It faced the street with its grey granite stone, and its old windows which in order to be cleaned had to be manoeuvred on ropes like glassy sails, and its greenish door on which passing boys and men had scrawled graffiti. There were six flats in the tenement, some in good condition, some in bad: stone stairs led from floor to floor. Outside at the back was a maze of old pipes winding like rusty snakes: these usually suffered from bursts in the winter time, and there were arguments among the tenants about payment to the plumber. The roof often needed repair, as water would come in on the tenants in the top flats. Four of the flats had been bought outright, two were rented. It was by no means the worst tenement in the street, for opposite it were worse ones, composed of cheap brick. In the latter, parties went on at weekends—there were rumours of prostitution—and on summer nights boys would sit on balconies shouting insults at the tourists or playing radios very loudly. Or they would emerge from the close on large black foreign bikes.
