Everybody loves good neighbours... :: 08:14 PM :: easyjetsetter

Hexagon I've mentioned before that the flat I live in is an annex of two flats knocked together, with my landlord therefore living behind two of my four walls, while the third has two pretty pretty windows and a door leading to the corridor and my mailbox, otherwise known as the doormat.

Filmmaker landlord has cleverly backed his side of the party wall with the old door in it with bookshelves, thereby making an interior dividing wall slightly soundproof. On the bottom shelf of his bookcases is our wireless router, so we routinely work about three meters away from each other. He has a computer I salivate over: the apple G4 powerbook... I have a computer I spit at, and I'm too embarrassed to tell you what it is. I only hear him at his desk when he sneezes though.

The fourth wall is my bathroom door and my kitchen altar. But guess what backs onto that? His downstairs loo. I am worryingly intimate with the digestive peculiarities of my landlord. This is one of the reasons I continue to vousvoyer him, and call him Monsieur rather than using his first name and tutoyer, as he does to me. I just want to pretend there is more distance between us than a cistern.

I really hate talking to him too. As well as saying 'no' to everything I need and hiding my mail, he, as a director, feels entitled to tell me what to do. When I first moved in, he insisted I should not bring bedding with me, as there was a very cheap shop nearby. Fair enough, nice of him to advise. But normal people stop once you say, no no, I would rather bring things. He says au contraire and proceeds to draw me maps for how to get to the place to do the thing he thinks I should do.

During the whole internet connection fiasco (another reason for not moving: it took three months to get broadband working and I am not giving it up that easily) he would routinely tell me "it's a problem with the software" which is exactly what people who know nothing about computers say every time there's a problem. Of course, in the end, it turned out to be a problem with the software, but I wasn't giving him the satisfaction of telling HIM that.

So I avoid him. On the first of each month, I slide my rent in an envelope into his locked mailbox, and if I need to communicate with him at any other time, this is also where I slide the notes, in careful French. He has very clicky shoes (I think he has steel tips - like tap dancers) so every time I leave the flat I listen very carefully for a minute to make sure he is not coming up the stairwell and we don't have to talk. Once I was waiting in line at La Poste and he came in to use the weighing and stamping machine, and I hid behind the only fat French woman, praying he wouldn't see me.

Today, I walked into my grocery store and he came wheeling round the corner. I froze on the spot while he told me what to do, ("Oh, the avocadoes are very good. You should put them in a salad. I recommend Batavia lettuce, but not from here, try this place around the corner. Turn left to get there, go 20 metres" and so on...) and then squeaked out "merci" before scuttling away to skulk in the tampon section where he would not dare approach. Before I went to pay for my tortellini, I peered around the corner of the aisle to make sure he had finished paying for his stuff and was out of the door.

It's not that he scares me, I just don't like him, but have to make him think I'm nice so I get my deposit back. If I don't like people I generally have a hard time hiding the flat look of hatred that comes into my eyes. My boss at the British Embassy in Washington would sometimes stop in the middle of telling me how to do something I had done a hundred times before and say "you hate me don't you?" because I am totally unable to control this look of disdain. And I would say "no no." I'm such a terrible liar.

Plus, filmmaker landlord has a child, who scares the crap out of me because he's a) a child and b) looks like Hayley Joel Osment in the Sixth Sense. He is also SILENT. Unless he's screaming (I assume with laughter at being tickled by his dad) through the ceiling.

I mean, my landlord says he's a film director, but the IMDB (the source of all my knowledge) only has two results for him, 12 years apart, but I just read a review of one of them and it seems the lead actress won a cesar (French Oscars) for it. Which is cool, because I had this really famous actress' audition tape, since filmmaker landlord left it in the VCR when I moved in and didn't ask for it back until recently.

So he must be richer than he dresses, although I bet the tap-dancing shoes must be quite expensive. Which means I want my entire deposit back when I move out or I will threaten to expose details of his bowel movements to the world wide web. You have been warned.