sink on the landing. The management had, however, provided me with a portable bidet so difficult to conceal that I gave up any pretence of doing so, using it as a prop to keep the wardrobe doors closed.
