“Kenneth Bayliss lived with his mother in Prince Street, which, in common with neighbouring Regent Street, Duke Street and Queen Street, quite failed to live up to the promise of their imperial monikers. In small ways, Kenneth did what he could to improve the look of things. His own room, for example, was spotlessly clean. He could draw comfort by sitting on the edge of his bed and taking in the view of his arrangement of his shaving soap, shaving brush and razor, laid out across the top of his chest of drawers. He had an idea there was a perfect distance to be maintained between the three items and couldn’t settle until they were so arranged. His wardrobe, though small, was well-ordered, his clothes hanging together in accordance with the differences in their colour, though admittedly, any differences between the blues, browns, greens and greys were slight. Kenneth kept a bar of Yardley’s soap in a box lined with tissue paper tucked beneath his tight rolls of socks. When he was quite sure his mother was asleep, he would remove the soap and place it alongside his shaving things, enjoying very much how it scented the air.”
