Home life
Silly questions
Alice Thomas Ellis
Ihad supposed, with some justice, that I was the most unfortunate creature in the universe. Flu, frozen pipes, power cuts, an incipient boil on the back of the neck, but I think I must relinquish the claim. Alfie for one, is worse off. The pipes have burst in his flat, so his carpet is shrinking; the tiles are coming off his bathroom floor, the hardboard is buckling and the water is still dripping remorselessly down the ruined walls. He'd only just finished decorating too. He went off to the council office to apprise them of this disaster and had to line up in a colossal queue of similarly afflicted tenants. He started out with his case and his grievance clear in his mind but after a while he went all limp. This was because of the Silly Questions. Silly Questions are, I believe, part of the Devil's armoury, never leading to the truth and leaving the intero- gatee baffled and powerless, while the Silly Questioner sits in the warm, calling out 'Next please.'
The old man in front of Alfie explained clearly that his flat was awash with water from the flat upstairs whose occupants were away — possibly wintering in the Costa del Sol. Where, asked the council official, was the water coming from? From upstairs, explained the old man. From where upstairs? asked the official. From the flat upstairs, reiterated the old man. Bathroom or kitchen? asked the official astutely and the old man said he didn't know. It wasn't his flat, it was the flat upstairs and he'd never been in it. He didn't know where the water was coming from. It was just there. Everywhere.
Alfie was so daunted by this that his customary savoir faire deserted him and he found himself unable to express all that was on his mind. He began by saying that his flat now had no front door, and the official asked why. Because the council had wrenched it off its hinges, said Alfie. Why? asked the official. Alfie said he supposed it was because he hadn't been in at the time and the council hadn't got a key and water was oozing out all round it and the neigh- bours were alarmed. 'A pipe', said Alfie, `has clearly burst.' What sort of pipe?' asked the official and Alfie had to sit down. He didn't know what sort of a pipe it was. All he knew was it was a burst pipe, and he wasn't interested in any other sort.
His sister was very much impressed by his calm and said so, and Alfie explained that he was in shock. 'The calmness of despair,' I suggested and Alfie said that was exactly it. I had felt precisely the same earlier in the week so was able to sympath- ise. I had this appalling flu, the disting- uishing features of which, says Someone who had it before Christmas, are (a) you think you're going to die and (b) you don't care; the pipes had frozen, we had to turn off the Aga because it heated the water and there wasn't any (in those circs, if I remember my physics aright, explosions occur) we had our own personalised power-cut — just this street and the next, the telephone rang to tell me some stuff I had written had not arrived and the presses were about to roll, and as I thought I might throw myself on the sofa in the foetal position the eldest son (who was gazing out of the window) gave a terrible yell, flung open the window to the snow, the sub-zero temperature and the wind-chill factor and roared at a large dog who had entered the garden and was emptying the bin bags all over the path. The newspaper fell out of the window and had to be put back (newspaper is the most efficient draught- excluder there is — much better than all those coils of rubber and things) and the dog, who left to himself might have eaten all the rubbish, thus disposing of the problem, ambled away, sneering at the son as though to imply that he wouldn't touch our filthy garbage if he was starving.
I screamed a bit then, which I think is a good sign. It's when they go all silent with a blank and sightless stare that you have to worry.
`I'm off to see my parents.'
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