The Narrow House – Part 1: Four Flights

"There are four flights," said Joost.

"There are five," said Sanne.

"Four. The fifth is a ladder."

"It's a staircase pretending to be a ladder."

They stood at the foot of the steepest staircase either of them had ever seen, in the hallway of a tall, thin canal house in Amsterdam, with their bags at their feet. The house was only three metres wide. It rose five storeys, with windows that looked out over a glittering canal lined with bicycles and lime trees. It smelled of beeswax and old wood and fresh coffee.

She was forty, a translator from Utrecht, in a long grey coat and a woollen scarf. He was forty-three, a secondary school teacher, broad-shouldered, in a bobble hat, with a vaguely guilty expression. They had been married fifteen years. This weekend had been his idea. The children were at her mother's. The kettle, he had been told by the owner, was on the third floor.

"The bed is at the top," said Joost.

"Of course it is."

"I'll carry the bags."

"You'll carry one bag."

They climbed. The stairs were so steep they went up almost on all fours. Sanne paused on the third landing, puffing and laughing, with her coat over her arm. The window looked over a gable and a roofscape of red tiles. A heron stood on a chimney pot.

"I'm too old for this," she said.

"You are exactly the right age."

"For what?"

"Absurdity."

They reached the top in a heap, gasping, and collapsed on the wide bed under the sloped ceiling, staring at the beams. The window was open. Rain had started: a soft, silver patter on the canal. The clang of a tram floated up from the street.

"We could stay here all weekend," said Sanne.

"We could."

"I don't think I could face the stairs."

"We'll order dinner."

"To a house with no lift?"

"I'll fetch it," said Joost. "As a gesture."

She laughed. He took her hand across the pillow, warm and a little rough.

"Can I ask you something?" said Sanne.

"Yes."

"When did we stop being silly?"

"Green?" he said, the old word, softly.

"Green," said Sanne. "Very green. Fetch the kettle."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Rainy Sunday.