Actress’s Notebook

Our upstairs neighbours are not the sort of people you want to have run-ins with. They have regular moped deliveries and I see packages exchanged through blacked-out BMW windows. I once knocked on their door to ask if I could borrow a potato masher. They looked at me as if I were mad. They seem to sleep all day and do all sorts at night. I usually go to bed to the sound of floor-board drilling. I wonder what they are hiding: are they supplying illegal stuff for the next generation of Tory leaders?

The other night, at about 5 a.m., I heard a banging noise, followed by shouting at the front of the house: ‘POLICE, POLICE.’ What had I done? I peered out of the window. Officers were bursting into the house, heading for the upstairs flat. They started kicking in the neighbours’ front door. Somebody jumped from a balcony to escape. It was all very exciting. I saw flashing blue lights then six burly men being handcuffed and taken away in a van. A young female officer told me that it was a raid and to go back inside. My boyfriend told me to stop being so nosey but I stayed close to the window, twitching the curtains.

Strange things happen to me in the early hours. Travelling around India last year, we had a midnight intrusion; a woman broke through our bedroom window. She jumped on to our bed and grabbed my feet and began some rhythmic chant, as if removing a curse. She had long grey hair and hands like claws. It was seriously frightening. After we got her out of the room she sat outside and continued to chant while running her fingernails up and down the door.