Open Writing

‘Are the plans complete then?’ I asked eagerly when our recalcitrant handyman walked in with a piece of teak tucked under his arm.

Ignoring this sarcasm (the plans have been at the drawing-board stage for two years now) he proceeded to measure up the hall radiator.

‘When you get back your new shelf will be in position’ he said proudly.

This proved to be a profoundly modest understatement. When I returned two hours later, our new shelf, complete with brackets, was resting on the hall carpet and a hole as big as a golf ball was gaping above the radiator. Inside the cavity was a lead pipe decorated with an outsize lump of chewing gum.

A familiar wave of uneasiness washed over me. I had the same feeling years earlier, when our neighbour decided to fix a new tap. One minute I was vibrantly entreating the washing up to ‘Take a pair of sparkling eyes,’ next minute the kitchen wall had crumbled and I was staring at my neighbour’s Black and Decker.

‘Daddy’s hit a gas pipe’ the children were wildly excited. ‘You can’t use the cooker’ they said as I reached for the kettle. The next day the pipe was sealed and I was left trying to decipher some mysterious maintenance double-talk concerning ‘something unhealthy’ in the cellar.

Two days later the invasion began. We awakened to what sounded like a rampant army of machine guns. Our first clutter of gas men made a head-scratching survey of our cellar, and the search began.

‘Will you be long?’ I asked, thinking of my important spending spree which could not be cancelled. This made them laugh so much, I felt bound to join in, wishing I knew what the joke was. Brushing away his tears with his hairy hand, a man with a Rudolph Valentino haircut and a Mexican moustache said ‘Go to town luv, we shall be working in the garden this afternoon.’

When I returned our house had acquired a set of flashing yellow lights and a diversion sign. A pile of homeless rose trees were lying in mourning on the mud encrusted path. All that remained of my husband’s velvety front lawn was an open grave deep enough to bury three gas men.

Rudolph Valentino came to the kitchen door. I watched him grow three inches smaller as he meticulously wiped most of the front garden on the door mat. ‘We can’t find it’ he explained. From my hiding-place behind the curtains I watched them threaten a beautiful relationship as they gave our neighbour’s garden the same treatment. The following day my neighbour and I watched nervously as they stalked the path of the house on the other side.

We were highly relieved when they started filling up the gaps, until a man said comfortingly, ‘Don’t worry luv, sometimes it takes a fortnight, but we nearly always find it in the end.’

This ‘Fabian of the Yard’ spent the rest of the day happily ploughing up the main road. With their permanent ‘lost a pipe and found a hole’ expression we had learned to dread, three men and half the garden marched into the hall. I had a melancholy vision of myself phoning the latest developments to my anxious spouse from a deep trench. Fighting a compulsive urge to throw stones at the new shelf, I suggested they call off the search, we would go electric. It would certainly be cleaner, we had accumulated enough sludge to keep a hippo happy for a month.

Grinning nervously and feeling like an Al Read character, ‘Er . . have you found it?’ I asked a man who was busily knocking down the cellar wall. ‘Oh aye, we’ve found it,’ my hair went straight with joy. ‘But its dead,’ he added. What a morbid occupation. Malignant cavities full of dead pipes!

Just as I switched on the vacuum cleaner the man who was perforating the path turned on his drill. My neurotic scream was bigger than both of us. When another tribe of boots made for the cellar, I escaped next door. We were discussing the disadvantages of radiator shelves when three men walked out of her cellar. With triumphant smiles they held up a chisel. ‘We managed to pull it out,’ cried one with Arthur and Excalibur pride.

I resisted the desire to repeat ‘Big Socks,’ our twelve-year-olds stock reply to all victories. After all, any success must be overwhelming in this unrewarding job. ‘This corroded pipe would never have been discovered if you hadn’t opened your wall,’ said our neighbour. I couldn’t decide whether this was a threat or a consolation. And still the excavating continues.

At the end of each day as our garden grows longer and the main road narrower – we look back on the happy memories of days gone by when all we had to complain about was a dark patch over the radiator. Who would have thought that a piece of teak 2ft x 6in designed to cut wall cleaning down to the minimum could transform our outlook so disastrously?

Who would have guessed that not only were we gaining a shelf – but also dedicated, drill-happy gas men in triplicate, complete with diversion signs and traffic lights – plus a new landscape which looks as if a giant mole has hiccuped all over it?

But we do have one contented dog. Although he barks incessantly if the cat next door dares to so much as peep over the garden wall, he adores strange men. I think I can truthfully forecast without exaggeration, that future outlook for our household will be decidedly frosty – and not just because we have a draughty gap in our cellar wall.

Our youngest daughter has turned her thoughts to higher planes. The other day a friend said she had just seen our travelling player on her way to school. While her small escort held the music at eye level our perpetual recorder blower was stoically playing ‘God Save Our Gracious Queen’ all the way to school. We ought to be thankful for small mercies, I suppose. At least the pneumatic drills are louder than her playing.