Update: Doloreta

I am sad to say that I learned my neighbour's name the other day. The husband signed for a package for her. It is apparently Kamila, which is a very nice name and I hope she does good things with it. I was not present when the package was signed for or collected, and I never saw the parcel or the person who collected it, so I am still none the wiser as to the shape of her face or demeanour.

I, however, am determined to keep referring to her as Doloreta, partly because I don't know how thick the walls are, really, and it makes it a lot less obvious that I'm talking about her if I use the assumed name, but mostly because I don't really want to think of her as someone with a real name or a real existence outside of my head. I know it isn't fair but as I still can't pick her face out of a line-up and still don't understand a word of what wafts through the open windows I want all of my thoughts with regard to her to remain a complete fiction. Maybe one day I'll develop a really comprehensive and exciting life for her and write it down in a book and make my millions. At the very least I want to keep Doloreta as my own, my pretend exciting neighbour who is even now carefully plotting the public humiliation of her vile ex-husband or covertly running a discrete brothel for the Polish Mafia.

Even the fact that Boy had to sign for a package for her is too much--now I know that she periodically leaves the house. I'll just edit that in the narrative to her napping and missing the doorbell, or having a stomach bug, or being too busy burying an apostate in the cellar to answer the door.