Life begins
Alex James
So cold: I tried lighting a fire, but smoke just kept blowing back down the chimney, setting off the fire alarms. It’s a design fault with that fireplace. It happens whenever the wind blows in a certain direction. The architect really messed up there and I cursed him, the idiot, as I rubbed the heat on my hands into my trousers, having run outside several times, a sparking, smoking log in each hand. The wind was really howling and it was raining sideways. The fat logs continued to be on fire, lying on the grass, drinking the breeze, sending sparking, glowing embers flying around the back garden.
Well, I suppose I just didn’t know much about fireplaces when we built that one. That fire is one of those things I’m always about to sort out, I made some headway with it last week, in fact, but then there are always so many things that need fixing: endless lists of old stuff breaking and new stuff not working properly.
The under-floor heating in the smokedout main room was broken as well and, come to think of it, half the lights. It was particularly cold in there, the heart of my house. Bleak. A new television, half installed, wired but not yet attached to the wall, sat on the dining table, rendering even that unusable.
I’d been looking forward to my 40th birthday. I’d been looking at it as nothing but a celebration. But now it had arrived suddenly and my wife was in bed, full of Pepto-Bismol and I felt cold and alone, in a complicated mess of a house. I thought having my two best friends there would have helped, but instead of being twice as nice, their presences were cancelling each other out a little bit. I should have known by now that really close friends don’t mix. Intimacy doesn’t work in parallel. There was nothing we could do to make it warmer, or less of an ill-lit mess, so we gave up and sat in another room, by a fire that did work. My friend Graham started playing some old Blur songs on the guitar he’d brought with him and gradually, with the music, the fussiness of the 21st century fell away and we were warm again, warm in a draughty old farmhouse, smiling and pulling silly faces as we sang.
There were about 30 coming for dinner the following night and I’d booked my favourite disc jockey — he only plays 78s. Those old records sound amazing: brilliant singing, brilliant playing and brilliant songs.
The entertainment was covered and Fred the shepherd had delivered a lamb. Now it was hanging on a running rail alongside the raincoats by the back door, intriguing children and appalling vegetarians. The plan was to cook it whole over a fire, but that involved quite a shopping list. We zoomed around the market in Oxford in the morning buying vegetables, and spent most of the afternoon trying to assemble the necessaries for a spit roast. Jewsons, Wickes, B&Q, army surplus: none of them had the exact bits we needed and the advance shopping party returned home late. House guests were already arriving. I couldn’t see how the thing would be cooked by midnight. I imagined everyone standing around, shivering and hungry and I started to panic a little, until I thought, well, at least they’re my friends. They can handle it. If they can’t, they’re not my friends. Still, it had been so much easier on my 30th birthday when all everybody wanted was drugs and booze. Much less bother to organise. The wind had changed direction, and a fire was soon roaring in the grate.
Most of the people who were coming wouldn’t have dreamed of catering for 30 without help and I think next time I’d definitely pay someone to come and wash up, but that’s about all. Everybody wanted to get involved in the cooking. Some helped to build the fire, some were shoving carrots and garlic into the lamb, which by now had been washed in whiskey and cut into four pieces. Everyone enjoyed lending a hand. It was much better fun than nibbling peanuts and making small talk. I can’t imagine anything that would have brought the early arrivals together more perfectly than preparing the feast. Soon the house was buzzing, fires were roaring everywhere, conversations blazing. Someone said it was the best meat they’d ever tasted and I really think it might have been that good. I think life is continuing to improve as I grow older. At least, the food is getting better. ❑
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