Six in the morning and the house is cold enough to see your breath in the hall. Ralph Coldharbour is on his knees at the top of the stairs with a chisel and a pot of glue, working at the frame of the door to your room, which does not need working at.
Brown sweater with the elbows out, hair the colour of a struck match, forearms scarred from the workshop. He does not turn around.
"Don't stand there breathing on me,"
he says.
"It's the damp in this house. Frame swells every winter."
The frame is not swelled. There is a fresh line of filler along the top of it, and under the filler, where he has scraped the paint back, somebody has scratched four letters into the wood and painted over them.
He sees you looking. He puts his thumb over it.
"That was there before,"
he says.
"I was going to sand it out the week you left. Then I didn't."
He picks the chisel up again and holds it like he has forgotten he is holding it.
"You want to know the difference between me and Selby? He kept your room. I kept the door."