As tenants go, Bill was one of the better ones. He paid his rent on time and kept the place reasonably well. I never knew how he earned his crust and he never volunteered it. It was something in the labouring line because, when he parked his bike out the back and shed his cycling gear, there was worn workman's overalls underneath.

He came to me long before computer databases, employer references and credit checks. I suspect his record would fail those criteria. There was a gap in his CV, so to speak but, as I live by the mantra of trusting my instincts, I accepted him on face value as a tenant.

He did not let me down, compared to, say, some of the high fliers with impeccable references. He never thrashed the place. I was never called out in the middle of the night because of a public order disturbance and the Drug Squad never took the sledgehammer to his (my) door.

He got on with his life and I with mine. It's a sensible policy not to become involved in tenants' lives but, as the years went by and many other tenants came and went, Bill was still with me. He remained the quietly spoken man from the country, lacking in many of the social skills that give people in the city the frisson of imagining they are having a good time.

Sometimes at residents meetings, I saw him looking wistfully at other single female tenants. They were in salaried jobs, characteristic of our age in their single-minded pursuit of career and life style.

Of a generation that took assertiveness training with their mother's milk, these women did not look wistfully at Bill. He was lost in a welter of awkwardness during the socialising that followed the meetings and where tenants could get to know each other, make friendships or find someone to do odd jobs.

Bill was a natural for odd-job man. He was helpful and co-operative to other tenants, did repair jobs, never took payment. With females he was courtly and did not intrude on their privacy - yet was grateful for the difference of female company and enjoyed being invited for a cup of coffee. He did not get many repeat invitations, not being the world's best conversationalist. By the standards of today's females, he was a non-runner in the romantic stakes.

Wiry in build and strong from his work, he always looked undernourished and pale and seemed forever dressed in the same grey jacket and brown trousers. He often stuck me as having been taken "off the tit early" in infancy, or maybe brought up in an orphanage.

About a year ago, a few eastern Europeans moved into the apartment across from Bill. They worked as chambermaids and cleaners, were picked up in the early morning by van and dropped back late in the evening. Their English was basic, their dress drab, their demeanour subservient. I gathered they came from a remote rural area of Romania, maybe like rural Ireland was 40 or more years ago.

That may account for the accord struck between them and Bill. He was soon making them cups of tea in the evening and watching TV with them, which would never have happened with the other female tenants of the block.

In time, too, I noticed the women had invested in smart clothes and - a first for them - had gotten the hang of applying lipstick and eyeliner with the flair of a twentysomething. One of them wears rouge on her cheeks - with her crow-black gypsy eyes and hair, it gives her a demonically sexy look.

Which is amusing, because she is not in the first flush of youth, but then neither is Bill.

Nowadays there is a spring in his step, he has dumped the grey jacket and brown trousers in favour of a smart leather jacket and khaki slacks.

I imagine they were given him by the lady with rouge on her cheeks. Maybe she bought them in a charity shop, where the immigrant women do most of their shopping.

Whatever it is, life has changed for Bill. I think, on his behalf, I will write to Mr Gorbachev and thank him for bringing down The Wall.