Nightmare Without My Dream Neighbour

In the bathroom cabinet there are seven vials of Aromatherapy Associates oil to cater for every bath time eventuality: DEEP RELAX, LIGHT RELAX, RESCUE EQUILIBRIUM, DE-STRESS MUSCLE, DE-STRESS MIND, REVIVE MORNING AND REVIVE EVENING . A period of self diagnosis is required before I take the plunge each day.

My bath is now medicine, an arena both for healing and self improvement from which I will emerge newly centred, rejigged, reborn. But I’m not so sure.

Hot water and steam and quiet are already soothing and indulgent. Do I run the risk of spoiling bathtime’s natural charm by enquiring of myself, each morning, each evening, like the weariest, overworked staff-nurse ‘So, what’s wrong with you today then?’

What’s wrong with me today is that the next door neighbour I adore is moving in a few day’s time. Somehow we’ve agreed to part and yet there’s been no falling out, no-one likes anyone any less. There have been no harsh words.

It’s the end of an 8 year era. Filling a kettle or unplugging a bottle of wine, I wont naturally reach for the telephone and summon her person from next door to discuss, say, Hilary’s chances at the presidency, how I wish someone would start a local cancan class, Lacan- for or against and whether princess Di, were she living today, would consider wearing Vintage. (We think not, although she might occasionally sport some completely remodelled post-war haute couture.) When my neighbour comes home from foreign travel she’ll no longer slip her host country’s Vogue through my letterbox to indicate her return. I wont be able to ring her bell and say, I’ve written this new character, an imaginary psychiatrist called Miss McGee, can you drop everything and take a quick look?

Of course there are things we can do to mitigate against the separation. I guess I’ll make 26 restaurant reservations for every other wednesday at 8 o’clock for the coming year. And she’s only moving 2.8 miles away, a brisk forty five minute walk. But it’s such a luxury having her on the other side of the wall. I had stern words with the agent who was selling the house. ‘My neighbour is a person of the highest calibre’, I remarked with some menace, ‘a marriage of fierce intelligence, high style and incredible warmth. Choose the next inhabitants with the utmost care.’

It is going to be, without doubt, a terrible wrench; our lives are so entwined: I made the address at her mother’s funeral; I made her three tiered fiftieth birthday cake. ‘You’ll always be my next door neighbour regardless of geography’ I say, but will it really be true?

Today I put together a little first night survivor’s kit. I’ve balanced it carefully: it’s 2 parts luxury, 2 parts necessity and 1 part contingency.

There’s a super sized bottle of champagne, a rather superior fruit cake -the fruit was soaked for hours is poire william eau de vie, there’s a large jar of French artisan soft set apricot jam, a bar of my favourite soap (Fresh’s violet), a box of plain household candles and some matches, a tube of tooth paste, some rubber gloves and some rubbish sacks. There are the little blue and white polka dotted pan scourers I bought in an Italian supermarket last year, the best tea and coffee and a small box of plasters. Then there are twelve highly fluffy, thick white towels in four different sizes. New house requires new towels. I thought of adding the lyrics to Noel Coward’s London Pride, but when read flat on the page like that, they will make anyone cry, especially now.

I handed over the packages,with everything wrapped and beribboned. I remarked to her excitedly that there’s a new cafe opening opposite in ten days time called Moulin Rouge and it’s going to serve- but the words died on my lips.

She simply wont be there to pop over for coffee with me. We were both silent for a moment. This is going to be even harder than I think.

Then she told me something extremely interesting. There’s quite a nice house for sale in her street, It needs a bit of work doing, but it’s a good size, the garden’s pretty , it’s not right next door but it’s only a few doors down.

I wonder....?