particularly regarded it as expressing my own personality—Sylvia’s had always appeared, up to that odd display of weeping and dependence, by far the more assertive.
Yet now it was different. My homemaking instincts had been aroused. There was something inspiriting about the atmosphere of that house in Bristol, the almost human voice which had bidden me welcome there. It had caused a predominantly cautious person nearly to forget that such a quality existed. I had not only rushed off to Olympia; I had spent fascinated hours in one department store after another, gazing at kitchen units
,
bathroom fittings, track-lighting—oh, at all manner of things! I may still have been a dull woman but before I quit London and while there were still a few people left to talk to, my dullness had at least gone down a different route. As one slightly overbearing friend had put it when I went to say goodbye—in fact more a friend of Sylvia’s than of mine—“Rachel, you used to be such a gentle, timid little thing. Repressed, even. One wonders what’s got into you.”
“Ah,” I said mysteriously, “the influence of a good house. Reaching out in spirit the moment I had stepped inside.”
I laughed and opened my eyes wide and held my hands aloft with outstretched trembling fingers.
“Woo-ooo... ! Woo-ooo!”
Even if I hadn’t been about to leave London I might still have needed to make new friends.
13
But first there were the more prosaic things: the damp, the rot, the applications to the council. Rewiring, heating, insulation.
New plumbing. New slates. The removal of the bunkers.
The filling and refilling of the skip. Sometimes it was
this
which seemed the most completely satisfying.
During these earlier stages I compared the whole process to all those years of study and apprenticeship that may finally lead to the work of art, to public recognition and the flowering of an assured, even a flamboyant, personality.
After that, the things that really showed, the fun things: the workmen with their long ladders, trestle tables, tins of paint, buckets of paste; and the woman who was making the curtains; and the man who was re-covering the chairs; and the firm that was fitting out the kitchen; and the shop that was putting down the carpets. Every day had its excitements. “All those years of study and apprenticeship” reduced basically to just over six weeks: one of the few advantages of the recession—the speed with which large jobs could now be undertaken, the promptitude to match impatience. Some of the last tasks were the repainting of the black railings above the area and those of the tiny balcony; the cleaning of the windows; the application of a final coat to the front door. Its deep gay yellow gloss beneath the shining and winking new knocker and letterbox was redolent of springtime and daffodils and seemed to symbolize all the brightness of my own new life.
That yellow was a fine choice, the right choice, even if at first I’d been uncertain. But—oh, naughty, naughty me!—I should have remembered: all things work together for good, to them that love God. Yes, I
was
rather naughty; sang these words to the tune of “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now”; only needing to change “love” to “appreciate” to make the lyric fit. I felt like Oscar Hammerstein.
And then too, halfway through June, there was the young student who came to do the garden. He was nicely tanned and muscular and worked without his shirt and though I kept being drawn towards the window of my bedroom I found him almost unbearable to watch; in particular the way he swung his pick when breaking up the concrete. And when I went to speak to him, to settle some fresh point or take him out a cooling drink, I was really afraid of what my hands might do. Fly up to feel the film of moisture on his chest? Fondle that coat of darkly golden hair? Dear Lord! The embarrassment! Whatever would one say? “Whoops! Please forgive me! I thought there was a
Yet now it was different. My homemaking instincts had been aroused. There was something inspiriting about the atmosphere of that house in Bristol, the almost human voice which had bidden me welcome there. It had caused a predominantly cautious person nearly to forget that such a quality existed. I had not only rushed off to Olympia; I had spent fascinated hours in one department store after another, gazing at kitchen units
,
bathroom fittings, track-lighting—oh, at all manner of things! I may still have been a dull woman but before I quit London and while there were still a few people left to talk to, my dullness had at least gone down a different route. As one slightly overbearing friend had put it when I went to say goodbye—in fact more a friend of Sylvia’s than of mine—“Rachel, you used to be such a gentle, timid little thing. Repressed, even. One wonders what’s got into you.”
“Ah,” I said mysteriously, “the influence of a good house. Reaching out in spirit the moment I had stepped inside.”
I laughed and opened my eyes wide and held my hands aloft with outstretched trembling fingers.
“Woo-ooo... ! Woo-ooo!”
Even if I hadn’t been about to leave London I might still have needed to make new friends.
13
But first there were the more prosaic things: the damp, the rot, the applications to the council. Rewiring, heating, insulation.
New plumbing. New slates. The removal of the bunkers.
The filling and refilling of the skip. Sometimes it was
this
which seemed the most completely satisfying.
During these earlier stages I compared the whole process to all those years of study and apprenticeship that may finally lead to the work of art, to public recognition and the flowering of an assured, even a flamboyant, personality.
After that, the things that really showed, the fun things: the workmen with their long ladders, trestle tables, tins of paint, buckets of paste; and the woman who was making the curtains; and the man who was re-covering the chairs; and the firm that was fitting out the kitchen; and the shop that was putting down the carpets. Every day had its excitements. “All those years of study and apprenticeship” reduced basically to just over six weeks: one of the few advantages of the recession—the speed with which large jobs could now be undertaken, the promptitude to match impatience. Some of the last tasks were the repainting of the black railings above the area and those of the tiny balcony; the cleaning of the windows; the application of a final coat to the front door. Its deep gay yellow gloss beneath the shining and winking new knocker and letterbox was redolent of springtime and daffodils and seemed to symbolize all the brightness of my own new life.
That yellow was a fine choice, the right choice, even if at first I’d been uncertain. But—oh, naughty, naughty me!—I should have remembered: all things work together for good, to them that love God. Yes, I
was
rather naughty; sang these words to the tune of “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now”; only needing to change “love” to “appreciate” to make the lyric fit. I felt like Oscar Hammerstein.
And then too, halfway through June, there was the young student who came to do the garden. He was nicely tanned and muscular and worked without his shirt and though I kept being drawn towards the window of my bedroom I found him almost unbearable to watch; in particular the way he swung his pick when breaking up the concrete. And when I went to speak to him, to settle some fresh point or take him out a cooling drink, I was really afraid of what my hands might do. Fly up to feel the film of moisture on his chest? Fondle that coat of darkly golden hair? Dear Lord! The embarrassment! Whatever would one say? “Whoops! Please forgive me! I thought there was a
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