Round about that time, a young couple moved into a flat along the same landing. I don’t know what the guy did for a living, but the girl worked as a barmaid in the roughest, toughest pub in the whole of Edinburgh, which happened to be just along the road. She was small and pretty wi’ a mooth like a sewer. The pair of them kept a Doberman, a very aggressive Doberman, and constantly jammed open the back door of the tenement so they could let the dog go down the stair unaccompanied and out into the back green to do its business. They didn’t give a toss if the dog growled and roared at anyone it encountered on the stair on those occasions.
Living in the flat directly below these thugs was a quiet, polite Pakistani couple with a beautiful toddler who was still in a pushchair. Inevitably one day the lady was returning home with the toddler when the Doberman went for them. Terrified, she grabbed the baby and flew into her flat, leaving a bag of shopping on the landing. The dog disappeared into its flat up the stair. The bag of shopping disappeared shortly after, presumably by the same route.
The next day, the Pakistani man told us that the thugs above them seemed to have lifted a floorboard and were regularly pouring water into his kitchen. He knew it was them because he could hear them giggling each time the water came down. That was the last straw for Alison. She searched the Electoral Register, found the name of the thugs’ landlord, got hold of his contact details, pestered him with phone calls and finally threatened him with legal action. Three days later, the thugs and their Doberman were out on their arses.
But on the eve of their departure, the girl knocked on the door of Alison’s flat. When I opened it, she smiled sweetly and batted her eyelids. She must have misinterpreted the company nameplate, because she asked: “I wis just wonderin’, ken, if ye hud any flats tae rent. Local, like.”
With the straightest of faces, I replied instantly: “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve just let out my last available flat to a lovely Pakistani couple from along the road.” Then I closed the door on her.