Neighbours

I left this bowl of Sunday strawberries outside our neighbour's door to say thank you. We share a landing, and we share a roof, and I know from experience that someone padding about on bare feet on the roof sounds like an invasion in the rooms below. So I let him know about the farming activities early in the year and asked him to tell us if they were too noisy. He said no problem. He's a nice, quiet neighbour. We've had some real doozies. Gillian from New Jersey whose dad paid her rent and a voice like a high-pitched saw meeting ground glass. The couple who slammed every door they had and did their laundry at 3am. And she yelped. High sudden yelps that made you jump out of your skin. The girl who talked and talked and talked and showed me all her tattoos. All of them. Everywhere. She rescued feral cats. The student who worked all day and studied law all night whose wife wailed,  I didn't sign up for this, you said you were going to help me dye my hair tonight! He said, in a voice breaking, I'm doing this for you. She cried a lot. Her hair was blond.

But our current neighbour is wonderful. We don't even know he is there. I'm not sure he can say the same of us. We are perfect, of course. But our cat sings.