Even at my dimmest and thickest I did know that what I was becoming conscious of, what I was on the edge of realising, was different in quality from what in fact went on around me: above my head, the lively, busy, warming family life of the Indians, who came, I believe, from Kenya; and different again from what I heard from the rooms inhabited by Professor White and his family — the wall of whose kitchen was also the wall of mine, through which, although it was a thick wall, we had news of each other.
Not realising, or allowing myself to take in, the full implications of the fact that something was going on behind the wall of my living-room was because beyond it was a corridor. To be precise about it, what I was hearing was impossible. The sounds that come from a corridor, even a much-used one, are limited. It is for getting from one place to another: people walk along corridors singly, in pairs, in groups, talking or not talking. This corridor led from the front hall of the building, past the door into my flat, then on to the White's front door, and so around to the flats on the east side of the ground floor of the building. Along that corridor went the Professor and the members of his family and their visitors, myself and my visitors, the two families from the east side and their visitors. So it was used a good deal. Often one had to be aware of feet and voices, distanced by the solidity of that wall, but I would say to myself: 'That must be the Professor, surely he is early today?' Or: 'That sounds like Janet back from school.'