Dear Charles

I hope you are well.

I'm writing this letter to ensure we maintain the social distancing that you requested. Unfortunately due to the said 'social distancing', or as you put it, 'keep out my way forever' - which is a very long time, I can't tell you in words, again, how sorry I am.

I did try to tell you the unfortunate circumstances which led to accidentally leaving the plant outside your flat, however you did not let me finish (bit rude) - my plan was always to remove the plant back to my side of our hallway once I'd come to terms with my old man thinking it was appropriate to gift his daughter an illegal item, however, unfortunately a bottle of vodka grabbed my attention and I forgot. I will never forgive the vodka, like I'm sure, you will never forgive me. I also think I will never forgive my Dad, thankfully I am nothing like him.

To try and make some kind of amends I've had a wee word with the local social work office, and explained the unfortunate mishap (whilst also trying to keep myself from going to prison) and they have assured me that all is well. My mate Sandra, has said that Tricia 'The Flirter' Robertson has not put anything in her formal reports about incorrectly placed plants, and her Team Leader has had a word with 'The Flirter' about diarying too many appointments with 'the fit bloke' currently getting access granted for joint custody. I'm sure, whoever 'fit bloke' is, (because I ain't got a clue), will be happy.

Anyway, a cousin of the cousin of the cousin of the bottle of vodka I'd fallen out with and vowed never to see again, has popped round, and I better go and pay it some attention. Stay Safe.

Polls.

Ps. That is my name. Shortened from Polly. Nearly everyone calls me that even though you're probably thinking I'm impersonating a voting system.

Pps. Sorry to hear about you and your wife, it's a bit shit.

Ppps. Not wanting to do tit for tat or anything, but when we're in a competition for who is the most annoying neighbour - you're pretty high up there yourself for being a tell tail of epic proportions!

'Polls'

I am already regretting my decision to respond to your letter, however, I felt the need to reply to various points:

Keeping out of my way forever - also applies to any form of communication.

It is not just the transgression around the 'illegal plant' that informed my request to cease pleasantries with each other, need I mention late night parties, strange behaviour and, you are without a doubt - the rude one.

Regarding your ''old man' - the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Vodka bottles do not have 'relatives.'

Please do not speak to Sandra or 'The Flirter' on my behalf…..ever

Tell Tail - what age are you?

Charles.

Dearest Charles

One final point in relation to point 3, and then I shall never write to you, or speak to you again:

The apple may not fall far from the tree, but it can travel a fair old distance thanks to the logistical prowess of modern transport. - Old East Ham Proverb. I repeat again, I will never be like my Dad.

One final final point to point 5 - I have, as stated in my first correspondence, already done so. You'll be pleased to know that when Sandra discussed her concerns that being in the army you might not be around enough, I assured her you were always here. I don't think she picked up on my sarcasm.

And point 4…. what would you call a vodka bottle from the same production line - surely they must be related? BotBro's?

Ps…. did you know that …. Are ellipses….?

Pps… oh and I'm 28, but don't get your hopes up I've sworn off men for life.

Ppps…. But I'm not a lesbian. Not that there is anything wrong with being a lesbian, it's just every bloke I've ever dated has been a bit, well, disappointing.

"So are you going to get some weed from it?" Sadie asks whilst staring suspiciously at my home baked brownie before taking a tentative bite. On the day I first met her I could never have imagined the word 'weed' coming out of her mouth, mind you I'd never have thought she would be the kind of OAP who would also tell me about affairs with SS officers, and how she'd lost her virginity to the gardener in the boat house on the family estate when she was 15 - so why I'm still surprised with what she says I'm really not sure.

"No I'm not." I say prudishly, placing the ivory scrabble tiles down to spell out the only word I can come up with - boner.

"I'm not sure urban dictionary words are allowed."

"What?" In front of us is a nearly full board of mainly german words I'm taking in good faith are included in a german dictionary. "And can I say, not all words are rude, there can be perfectly innocent meanings too, like boner doesn't just mean… well…. You know... but also means a mistake."

"Does it?"

"Yes."

"I'll need to look it up."

I wave my hand over the board. "Yeah 'n' I'll need to look up all your words too."

"This is a game of trust Polly."

"Good, 'cause I'm using up a lot of trust with you 'n' your german words."

The game is currently at a critical stage. Sadie is only 75 points ahead of me and if I can get a world record scoring word I can win. Yes, I know chances are sodding slim but as all Dawes say - you have to have hope - it's like a family motto.

"Triple word… and double letter score…. For Hase… German for vibrator." Sadie smirks at my look of abject failure - there's no way I can pull this back. "Anyway, I think you should try some 'weed', you're very wound up these days, you need to live a little."

My dramatic sigh is loud. I'd love to 'live a little' but when you're entrapped in a flat, can't see your family, your every move is watched and your neighbour won't speak to you, then you downgrade your expectations of life to merely 'surviving each day'. "I've kinda' got attached to the plant. I've called her Mabel." I say despondently, breaking off a bit of chewy brownie and slowly eating it, though i'm a bit over brownie's. Tomorrow I'm going to try and bake something else, maybe even meringue's because I think Sadie would like them. In fact I know she'd like them because when I opened up the tupperware tub she had immediately commented 'oh that's a shame, brownie's again, not meringue's, what a pity.'

Sadie leans over to take more letters from the green velvet bag. "That's good she's a female. You need a female to get the flowers. You should youtube it. Maybe once you've got some weed you could take some over to your neighbour, he sounds like he's a bit uptight too these days, you could even bake him some happy brownies."

My laugh is suitably incredulous. "He went factor 50 with a plant sitting outside his door, I don't think he'd take very kindly to me rocking up with some proper stuff. That man has no sense of fun, or humour, or decency. He's a bloody rupert."

"They used to call them ruperts in my day too, mind you I think that was because most of them were actually called Rupert." Sadie takes a small sip from her sherry glass. "You seem to know a lot about the Army considering you've never been in it."

"I was in the Air Cadets when I was at school." The lie trips off my tongue easily.

"Except you said you never went to school." Sadie stares. There's an uncomfortable few minutes of silence. I keep my head down, studying my letters only looking up when I hear a sad sigh. Sadie is shaking her head. "I'm sorry Polly. There's obviously situations in your life you can't tell me about, I should be leaving it all well alone. Let's just say you intrigue me."

"No one's ever said that to me before." I grin.

"Really?" Sadie pushes herself off her seat and using the furniture balances herself over to the small occasional table where she picks up the bottle of Sherry and makes her way back. Topping up our small glasses before repeating the journey. I let her. The first time I played scrabble with Sadie the bottle stayed on the table and by the end of the game we were rat arsed - a sherry hangover is something I never want to experience again. "I think you have that lovely blend of cheekiness with a beautiful heart - you'd do anything for anyone wouldn't you?" She asks.

I give it a moment's thought, putting down my next word which gets me the whole sum of 8 and beadily making sure Sadie writes it down on the score sheet. "Well not for my neighbour. Wouldn't do anythin' for him."

"Would you not?"

"I'm not even allowed to speak to him." I complain, remembering earlier when I was leaving the flat to come down to Sadie's and he was getting out of the lift. To amuse Sadie I do my best impression of Charles - it consists of rolling my tongue around my mouth and staring down my nose. "Made this stupid facial expression when he saw me 'n' then practically bolted for his door." Reaching over I take the letter bag, trying to read the letters as I choose them. "I'm gonna' stop writing to him."

"You've been writing to him!"

"Well he made loads of presumptions 'bout me, 'n' I needed to set him right on a few of them." My tone is righteous.

"Like what. That underneath that awful blonde hair there's a gorgeous brunette waiting to get out?" Sadie says breathlessly

Sadie can, in the nicest of ways, be a pain sometimes. My Nan says it's when you get to a certain age you're allowed to be rude and it's rude to pull them up for it, at the time I'd tried to argue back but in the end my head hurt with all her reasoning for it because she wasn't making any sense. "What's wrong with my hair. I suit blonde." I say, leaning forward to try and read the word Sadie is currently spelling out.

"Feuer. German for fire. You're still very pretty but you'd be a better brunette. It would be classier. Can you give me 5 letters please, and if you could cheat whilst taking them like you did for yourself that would be marvellous. I need some more vowels."

I hold each letter up for Sadie and depending on her nod or shake of the head I put them back in the bag or push them across the table. "I can't change my hair colour anyway, stupidly did this from a bottle and now can't afford to get it sorted." Or I'm not allowed to visit hairdressers more like, though possibly I should have said I had a fear of hairdressers but there's a chance I'm pushing my luck with using that as an excuse for why I can't do stuff - is there even a word for someone who has a phobia of scissors? I make a mental note to remember to find out later.

"So what did you say to him?" Sadie asks again. I'm telling you there is nothing wrong with her memory.

"I just said that I was sorry 'bout the plant, 'n' I'd tried to sort it with my mate in the social work office 'n' he was a bit rude too."

"And did he write back?"

"Yeah, though he said he wasn't writing to me again." I roll my eyes.

"So that was it?"

"Yeah, but obviously, goin' by the way he crapped himself when he saw me tonight, he ain't forgiven me."

"There's chemistry there, I'm sure of it. I might just invite him to a scrabble game."

"No you don't."

"I do. Now cup of tea before you head back?" She asks, and I wait until until she gets up to put the kettle on, taking my notebook out of my pocket and writing down :

Google all words in the world and memorise - so not to look thick playing scrabble with neighbour - and learn them in latin and german too, and French, and maybe even Spanish.

Google - word for phobia of scissors!

"What you writing?" Sadie appears unexpectedly behind my back, and I try to angle my book away.

"Nothing."

There's an uncomfortable sort of silence, otherwise described as Sadie softly chuckling to herself as she puts my cup of tea down and shuffles back to her seat.

"The best way to impress someone is to be yourself." She says making herself comfortable. "It's not what's up there Molly." Sadie points to her head, before placing her hand on her chest. "It's what is in here, never forget that."

Easy to say that when you're not in witness protection. "Same time next week Sadie?" I ask to change the subject. "And definitely just you 'n' I." I ask, at the scarily cheekily glint that is sparkling from her eyes.

I'm singing to myself as I head to my flat when Charles' door suddenly opens and with the lack of surprise on his face I'm standing there with a key in my hand about to open my front door, I have a sneaky suspicion he's been watching for me coming back, obviously two can play at the peephole game - I'll need to remember that for future.

"Am I allowed to say hello?" I ask.

Charles stares at his bare feet and I allow myself to stare at them too for a minute. I don't have a 'kink' for feet but I've seen far too many of them in my career attending to blisters and his are pretty nice though he does have an old blister that could do with some attention.

"Hello." He says in a tone that if he used all the time I would seriously fancy him.

"You should put somethin' on that blister." To cover my blush I keep my head angled in the direction of his feet. "Looks like it's headin' to getting infected."

"What would you suggest?" He asks looking down too.

Dropping down I investigate more closely, arm on my knee to balance myself, wondering why hair on mens feet isn't disgusting as it should be. "Medihoney - it's all the rage just now, honest to god put it on 'n' in an hour it's healing 'n' you could be-"

"I have a favour to ask." He interrupts abruptly, which is just as well as goodness knows where I was heading with that conversation.

"You can get it on amazon I'm sure."

"No. Not that." Charles laughs and then pauses. Patiently I wait, intrigued by the conflicting emotions on his face. "My son is coming over tomorrow. With my ex-wife. I wondered if you could maybe not create any drama… I'd really appreciate it. In fact I'd forget all about the plant-"

"Mabel."

"Mabel?" He questions with suitable surprise.

"I've called her Mabel. We're bonding. She likes my singin', no one else likes my singin' 'n' she doesn't shout at me or order me about or speak down to me or-"

"Er, right well, if you could beha… or if there weren't any incidents I'd really appreciate it. If there's any excuse for Rebecca to withhold rights then believe me she would."

Sympathetically I scrunch up my nose. "That's crap. Did you cheat on her?"

"No. We merely grew apart." He looks disgusted, closely followed by an awareness he's confiding too much. A blush of red makes his way up his perfectly defined cheekbones. It's cute.

"Control freak then. The only way she can now have any influence over you is your son?"

"No." Charles shakes his head and stares at a part of my front door just above my head. "I'm beginning to see why your only friend is a plant."

"And I'm beginning to see why Rebecca left you."

Charles sooks in air; Painfully. "Honest to god…" He mutters.

I giggle and while I'm ahead open my front door before turning and looking up at him and giving him a smile. "Don't worry Sir. I'll be on my best behaviour tomorrow."

As my neck hurts, I wonder what it's like if he ever deigns to attempt to come down to the same level. Elvis sometimes drops his chin to make the height difference less and he's slighter shorter than Charles.

"Why do you call me Sir?" Charles has the furrow back between his brows, but this time, for once he doesn't look angry - more interested.

My pause is only for an impressive one beat. "Air Cadets, when I was in school. Someone spoke to me in the tone and the demeaning way you do, chances where I'd be referring to them as Sir. Sir."

And with that I let the door close on him. Leaning against the frame and contemplating two things 1- Maybe I should admit that lying is becoming easier as the months go on and 2 - I enjoy the interactions with my neighbour far far far too much.