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It was when we were living near the southbound exit Maurice Echegaray had his company office on our staircase and there were three doors between his and ours If Mum met him on the stairs, he would tell her he was disturbed by the smell of cooking from the flats which got into his office through the ventilation ducts Mum used to reply that she wasn’t going to stop eating just so he could go on selling whatever it was he sold Every now and then he would give me these looks and every now and then I would stub out my cigarettes by his door There was a sign on it: Maurice Echegaray Trade Management The sign was made of gold-coloured plastic and smelt synthetic when you put your nose right up against it One time he pulled the door open just as I was doing exactly that He said, ‘You little bastard, you’re harassing me’ ‘Dream on,’ I said and he said, ‘Sorry,’ and I said the same thing over again, ‘Dream on’   He didn’t say anything more that time Just stood there watching me leave and his silhouette looked all narrow in the light from the stairwell window Whenever I met him afterwards – at the entrance or in the garage – he would keep a watchful eye on me, like I was vermin or just an insect, any kind at all   Apart from that there was not much happening on our staircase during those years A woman used to come and clean two days a week From time to time a pipe burst and there would be water on the floor Though if you said it to any of the old girls on the staircase, about nothing much happening here I mean, they would say things hadn’t stopped happening here for a very long time because all there ever used to be in our neighbourhood were sheep-pens, orange groves and an old china factory their old men worked in when they were young Then the cranes had come New facades, shiny facades, facades that reflected the sky