The Senior Common Room at St Anselm's: XXV. The Neighbour

Mr Blottisham was looking out of the Senior Common Room window.

Professor Christopher Quillibrace noticed.

"Something interesting outside?"

"Not particularly."

"Then why are you looking?"

"I was thinking about neighbours."

"An unusual subject for someone staring at a window."

"Not really."

"No?"

"Neighbours are simply the people nearby."

"Are they?"

"Of course."

"How nearby?"

Blottisham considered.

"Next door."

"Always?"

"Across the street, perhaps."

"Perhaps."

"The people whose names appear on the mailbox beside ours."

"An administrative definition."

"But an accurate one."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Is it?"

Blottisham looked uncertain.

"What else would a neighbour be?"

Miss Elowen Stray closed her book.

"Perhaps someone who is recognised."

Blottisham turned.

"Recognised?"

"Yes."

"Surely proximity is enough."

"Is it?"

"Two houses stand beside each other."

"Yes."

"Therefore the people inside are neighbours."

"Are they?"

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"They share a boundary."

"Physically."

"They are close."

"Physically."

"What else is required?"

Miss Stray looked towards the window.

"Awareness."

Blottisham frowned.

"They are aware the other house exists."

"Are they?"

"Well..."

"Perhaps they know the building."

"Yes."

"But do they know the life?"

Blottisham was quiet.

Quillibrace nodded.

"Two houses can stand beside one another for years."

"Yes."

"Behind one wall, someone is cooking dinner."

"Yes."

"Someone is reading."

"Yes."

"Someone is watching television."

"Yes."

"Someone is trying to settle a baby at midnight."

Blottisham smiled.

"An experience familiar to many."

"And yet those lives may remain completely separate."

"The walls prevent contact."

"Or perhaps they merely make contact possible."

Blottisham looked surprised.

"Possible?"

"The possibility of neighbourliness exists."

"But it has not begun."

"Exactly."

Miss Stray smiled.

"The invisible machine requires activation."

Blottisham looked around.

"How does one activate it?"

"By noticing."

"That seems rather small."

"It often is."

Quillibrace nodded.

"A greeting over a fence."

"A conversation while waiting for a bus."

"Borrowing a cup of sugar."

"Checking whether someone is all right after a storm."

Blottisham considered this.

"Very ordinary actions."

"Yes."

"They do not change history."

"No."

"They do not appear in textbooks."

"No."

"And yet?"

"They change the nature of a place."

Blottisham looked outside.

"The street remains the same."

"Yes."

"The houses remain."

"Yes."

"The traffic continues."

"Yes."

"But something changes."

"Exactly."

"What?"

"The world becomes less anonymous."

Blottisham nodded slowly.

"So a neighbour is an opening."

"An opening?"

"Through which another person's life becomes visible."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Very well put."

Blottisham sat down.

"Although cities make this difficult."

"Why?"

"Because cities contain so many people."

"Yes."

"Millions may live within walking distance."

"Yes."

"And yet people can remain strangers."

"Indeed."

Miss Stray nodded.

"A crowd is not a community."

"A neighbourhood is not merely a collection of addresses."

"Something more is required."

"Recognition."

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked thoughtful.

"I suppose that explains why a city feels different when one knows people there."

"How so?"

"The buildings have not changed."

"No."

"The streets have not changed."

"No."

"But the city feels less like a machine."

"And more like a place."

"Because there are lives attached to it."

"Yes."

Blottisham smiled.

"Although neighbours are not always easy."

"No."

"They can be noisy."

"Yes."

"Unreasonable."

"Yes."

"Different."

"Yes."

"So neighbourliness does not remove conflict."

"No."

"It makes living with difference possible."

"Exactly."

Quillibrace leaned back.

"Like the bridge."

"The bridge?"

"It does not eliminate the river."

"It creates a way across."

Miss Stray nodded.

"Neighbourliness does not eliminate difference."

"It creates a way of sharing space."

Blottisham considered this.

"That makes the neighbour a rather unusual person."

"Why?"

"A friend is someone we choose."

"Yes."

"A guest is someone we invite."

"Yes."

"But a neighbour is someone we encounter."

"Exactly."

"That seems harder."

"It can be."

"Because we do not get to select them."

"Precisely."

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"Friendship begins with attraction."

"Yes."

"Neighbourliness begins with circumstance."

"And asks a different question."

"What question?"

"Can we recognise the humanity of people whose lives we did not choose?"

The room became quiet.

Blottisham looked back towards the window.

"That applies beyond streets and houses."

"Yes."

"The stranger who becomes familiar."

"Yes."

"The person we did not know yesterday but whose wellbeing matters today."

"Exactly."

Quillibrace nodded.

"That middle space is one of civilisation's great achievements."

"The space between stranger and friend."

"Yes."

"The place where people begin to matter before they become important to us personally."

Miss Stray smiled.

"That is where neighbourliness lives."

Blottisham stood and opened the Common Room door for someone passing outside.

The person thanked him and continued on.

He looked slightly surprised.

"That was a very small interaction."

"Yes."

"And yet it seemed oddly significant."

"Many important things are."

Quillibrace looked at him.

"Much of civilisation operates at this scale."

"Not through grand inventions?"

"Not only."

"But small gestures."

"Exactly."

"A person holding a door."

"A person returning something lost."

"A person checking on someone after difficulty."

"A person choosing kindness without expecting reward."

Blottisham nodded.

"These do not transform the world."

"No."

"They transform a small piece of it."

"Which is often where civilisation actually happens."

Blottisham smiled.

"I began by thinking a neighbour was simply someone who lived nearby."

"And now?"

"I think a neighbour is someone who makes nearby mean something."

Quillibrace nodded.

"A surprisingly good definition."

Miss Stray looked once more through the window.

"Perhaps every civilisation is tested in the same place."

"Where?"

"Not only in its greatest achievements."

"Then where?"

"In the small spaces where people meet."

She paused.

"Especially when they have no reason to expect anything from one another."