Courtyards you can walk into

I notice the open doors most on days when I have nowhere particular to go. A dark rectangle between two shopfronts, a glimpse of paving, perhaps the end of a bicycle wheel. From the pavement, a courtyard can look like a room with its ceiling taken away. On Friday I passed one doorway twice before stopping beside it.

The door was standing open against the wall. Beyond it, a short passage led to a patch of afternoon light. I stepped through slowly, staying near the entrance. The street noise thinned behind me without disappearing: a tram was still a tram, but now it sounded as though it belonged to another part of the day. Somewhere above, a window clicked shut.

A chestnut tree occupied most of the courtyard. Its branches seemed too broad for the space, reaching almost to the windows on both sides. Yellow leaves had gathered beside a drain. A few chestnuts lay clear of their split shells, polished brown against the dull paving. I picked one up, turned it in my hand, then put it back where the tree had dropped it.

Two bicycles leaned beneath the branches. One had a basket with a single curled leaf caught in the wire; the other had a scarf tied around the saddle. Beside them were plant pots, a broom and a small wooden chair with no cushion. These were the details I wanted to remember. The grand street facade gave no hint of this loose arrangement of ordinary things behind it.

Then a cello began somewhere upstairs. At first I mistook the low note for a door moving on its hinges. The phrase stopped, began again, and stopped in almost the same place. I could not see the player. A curtain stirred in one window, but the sound seemed to come from another. I stayed for two repetitions, looking at a strip of blue paint exposed beneath the cream plaster.

Someone came through the passage carrying shopping, and I moved aside. We exchanged a small nod. It seemed a good moment to leave. An open entrance is still somebody's way home, and I had been there long enough. Back on the pavement, I tried to fix the courtyard in my memory: tree, bicycles, chair, the unfinished phrase. By the next corner, I was already unsure which window had been open.