Home life
Water-
Alice Thomas Ellis
The bread bin was full of rain the other morning and half-loaves were floating in it like fish. There is a leak in the roof of the back kitchen and sometimes rain runs down the electrical ,wiring and makes everything go bang and then out. One day we'll have it mended. It's made of tar and there's no way of getting to it directly from the road, so the menders will have to plod through the house with buckets of molten, peculiar-smelling black stuff and I am rather putting off the moment. Presumably they won't be able to do anything while it's actually raining anyway, and as it always is we may have water-logged bread for some time. We have all been trying not to go on and on about the weather, since it is so pointless, but when the sky darkens to deepest black-green at four o'clock in the afternoon it is difficult not to pass some remark. Cheated of toast on that rainy morning, I warmed up some rolls from the freezer and we breakfasted on rolls and honey to the sound of thunder. I am sure I've never done that before as thunder is seldom around so early. It usually creeps up in the afternoons, or more spectacularly roars in the night-time.
Dispirited by the soggy conditions pre- vailing at home, we splashed our way to a restaurant for lunch. There were little jars of cornflowers on each table and also four `They believe in these mysterious lines surrounding Stonehenge.' unused wax crayons in primary colours. `Why,' asked Someone of the waitress, 'are there wax crayons on the table?' So you can draw on ze tablecloff,' said the wait- ress, surprised at our obtuseness. Of course. I have been known to draw on the tablecloth, but faced with this blatant encouragement I could think of nothing to portray. Instead I gazed out of the window at a man in dark glasses smoking marijuana and drinking ale from a can. After a while along came another man with a sack. He stopped by the first man, dipped into his bag and brought out an empty beer can. This he offered in exchange for man A's full can. When man A, not unreasonably, refused, man B dipped again into his bag and came up with an empty and squashed beer can. When this too was rejected he ambled amiably off. Luckily for me the third son had also been watching this scene or I should have doubted the evidence of my senses.
Somehow the third son has recently often been a fellow-witness to curious happenings. `If you don't believe me you can ask him,' I say, pointing. I was able to help him through one episode. We were visiting my mama in hospital when a poor woman was wheeled in from the operating theatre. She looked not at all well, being the approximate colour of our thundery afternoons, and barely conscious. The son, sitting with his back to her, suddenly heard a nurse say, 'Would you like your husband to come and take a photo of you before you die?' I know that's what he heard because that was the way I heard it too. An expression of absolute incredulity estab- lished itself on the son's face, but I was able to reassure him. I had glanced sharply up at these remarkable words and since 1 was facing the patient and nurse I did not have to rely solely on my hearing. I had seen the nurse indicating a large and elaborate floral tribute, and it was this that she was suggesting should be recorded for posterity.
We all had our photos taken at Rex's birthday party yesterday. He and Ze did a beautiful be-bop dance to Glen Miller music and everyone yelled at him to pick her up. So he did, only he dropped her. I was pleased to see another hostess lying on the floor giggling uncontrollably. I talked for a long time to a completely fascinating man whose name I had not caught. He was widely travelled, had met almost everyone, and was not only erudite but amusing. I said to Zd, `That was a most interesting person. Who is he?' That's Dickens, you fool', she snapped. It wasn't, of course. It was another famous author.
In the end I did talk about the weather to some other people. One girl held it was the result of underground atomic explosions pushing the earth's plates apart, but the only military man present said it was the result of underarm deodorants in aerosol cans messing up the ozone layer. Chacun son goat.
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