Midnight madness…
The Landlady
When I noticed that my two Tunisian ladies were not speaking to each other, I asked the veiled one – who I liked very much – what had gone on. She looked fairly embarrassed and explained that, on one of the nights I had been in London, her roommate had spent most of the night in The Italian’s room with The Italian and some random guy from Saudi. Furthermore, at certain points until the small hours, all three of them had come up to the veiled lady’s room, which meant that she was having to continually ensure that her head was covered in front of the men, which must be a bit of a pain if you’re trying to sleep.
She said that when she had confronted her roommate about the midnight manoeuvres the following day, she had turned on her and, I quote: “screamed bad Arabic words that I have never heard said to me in my life before.“ Personally, I know about four Arabic words and all, bar one, are very, very bad. So I’d assume that these were the words which had been screamed – although I didn’t dare suggest that I might know what she was talking about. Still, I felt very sorry for her as I thought she was a nice lady and the other one had thus far proved herself to be a vile witch, so I insisted that she move forthwith into the Small Daughter’s room.
She was very grateful, especially as her roommate was then very curious as to why she had moved and, indeed, where she had moved to. I told the nice lady that she should tell her ex-roommate that she had moved in with The Italian. Fortunately, she saw the funny side of my slightly tasteless joke. The upside of it all is that I now have the email address of the nice lady and an open invitation to visit Tunisia any time I like, although given recent North African debacles, I may wait a while before I attempt any such foray.
“I got the feeling that he was curiously familiar with the geography of Landlady Towers”
Besides, I’m off for a few days in Istanbul with some friends in a couple of weeks time. This will be my last holiday for the foreseeable, as my summer student season is about to kick in with a vengeance. Curiously, I now have The Random Saudi Guy lodging with me. He was sent to me by a language school and, as I was showing him round, I got the feeling that he was curiously familiar with the geography of Landlady Towers. It was only after he’d moved in that I realised that he must have been the one who’d been up and down the stairs all night when I’d been in London. The cheek! Still, I like him, even in spite of being doggedly determined not to, as he has a very pleasant manner and smells delightful. He also pursues me relentlessly with the weekly rent, which warms my frosty heart towards him even more. This is because I’m used to trying to prise rent out of the clam-like clutches of The Italian, who, I’m sure used to hide for three days after the rent was due, which I found very wearisome. It is me however, who’s had the last laugh, as The Italian wants to come back to Landlady Towers and I’m about to send him an email to tell him I’m fully booked for the rest of his life. Serves him right.
