A young lawyer and his mother lived in Lower West. They were big, heavy-footed people. Every night between twelve and two the lawyer son came home to the flat. First he slammed the gate, then took the steps at a noisy run, opened and shut the heavy front door with such a bang that the noise reverberated through the whole still house.
Every soul in it was startled from his sleep. People complained. I went to the young man’s mother and asked that she beg the young man to come in quietly. She replied, “My son is my son! We pay rent! Good-day.”
He kept on banging the house awake at two A.M.
One morning at three A.M. my telephone rang furiously. In alarm I jumped from my bed and ran to it. A great yawn was on the other end of the wire. When the yawn was spent, the voice of the lawyer’s mother drawled “My son informs me your housedog is snoring; kindly wake the dog, it disturbs my son.”
The dog slept on the storey above in a basket, his nose snuggled in a heavy fur rug. I cannot think that the noise could have been very disturbing to anyone on the floor below.
The next morning I went down and had words with the woman regarding her selfish, noisy son as against my dog’s snore.
Petty unreasonableness nagged calm more than all the hard work of the house. I wanted to loose the Bobtails, follow them–run, and run, and run into forever–beyond sound of every tenant in the world–tenants tore me to Shreds.
Zig-Zag . . . Ki-Hi
SIMULTANEOUSLY, two young couples occupied, one Lower East, one Lower West. The couples were friends. One pair consisted of a selfish wife and an unselfish husband. The other suite housed a selfish husband and an unselfish wife.
Zig-zag, zig-zag. There was always pulling and pushing, selfishness against unselfishness.
I used to think, “What a pity the two selfish ones had not married, and the two unselfish.” Then I saw that if this had been the case nobody would have got anywhere. The unselfish would have collided, rushing to do for each other. The selfish would have glowered from opposite ends of their flat, refusing to budge….
Best as it was, otherwise there would have been pain–stagnation.
The unselfish wife was a chirping, cheerful creature. I loved to hear her call “Ki-hi, Ki-hi! Taste my jam tarts.” And over the rail of my balcony would climb a handful of little pies, jam with criss-cross crust over the top! Or I would cry over the balcony rail, “Ki-hi, Ki-hi! Try a cake of my newest batch of home-made soap.”
We were real neighbours, always Ki-hi-ing, little exchanges that sweetened the sour of landladying. This girl-wife had more love than the heart of her stupid husband could accommodate. The overflow she gave to me and to my Bobtails. She did want a baby so, but did not have one. The selfish wife shook with anxiety that a child might be born to her.
Zig-zag, zig-zag. Clocks do not say “tick, tick, tick,” eternally–they say “tick, tock, tick, tock.” We, looking at the clock’s face, only learn the time. Most of us know nothing of a clock’s internal mechanism, do not know why it says “tick, tock,” instead of “tick, tick, tick.”
Lady Loo, my favourite Bobtail mother, was heavy in whelp. Slowly the dog padded after my every footstep. I had prepared her a comfortable box in which to cradle her young. She was satisfied with the box, but restless. She wanted to be within sight of me, or where she heard the sound of my voice. It gave the dog comfort.
Always at noon on Sundays I dined with my sisters in our old home round the corner. I shut Lady Loo in her pen in the basement; I would hurry back. When I re-entered the basement, “Ki-hi!”–a head popped in the window of Loo’s pen. On the pavement outside sat little “Ki-hi.”
“Loo whimpered a little, was lonely when she heard you go. I brought my camp stool and book to keep her company. Ki-hi, Lady Loo! Good luck!” She was away! I think that little kindness to my mother Bobtail touched me deeper than anything any tenant ever did for me.
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