Love Thy Neighbour II

The man upstairs was friendly. She didn't know him at all, of course. Not really. But she just got a good feeling about him. He'd introduced himself when she moved in. He was a man in his late thirties, quiet but polite. He let her know he was always there if she ever needed anything. He gave her his wi-fi password and refused her offers to pay him to use his internet connection. And that was it. He didn't impose, he didn't knock on her door or accost her when she wasn't in the mood. He was just a nice neighbour, reliably present, reliably quiet. Reliably in the periphery, as any good neighbour should be.

She settled in, and her life recommenced. She worked, relaxed, socialised, all in this new sphere of existence, this new central locus where she cooked and entertained and showered and read and quietly slept. The new apartment became her apartment, its newness overridden by new-found familiarity. Though it was never any less perfect. Everything seemed to go right. No-one put annoying flyers through her letterbox. Someone kept the hallway floor clean and often, when she'd left her bin bags outside her door, someone brought them down for her. The neighbours were truly nice people, it seemed. She had landed on her feet. Especially her upstairs neighbour, who continued to say hello to her on the stairs, and sometimes stopped to chat, but never stayed too long. Once he fixed a leaky tap for her. Another time he lent her a step ladder. But he never crossed that neighbourly barrier; their worlds, whilst parallel, never collided, never converged.

Sometimes she did wonder about him. She'd confided a fair amount about her life, here and there. What she did for a living. Where she'd grown up. It seemed as if it were always he who asked the questions. But what did he do? Where did he come from? Perhaps he just liked to keep to himself. Sometimes she caught his face at his window, when she came back to the apartment after work. Glazed over with the sky's white reflection. Not quite smiling.


(To be continued.)