Home life
Every modern inconvenience
Alice Thomas Ellis
Ialways thought I didn't like the Mo- dern much and I was right. I don't like reinforced concrete or formica or Andy Warhol, and I hate square coffee cups and abstract murals, and I utterly loathe shop- ping precincts with patterned pavements and plenty of space for people to strew their chicken 'n' chips packets and poly- styrene mugs. I got lost in one the other day. Everyone had said comfortingly that no one could get lost in Aylesbury, it was impossible. But I can. I can get lost in Trafalgar Square with no trouble at all, and when everything is modern I get hopelessly confused. How, I ask myself, does anyone ever remember which tower block he lives in and does it matter? I had tracked down Marks & Spencer's, which I favour because I trust their milk and their arsenic-free chickens, and it also makes me vaguely think of the Church since wherever you go, there it is, completely familiar and offering the same services. I would much rather have a corner shop with a white-coated grocer climbing on stools to reach the nutmeg, but now they've all been driven away I have reluctantly come to terms with M & S. I can usually find the things I want despite their policy of keeping the custom- ers on their toes by moving the wares more frequently than seems necessary — 'Where are you hiding the eggs this week?' one demands fretfully.
So I bagged a few essentials and made for home, feeling quite pleased with my- self, when I realised I had lost my sense of direction and was also carrying rather a lot of clanking shopping. I determined that I absolutely would not weaken and hail a taxi, and by dint of asking every other passer-by I finally arrived back where I had started from: a modern flat. Now to be fair, it is an extremely nice modern flat with every convenience and no draughts, but we couldn't make the hot water work because the means by which the water gets hot is highly technological and sophisti- cated and quite beyond the man in the street. I don't like lying on the floor in the ashes blowing a reluctant flame in the boiler, but I can do it. What I can't do is figure out wildly complicated systems of switches and wiring that require a person with a degree in such matters — so the water stayed cold.
I didn't mind all that much since I didn't stay too long but it must be awkward for people who live with these wonders of modern science and are as idiotic as my- self. I often think how pleasantly simple it would be to live in a tent and never have to send for the man to mend the dish-washer. For one thing he is always so cross — not only at being called out but because he so disapproves of people who mishandle dish- washers. No RSPCA inspector faced with a battered pet could be more irate than the man who mends the dish-washer as he glares into its maw and realises that we have somehow buggered it up. I don't like washing dishes by hand either, but apart from blocking it with potato peelings there isn't a great deal you can do to damage the kitchen sink. I would rather make toast on a fork before the fire than entrust it to a mad electric toaster which might burn it or suddenly fling it ceilingwards or merely refuse to relinquish it, and I can't bear ovens which turn themselves on and off. The near right-hand burner on the oven in this flat, which was the one I preferred, was also the one which wouldn't respond to the automatic switch, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I would almost rather rub two twigs together or wait for a flash of lightning to ignite the kindling beneath the cooking pot. You would know where you were.
But I must not give way to ingratitude. It was very comfortable and warm and I did a lot of work, and the retired gentleman's gentleman who lives downstairs showed me where to secrete the garbage. His flat was identical to the one I was in, which gave me a peculiar feeling. I felt like an Old Person or a pussy in a cattery or possibly a privileged nun or a highly indulged prisoner. Something faintly insti- tutional anyway. Even the flat's proud owner demonstrated compassion as he left me all on my own — doing porridge as he put it. I think that even when I am very aged I will live in a house even more aged than myself with inconveniences that I can handle.
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