The Freaks Next Door

I had thought we – or, more specifically, I - had a rather charming relationship with our next-door neighbours. Almost two years passed before I even said a word to the man, woman and surly teenage boy on the other side of the thin walls, which is fairly desirable, I think. All I knew, as my bedroom in our terraced house is attached to theirs, is that the boy gets up pathetically early for a so-called adolescent on the weekend to listen to some kind of all-over-the-place drum-machine tracks, or at least that’s what comes through the wallpaper. When I was his age, I wouldn’t think of subjecting the neighbours to Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy until at least 3pm. I fire back by cranking ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ up to 11 and go back to sleep. He’s pounding out some such drivel now, I don’t know how his nerves can stand it. I’m on the verge of setting the big speakers up in the garden and retaliating with a booming broadcast of The Afternoon Play.

I was also aware that they posses a vast number of extra large t-shirts, which require frequent, tireless laundering and line-drying. None of the family appears to be extra large so I’m drawn to the conclusion that they sit around in there all day making tents with their knees, or possibly take in washing from a lackadaisically-styled football team.

A few months ago, she helpfully came around to tell me that my son had noticed I’d left my headlights on and proceed to compliment me on our porch. I then ran into her a few times in the street and issued cheerful salutations, patting myself robustly on the back for our almost Good Life-like relationship. “She’ll be over turning her nose up at my piglets and complaining about the Surbiton Light Operatic Society in weeks,” I thought.

In hindsight, I should really have paid more attention to the fact that when she came over - at 7pm - and on every subsequent sighting, she was sporting giant cartoon nightdress (the type usually spotted on self-consciously chunky teenage girls at sleepovers) over tracksuit bottoms, with trodden-down, bag lady shoes and mad hair. It his since been pointed out to me that these clothes are peppered with tiny holes, which could be the work of particularly industrious moths or a savage washing machine but are most likely hot rock burns, given the pungent herbal aromas drifting out the door, which I had also missed.

A few weeks into the relationship, slightly before I planned to head over to ask if she’d swap me a jar of my damson jam for a bottle of Black Tower and a smear of lipstick for mine and Tom’s wedding anniversary, I saw the family wandering out of the house as I walked past on my way out. She responded to my cheery wave with a big grin. Meanwhile her husband, or whatever he is, fixed me with a look of intense loathing and hissed: “Don’t you dare talk to me. I’m not your friend. I don’t even like you very much.”

Which took me back a bit, I have to say. Particularly as she was still grinning and waving. I’ve since crossed the road to avoid them - her walking several paces behind, staring the pavement - on several occasions. I scuttle past the house in terror at night as he stands glowering in the doorway, silhouetted by a satanic red light, exhaling fumes from a smoldering fag and hating me. The other morning he was screaming at her about how, after all the years they’ve lived there, she still doesn’t trust him enough to tell him where anything is. Perhaps that’s why he’s so angry. Maybe all he wants is a pair of socks and some toothpaste.

I’d quite like to know what I did to offend him, but can’t come up with a thing. Maybe it was the night I came home pissed at midnight and drunkenly downloaded quite a lot of rather lively acid techno from 1998. Maybe he’s just jealous of my trainers. Who can say. Either way, it just goes to show – make eye contact with people in London and you’re on a hiding to nothing. The days of bonding over the fence - you in a pair of oversized but impossibly cute dungarees and she in pearls and swirling crepe - are over. Everyone’s awful.