It comes in waves.

It ebbs and flows; it comes in waves.

The apartment complex where we live is designed like a Panopticon. The complex was built to be part of the athletes’ village for the last Commonwealth Games that were held in Perth. To call the architecture modern is a credit to no one. The front doors and kitchen windows overlook the hexagon-shaped courtyard.

The complex can be silent and peaceful for hours, seemingly days, at a time. Then a door is slammed. Someone shouts to a neighbour across the empty void above the courtyard. Khan, the 4 year-old boy next door, starts to cry. His mother screams at him to try placate his mood. The kitchen windows that run side-by-side are always left open. Housewives wash dishes and gossip to each other, loudly, the only other people who are home don’t speak their language. I’ve noticed that if you don’t own the apartment, you don’t care how savagely you slam the cupboard doors. For some reason Sunday night, around ten in the evening, can be a flashpoint. The activity reaches a fever pitch. Everyone is home. Groups congregate outside front doors for long send-offs. They are not quiet. I swear there’s a couple underneath our apartment that have changed their sleep patterns to coincide with that of their newborn’s. When he wakes at midnight, they wake and have dinner and socialise.

The neighbours don’t talk to us when we cross on the footpaths outside. If they notice us on the balcony, they’ll take the long way round to get to their apartment, use the inconvenience of the second stairwell. Khan’s parents, the couple next door, recently installed a green wastage bin outside their front door. The bin is about as high as your hip. It is not uncommon for bags of rubbish to sit outside their front door for days, effluvium leaking from the plastic and pooling on the balcony. Or maybe a couple of pieces of Styrofoam have found themselves barricaded across your security screen. Or there’s a blanket sunning itself on the balcony outside your kitchen window. The women walk laps around the inside of the apartments and look into every window they pass. I try to keep the blind closed.

It was something different; it was a Tuesday night. Earlier in the evening, the Asian family, the group that had only just moved in – their apartment is sparse and without furniture, it’s too soon for it to be decorated – were barbequing as per usual. The smoke rises from downstairs and the smell encroaches upon everyone. I had opened the door to double-check that nothing was burning. The father was watching the meat and enjoying a cigarette. I could hear the sizzle from where I stood. He noticed me watching and winked back, and hocked his throat and spat phlegm in the courtyard garden below. Amber had gone out to the service station. I was watching a DVD rental. I think it could have been Money Ball, or Harry Potter, or something as equally artistically devoid and undemanding on the cognitive facilities. People started to shout. That was nothing new, I didn’t move from the couch. A door slammed. Again, ditto. More shouting. Much against my wishes, I turned up the movie’s volume. Another door. More shouting, even louder this time. The shouting didn’t let up.

And then, a new development: I heard a slapping noise.

It soundedaHarryHa like clapping hands. It could be a closed fist slapping into an open palm. It definitely sounded like skin pounding skin.

Interest piqued, I opened the door. The neighbours – about a dozen – were all congregated outside the apartment two doors down. The blinds were open. There were more people inside. One of the women was screaming at another woman. A line of men separated the two. They were speaking a language I didn’t understand.

A little girl, pretty in pink, about as high as the green bin, ran down the steps, screaming, terrified. Khan, the 4 year-old, was there too, in the midst of the action. He looked up at the warring parties, transfixed. His white eyes didn’t blink.

One of the men attempted to shepherd the angry woman away. This only made her shout louder. She pushed him square in the chest. There’s someone, or something, in the apartment that she was shouting at. It’s obvious she wanted to get inside. She pushed him again. It wasn’t hard to imagine a person, big or small, falling over the balcony or down the open stairwell.

All of the residents were watching the commotion from their front doors. Even the white girls – one of them had her hair in rollers – were watching. A friend of the neighbours stood at the top of the other stairwell, a mobile in his hand.

As I watched from my door, some of the men in the group turned and stared at me.

Amber arrived in the middle of the action. She ascended the stairs, trying to make sense of the scene. She saw me and mouthed: “What’s happening?” I could only shrug in reply.

By now, the woman had been convinced to go back to her apartment. The men hadn’t moved from the front door.

Amber stopped at the top of the stairs. The neighbour was still there, pretending to look at his phone. She asked only one thing.

“Is it bad?”

“Very, very bad.”

Round two started. The volume rose again. The woman stormed back out onto the balcony, convinced that she was going inside this time. The men braced themselves and held firm. Someone shouted back. It seemed that everyone was shouting. A door slammed to make a point. Now the African man from the second floor was there. He had done something the woman couldn’t do, and had made his way into the apartment. He’s speaking English, but everyone was screaming so we couldn’t make out what he’s saying. It began to feel that the situation was going to turn bad, turn worse. I convinced Amber to shut the door. She didn’t want to watch the shit on television.

“You know what this means? All these months that they’ve been shouting, they haven’t been just shouting. They’ve been fighting!”

“Do you think someone has been having an affair? Women only fight because of infidelity!”

We’re too excited to listen to each other.

The balcony was empty. The blinds were drawn. No light spilled out. The police have arrived. We took turns watching through the kitchen window. I took the lion’s share. The cops talk to the apartment that was holding firm in defence. Next they talk to the apartment where, we guess, the angry woman lives. A man stood on the threshold and answered questions, as one of the policemen wrote in a little black book. The man gesticulated to the door of the Asian family.

It was the next morning and there was an empty beer carton beside the green waste bin. It stayed there for a several days and then was gone. It ebbs and flows; it comes in waves.