The Keys to the Street by Ruth Rendell

Pharaoh would once have alarmed him very much. He would have been frightened, though not admitted it, would have pretended not to hear. And to have entered into a conversation with such a creature would have been unthinkable. He was such a creature himself now, or not far off.
    Turning into Crawford Street, he waited before crossing the road for the red and white food delivery van to pass. What would Express Tikka and Pizza say if he phoned from a call box and asked for a delivery of Chicken Masala to the third seat on the left going up theBroad Walk from Chester Road? A verbal equivalent, he supposed, of the look he got in the sandwich bar where he asked for cheese and pickle.
    They looked askance, but they served him. It was his accent, Roman knew, it made them think that maybe they were wrong, that this was no dosser but an eccentric, an absentminded professor who forgot to have baths. He would have lost his accent if he could, but his attempts to do so sounded like grotesque parodies. Tomorrow, he was reminded, he had better have an all-over wash, in a public convenience somewhere. Keeping clean, or avoiding utter filthiness, was one of the grimmer problems the outsider faced, and one that no insider ever took into account.
    Turning into Old Quebec Street, wondering where to settle down and eat his supper, he came under the windows of Talisman, the environmentalist publishers. He wore no watch but told the time by the state of the light and traffic and the movement of people, and he guessed it was seven. The staff, such as it was, would have gone home an hour ago. To the front door Talisman’s logo of a lyre-tree leaf was attached with its name and that of its editor-in-chief, Tom Outram. Once his name had been there too, but that, like so much in his old life, was water under the bridge, flowing into the sea of his memories.

4
    N o one but Alistair would phone so early. Urgency was always implicit in phone calls made before nine in the morning.
    Bean had called and collected Gushi. It was half past eight. Mary thought she knew who her caller must be and she hesitated before picking up the receiver. But there was always her grandmother to think of. Her grandmother was strong and healthy but very old.
    “How are you settling in?”
    He had never spoken to her like that before. It was the phrase of an elderly parent delivered in a tone that was solicitous but querulous, too, and aggrieved. She tried to sound brisk and cheerful.
    “Fine,” she said. “I’m all right. It’s nice here. I’ve been walking a lot.”
    As soon as she had said it she knew it was an unwise thing to say, for he immediately countered by telling her not to overdo things. She was not strong, she was a fragile creature. He managed, without putting this into words, to imply that by her irresponsible and thoughtless conduct she had put her health in jeopardy.
    “When am I to be allowed to come and see you?”
    “Alistair,” she said, “we’re having a separation, remember?”
    “A
trial
separation.”
    She tried again. “I have left you. We’re apart. We’ve discussed it, we decided. My coming here was to mark the beginning of our separation.”
    “Oh, come on,” he said, “that’s just a figure of speech. The mistakewas mine in giving any of that stuff credence. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, that’s the real reason, isn’t it?”
    Hers or his? There was no need to ask. He implied that being parted from him would increase her affection for him. Affection—that lukewarm word. Even of that she felt very little. If you were like her, receptive, anxious to please—euphemisms, she told herself, for passive and ingratiating—you found it hard to understand how anyone thought love could be won by bullying. He set about bullying her now.
    “You can’t escape me so easily, you know, Mary. I’m not the kind of man to wreck two people’s lives for a woman’s whim. Haven’t I proved in the past that I know what’s best for