Guy Travers is by all others’ accounts a class A citizen. He moved into flat 6A, 32 Albany Street, about 4 months ago, and knocked on all our other front doors offering homemade shortbread that, I must admit, was really rather scrumptious. He introduced himself and was very pleasant conversation. We exchanged stories of our travels in the East and about our experiences of London when it was in its industrial heyday. He talked at great length about his charity work, taking donations for those who were injured from the workhouses. I recognised in him what I thought was a kindred spirit, another man in his 50s who wasn’t like the majority of our demographic on the account he wasn’t impossibly dull as one might expect. He was full of life, bright eyed and still with the sort of competitiveness a man in his youth would possess: the same sort of vivacity too.

I told Guy he could come round any time he liked, for tea or a meal or what have you, and he said he’d take me up on my offer with what I perceived as a genuine appreciation. I’ve tried inviting him since. Still nothing, the little tike. And, as a matter of fact, he notably did not extend an offer for me to come to his after I did, which I don’t take offence to particularly, it’s more he seemed the sort to have many a guest and be rather adept at entertaining them. And this hunch has seemed correct, as his many parties have played out in stomps above me. At first I didn’t mind the frivolity, it’s nice to know there’s still exuberance happening at my age somewhere but why must it be directly above my head as I try to sleep?

I’ve spotted him in corridors since our first meeting sporadically, and I must admit it is, again, fantastic talking to him. He has an effortless charm where you feel you’re the only person in the world when he’s talking to you. In each encounter I’ve reasserted he really must come round if he so wishes, and he makes the most impersonal excuses. He’s working that day, he’s away that week. It’s all very convenient.

After a while I could determine when his gaggle of seemingly endless acquaintances would be attending. Friday and Saturday nights were certain, and Sunday lunch seemed to be biweekly there, with on occasion a particular rowdy do on a Wednesday. But, as soon as I noticed the pattern the noises themselves seemed to change.

It was fairly safe to assume the footsteps would be like a wave. As people arrived it grew in noise and they morphed into a mass. Whereas at the start you could pick out individuals, by an hour into the night it was unintelligible, clearly all were moving around and walking freely from conversation to conversation, or perhaps from buffet to chat to buffet again. But then the gaps started.

They were so bizarre. Nearing the peak of the noise, it would sometimes drop away completely, not as if the wave died down naturally but as if it were never there. For about a minute, the footsteps froze, and with them it felt time itself dried up. There was an eerie dread that hung in the air, and then suddenly there wasn’t, as if the wind stopped and the waves dried up and as soon as they had gone a new one crashed in as unambiguously as any other before it.

But what caused the stoppages? I found myself asking the question every time, and my mind could not find any answer. Was it some sort of game? A militant game of human statues? Nothing seemed particularly likely. And what made it more bizarre was these gaps increased exponentially, not in frequency but duration. The first was around a minute, then far longer. And you see this is where the deteriorating of his social scene seemed to begin. First a minute. Then ten. Then an hour. Within a month, not one noise, not one footstep could be heard. Just doors opening, doors closing, glasses smashing. I can’t figure out why.