Home life
Unready money
Alice Thomas Ellis
like money. That is, it is my preferred Team of completing pecuniary transac- "cMs. I'm not particularly keen on handing over wads of currency of the realm, but at least one knows where one is, whereas the Chequebook is a snare and a delusion, containing misleading numbers of blank cbheques when none of the money that the aok contains is rightfully one's own. Sometimes of course this works in one's favour. The bailiff popped in again the other day on one of his usual visits and sat sipping a glass of Soave, speculating on the value of the dining-room table and a few battered knick-knacks while Janet hastily rang the bank to ascertain the situation round there. The current account and the bailiff's demand did not precisely synchro- nise, but I insouciantly signed a cheque and sent him away happy, which I could not have done had I had to rely on the contents of the sock under the mattress. Anyway, I think banks owe their customers a lot by way of compensation for the aggravation they cause them. My friend Zelide came in the other day quivering with rage after the cash dispenser had first agreed then wilful- ly refused to give her any money. It spat a bit of paper at her asking how much she wanted and then said she couldn't have it. Questioned, the man in the bank said she had probably proffered her card too force- fully. If machines take offence at the slightest thing what is to become of us all? She went to another cash dispenser which insolently told her to go to Hampstead.
Some supermarkets now permit people to pay for their purchases with a horrid little card which has to be inserted into a little machine and takes ages. I get very restive when I find myself stuck behind a person who has been stocking up for his bunker and has abandoned the habit of carrying money in favour of this pestilen- tial card. I while away the time staring at the extraordinary things he has bought and wondering what his lifestyle can possibly be. Some people buy 14 packets of biscuits at a time. Are they giving a kiddies' party, or do they just constantly like to nibble? The other day the man behind me had one arm and three bags of oranges and a packet of carrots in his basket. I found myself wondering wildly not only about the dish he planned to prepare but the simple mechanical problem of getting all the peel off. This made me feel heartless and even crosser at the delay which offers idle minds time for such fancies.
The account card is a rich source of embarrassment and annoyance. Many's the time that Janet and I have whistled carelessly, fingering lengths of cloth and gazing into the distance while a suspicious assistant rings all round the store to see if our credit is good. I believe it is the case that banks are bound to honour cheques written on anything, not just the neat little pages in the book. You could, apparently, drive a cow into the bank with Pay cash' inscribed on its flanks and they would have to cough up. Sometimes, twentieth in the queue, watching the staff ambling about discussing the meaning of life while one teller sits at one of those many little windows, I would gladly drive a herd of heifers all over the establishment. In the paper today I read that soon even the chequebook will be redundant and we shall all have to master some electronic device in order to lay our hands on our lucre. I somehow know instinctively that this is not going to work to our advantage. It is not going to save us time and anxiety. It is going to be another reason for the bank to make its maddening little charges and enable the staff to get off to the golf-course while the light lasts.
If money is, as it were, going out of fashion, then rather than rely on all that abstruse technology I would prefer to go back to a system of barter. Haggling at the till over the relative value of the week's shopping and the fur coat your aunt left you would certainly not save much time but it would be much more fun.
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