Eleven paid years keep the account current, without describing every visit made under it. The airing schedule has changed from monthly to quarterly. An expected date from the second year remains in the file, and the keeper says she always renews the spring strips. These records do not establish that the room has been empty of working life, or give the exact year of the owner's visit.
Two instructions meet at a window. The surveyor requires it to remain shut pending inspection; care liaison Meral says the room still needs airing. The keeper pushes it wider. Meral asks that the call stay off the form, but the keeper says she has entered it. Meral is the person on the phone, not an established name for the keeper.
While they fold a sheet together, the keeper describes sleeping in her kitchen. He offers the bed and imagines afternoons in this room beyond his knowledge. She undoes a shoe. His request to leave things as they were almost reverses the offer, until he says, Not now. The shoe remains on the floor. He takes the coat and pauses on the stairs until the bed settles.