Home life
Looking on the bright side
Alice Thomas Ellis
Ihave received a timely letter from an enchanting and brave lady in Amsterdam chiding me gently for being dismissive about possessions. It was especially timely because not only was I fed up with all the things collecting dust, rusting and harbour- ing moths; I was getting very impatient with the person. Hauling the corpse out Of bed in the morning I found myself reflect- ing that I'd brushed its hair and its teeth and buckled up its shoes more times than I care to remember. I'd washed it, dressed it and put its eyeliner on day after day for years and years, and not only that, I was supposed to be responsible for its liver and kidneys and its lungs and heart. It was the temple of my soul and I shouldn't really be flooding it with Pils and kippering it with Silk Cut. It had stood by me through thick and thin and deserved a little considera- tion, not the irritation with which I was presently regarding it. If God hadn't seen fit to make me pure spirit, it wasn't for me to complain.
My correspondent in Holland put a new perspective on all this dissatisfaction. She was imprisoned by the Nazis during the war for being in the first organised Resist- ance group, and in jail she had to wear . . their beastly (and most uncomfort- able) prison clothes; prickly underwear as well as dress and apron. Prickly owing to wood splinters in the fibre.' Then when she was freed in May '45 she had one suitcase containing her few remaining possessions . . precious food given us by kind French soldiers, my own clothes and all the letters I had received while in jail (one every six weeks), my bible and a few books'. When she finally got home she discovered that a hole had been cut in her suitcase and she no longer had any possessions at all.
Very early this morning Someone noticed a tramp sleeping in the garden with his head in the pink weeds which are proliferating everywhere this year. He had nothing of his own and had put down a bin-liner on the flagstones to protect his body a little from the night chill. That also made me feel remarkably small, in be- tween wondering what on earth sort of society we have evolved. I don't remember many people sleeping in the garden in the bad old days. Our mattress may need replacing — its skeleton is sticking through its skin in places — but with a little manoeuvring we spend warm, comfortable nights. I waste an inordinate amount of time fussing about my 1890 satin patch- work quilt which needs skilful mending, but all I need to do is persuade Someone to hand over a number of his old ties, and then prevail upon Janet to cut them up and sew them on, and the thing will be as good as new. I really must put aside all these trivial anxieties and pull myself together.
As my correspondent also reminds me, this is a pleasant time of year. 'And talking about beauty — just now — last week, this week and perhaps next week — the trees on our canals are indescribably lovely: some like the one just in front of my windows extravagantly full in blossom, with a tender green unfolding on the elms. Whether against a grey sky or huge sailing clouds and a bright blue sky, this green is sheer joy from early morning until late dusk.' She is two months older than the century. I've got a rioting clematis to look at, and an azalea and the aforesaid pink weeds with the tramp in them, and forget- me-nots and wild geranium, but all I notice is the rhododendron which is far from well and the broken snails. Every morning a depressing mixture of shell and the squashy bits lies all over the flagstones, and I stare at them gloomily, wondering how they got that way. I know it can't be people walking on them because people don't. They like squashing puffballs and popping seaweed but no one in his right mind puts his foot on a snail. It is not a pleasant sensation. I conclude it must be the birds.
I'm not seeing the charm in them at the moment either. One of the little bastards tapped at my window the. other morning and I do so wish they wouldn't do that, and the rest of them relieved themselves on the lilac leaves. I suppose if beauty is in the eye of the beholder so are dead snails and bird crap, and the probable reason I'm develop- ing an increasing resemblance to W. C. Fields is that I've been mean to my liver. I think I'll toss the beer cans into the neighbour's garden and sit down and think on those things that are lovely and of good report.
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