Neighbour Tim Winton short story class 12 summary

 

Short stories

Neighbours

Tim Winton

Summary

                   The short story “Neighbours” is written by Tim Winton. It deals with the relationship between the nighbour. The story tries to show the importance of neighbour. A newly married couple lives in a multi lingual, and multicultural suburb of Australia.  A young couple who have moved to a new suburb where a lot of European immigrant are living. At the beginning the newly married couple feels strange and annoying behavior of their neighbours. On their left door living a Macedonian family and on the right side living a widower from Poland. First, they feel like sojourners and don’t talk to anyone. The so-called “young man” stays at home and writes his thesis of the development of the twentieth century novel. The “young woman” works in a hospital.

They are living in a small house which has high ceiling and paned window that looks like an elegant cottage. From the window of study room the young man can see out over the rooftops and Moreton Bay figures where they walked with their collie. The neighbours are cautious to their dog.

They lived in the expensive outer suburbs where the neighbours were good. They were barely seen and never heard. But now there is the noise of spitting and washing and daybreak watering comes as a shock. It takes six months to understand him that the Macedonian family is not killing each other but just talking to each other. The old widower police man most of the time remains busy in hammering nails in to wood and pulling them out.

The young man feels that their all the activities are observed by their neighbour. His neighbour are not feeling comfortable that a man writing thesis and his wife working in kitchen.  The young man disgust his neighbour because a little boy urined in the street.  He doesn't like a little boy standing at the fence and looking at them with cobalt eyes.

In autumn the young couple clears the rubbish from their backyard and tries to plant leeks, onions, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and broad beans and this caused the neighbours to come to the fence and offers advice about spacing, hilling and mulching. In this time a big woman gives them a bagful of garlic cloves to plant. Young couple built a henhouse. The neighbour watches it falling down and the police widower enters through a fence without inviting and repairs it for them. They don't understand his any words.

In the winter the couple found themselves smiling to their neighbours. They offered heads of cabbage and took gifts of grappa and firewood. Husband gets busy in writing his thesis and wife talks about her days in the hospital. They work together in their household activity. They felt proud and superior when their parent came to visit them.

In the winter they kept ducks, pig, silent muscovies. In the spring Macedonian family shows them how to slaughter and to pluck and to dress. In this time they sit around and discuss about their butcher profession. Their neigbour tells story which young couple barely understand.   

The young couple unexpectedly found that they are going to have a child. Their friends has married earlier but not having any child. They are not planned for pregnancy although it happens to them. She arranged for maternity leave. No longer their neighbours knows about pregnancy. People smile tirelessly at them. The man in the deli (readymade food shop) gives her small present chocolates and him packets of cigarettes that he stores at home not being a smoker. Italian woman begins to offer names. Greek women stops the young woman in the street, pulls her skirt up and feels her belly, and tells it should be a boy. The woman of next door has knitted a baby suit and gave to her. But they feel flattering. The widower police man is making noise and the young man thinking of complaining to the police. The widower man comes over with barrowful of wood scraps for their fire.

At a night he calls midwife because his wife is feeling uncomfortable. He made hot bath for her and makes her walk, rubs his wife's back and feeds her ice-cream. When he goes outside to bring some firewood, he sees twelve faces watching from his fence. Young wife gets very hard to have baby. The husband observes her cry, sweating, struggle, pain and courage and feels power of her and sophistication of her. She is kept on pushing and pushing but there is unseen barrier. Suddenly it is smashed and newly baby is born. She looks on her baby's face and keeps in her breast. A boy she says. The young man hears shouting next door. He goes to see them, on the Macedonian side of the fence a small queue of people are cheering and expressing their happiness. The young man starts to weep and says the twentieth century novel is not prepared him for this.