Home life
Wall to wall
Alice Thomas Ellis
We got carried away by the carpet. Not as in 'magic' — although on Thursday evening I wished we had — but more by the Stakhanovite enthusiasm of the carpet- layers. 'How about this room then?' they would say, pointing eagerly at the naked boards. For a while I protested that I liked naked boards, but it was rather like telling the NSPCC that you didn't believe in putting warm woollies on your children. The carpet men found me incredible and/ or perverse, and in the end I capitulated out of weariness; so we have carpet every- where. Just everywhere. I'm surprised they stopped at the walls and ceiling. It feels rather like living in an inside-out bear. I begin to see why fleas congregate on furry creatures. It's easy on the feet, it's warm, silent and cosy once you get used to the idea that you're walking around on a sort of cloth. Anyway, Alfie says it's easier to clean than boards because you just race round with the Hoover. I suppose I'll get used to it.
It could have got ruined on Thursday, because the electricity went. I came home at six in the evening to find the traffic lights gone outside the zoo and at the next junction, the street lights out and most of the houses in the street in total darkness. Including ours. Everybody was trudging round with dripping candles, and no one can claim that melted wax is good for the carpet. Nor setting fire to it. The lights all went on at five the following morning, and then they all went out again for the rest of the day. When darkness fell at about three in the afternoon I went out to catch a train somewhere and was told by the ticket man that the trains weren't really running at the moment and he didn't know how long I'd have to wait. I waited anyway. At least the lights were on in the station so I could read the paper. I never found out what was holding the trains up, but the local ex- planation for the electricity failure is that somebody had dropped a firework into one of the holes (of which we now have more than road) and burnt up a cable. If a mere sparkler can bring a district to a standstill, what, I asked myself, would happen in the event of a nuclear strike?
I asked myself the same question last week when I took the daughter to a casualty ward because she had a pain in her stomach and couldn't stand up straight. There were a few staff flying about, some- body apparently breathing his last on a trolley in the corridor and somebody else howling in agony in a curtained cubicle. Apart from them and a few people who looked as though they should be being cared for in a secure environment, the place had a deserted, hopeless atmos- phere. It was a Sunday morning, admit- tedly, but no one says you can't drop a bomb on a Sunday morning. I was reminded of a friend who worked for the council and was informed that, if hostilities should come to a head and we should indeed be subjected to a nuclear attack, he was nominated as a grave-digger and should immediately take up his duties digging holes in Alexandra Park. Certainly council workers have put in a lot of practice digging holes, but we could see no reason to believe that he would be particu- larly spared and, good as he was at it, no reason to suppose that he could dig enough holes to accommodate a few million corp- ses. I suppose the simplest solution would be to leave all the existing holes in the road, and then we could all voluntarily jump in and pull them in after us. Save a lot of trouble, that would.
On the other hand, if we are to believe that Jerry Falwell of the USA is correct, God's pets (that's him and a few of his friends) will be 'raptured' up to heaven in one piece. Perhaps I should contact him and get his advice on how to convert the carpet to the upwardly mobile type.
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