The Big Read: There goes the neighbourhood

Someone new moved into our street and I'm determined to do the right thing.

I've never known my neighbours. I once lived four years in an apartment block in Hyde Park without laying eyes on the folk either side of me. The only time we ever spoke was during a blackout when I fumbled next door by the light of my cellphone to borrow a candle, and even then the entire transaction happened in anonymous Eskom darkness.

Temperamentally, this suits me. I've always had the WASPy approach to neighbourliness: if I'm in the car driving past I'm lavish with a cheery wave, but otherwise I peer through a chink in the curtains to make sure the street's clear before leaving the house. It may take a village to raise a child, but I don't have a child so who needs the village?

I'm not proud of this quality. In this fractured modern world we should draw comfort from the people around us. A life needs other lives in it. What if I need to borrow a cup of sugar or I lock myself out of my house (again)? What if there's a brushfire or we're invaded by giant creatures from a trans-dimensional deep-sea rent and must stand should-to-shoulder to defend our homes? It will be too late for introductions when the Kaiju are at the door. I believe in community and the reciprocal net and the social contract; it's just the small talk I prefer to avoid.

The two guys in the house with the Greek statues did try to organise a Christmas street party last year (finger-foods; no music), which sounded awful but I resolved to make an effort. They even bought strings of fairylights for everyone to hang on their porches and jolly things up, but then Nelson Mandela died so they postponed the party and then they broke up and moved out, so we're as vulnerable to brushfires as ever.

When I saw the moving trucks arrive, I pledged to go across that very evening and welcome her to the neighbourhood. I didn't want to do what I did when the people across the road moved in, which was wait just too long before going around, with the result that I passed them on the sidewalk and we nodded hello, and then the template for our interactions had been set so now I can never speak to them at all, just nod and wave and pretend to be on my cellphone. It's a shame because they seem to be nice people and they have The Times delivered each day. (If you're reading this, people upstairs at No 2, I'm in No 5 and I'm sorry that it's too late and we can never speak. Also, sometimes at night if I stand on tiptoes on my balcony and crane my neck, I can see into your bathroom.)

I told the good lady with whom I share my house about my intentions.

"Do you think I should take a bottle of wine? Or would that seem weird? She might think I'm the neighbourhood sleazy guy, trying my luck."

"Traditionally people take a casserole, so she doesn't have to cook on her first night."

"Would you eat a casserole that some stranger brought round? I wouldn't. Where would I get a casserole?"

"You make one."

"I don't know how to make a casserole."

"Don't look at me, buddy."

I was tempted to give up - I'm always tempted to give up - but I can't, because my new neighbour's black. A single black woman moving into a Sea Point neighbourhood - I'll be damned if I'll contribute to more stories about how cold, white and unwelcoming Cape Town is.

"But if she was white you probably wouldn't make the effort."

"I'd want to."

"But you probably wouldn't, because you never have before. Isn't this like that 'white smile' thing again?"

"But I'm trying to change. Isn't that a good thing? Or can I only try change with white people? How can that be right?"

"For god's sake, whatever happens, just don't write about it."

So last night I went over to my new neighbour carrying a takeaway pizza. Who doesn't want pizza on their first night?

But as I arrived at the gate, the Seychelloise couple from No 7 were already there. I don't know what they'd brought, but I'm not eliminating the possibility of a casserole. What could I do? You can't barge in on another couple's welcome committee with a pizza. It would have been doubly awkward, because I've never spoken to the couple from No 7. Come to think of it, they were in the neighbourhood when I moved in. Why didn't they bring me a casserole? This is why I'm never neighbourly: it only leads to tears.