There is an old woman who lives across the street. She says she is 95 but seems to have been telling me that for the past ten years. She never sleeps because she seems to watch TV 24/7. She rarely goes out, which is quite understandable for someone who might be 105.

But once a week she gets a bus into town. It stops outside her apartment building and when she returns it waits ten minutes for her creaky bones get off. She pulls a red shopping trolley with big white spots and walks slowly along the pavement.

When she gets to her door, she rests on her walking stick and stares into a large plant pot that contains a palm tree. She does this for five minutes as though looking for somebody.

She rarely speaks, but this morning, as she followed the same ritual of plant pot gazing, she caught me leaving our apartment and summoned me with her walking stick.

“How are you, Mrs Hayward? How are you finding the secret of eternal life?”

She frowned. “That boy,” she said. “The latest. The one with the old car. He walks around without any clothes on… and with the lights on.”

“I’m sure he isn’t, Mrs Hayward.”

“Oh yes. I’ve noticed this is what foreigners do. Please tell him to put clothes on.”

I keep telling Charlie that when he struts around the apartment in his underwear then people will see him. He will tut. “Who wants to see inside?”

“It is because he is an artist,” I tell Mrs Hayward, “And when he paints, he likes to paint in his underwear.” This is true. “But I shall tell him that you like looking at him.”