I thought about the towel. I thought about the money. I thought about whether it was worth going upstairs.
I went upstairs.
He answered the door in a t-shirt and the slightly unfocused look of someone not entirely awake, which I took into account. His expression when I explained the situation was exactly the right expression — genuinely startled, a little embarrassed, the specific quality of a person who has been caught doing something careless and is being decent about it.
“Oh, no. Was that me?”
“It’s been about six of them now. Usually mornings.”
“I’m so sorry — I just flick it over the rail when I’m half asleep, I don’t even think about it. I’ll stop, absolutely. I’m really sorry about your towel.”
He seemed sincere.
He seemed, specifically, like someone who had been doing a careless thing without thinking and had now been made aware of it and would stop, as careless people generally do when made aware.
I went back downstairs feeling, as I have felt occasionally when I’ve gone up to complain about something and been met with reasonableness, as though I had made rather too much of it.
The next morning at seven the tea bag came over the rail.
