Not seeing the Wood for the trees

We were in England two weeks ago for a very short weekend. The decorator needed to be paid his banknotes  under the figurative table. The Engineer had a checklist of tasks to be accomplished on pain of eternal damnation to Landlord Hell. Among them:

1. Put spare lightbulbs in understair cupboard and write tenant a note to Let Him Know

2. Put instructions for lawn sprinkler in same Note.

3. Empty garden shed of flammable liquids, paints, etc, and take it to the recycling centre.

4. Schlep ski machine atop roof-rack of car to house of friend who wants it

5. Lovingly dismantle solid wood desk, (certainly not a figurative table, this), bungee-cord it to aforesaid roof-rack, drive to deepest Surrey and unload at house of long-suffering friend for indefinite  storage in his garage. Enroute to the Channel Tunnel to catch our train back to England.

My own list was as pressing:

1. Ransack local Boots shop and purchase enough Protect and Perfect products to create a modest stockpile in Brussels

2. Get eyebrows reshaped at local Glow Beauty Bar to get one more tick on my loyalty card

3. Have last supper of dim sum at Imperial China

4. Stop and see my cousin in her new house in Surrey so that Stella can have a cuddle with her beloved eight-month-old cousin Finn.

Understand that in my mind, I had done the hard graft already, a week ago. The move was complete, I had paid my dues and then some. I was not going to rootle in a spider-infested shed in the baking heat.

The Engineer had originally wanted to take an inflatable mattress and bedding with us and kip down in our house for the night.

I talked her into a less exciting night at the frill-free, thrill-free Premier Inn. Stella, who passionately loves all hotels, was in her element. Had she lived in the time of Gigi Goes to Rome, she would have travelled with a snakeskin beauty case, a hatbox, and a porter.

“I’m very busy packing for the hotel,  Mummy,” she anounced before shoe-horning her Disney perfume, eight Ladybird books, a torch, a bag of Haribos, Teddy, a blanket for Teddy and a toy for Teddy into her creaking wheelie.

I put frivolous foibles like her clothing and toothbrush into my own case.

It was strange, reentering our home. Empty, smelling of varnish, free of Stella’s fingerprints on the walls, this was not our house anymore. At least for me.

The Enginer, on the other hand, was having great difficulty letting go of the home we had remodelled from scratch over the last 12 years.

She pored over every skirting board. She ran her fingers over newly-plastered walls. She spent half an hour unearthing an extension lead so that the tenant could mow our lawn with the same forensic care she usually applied to the task.

Bereavement, divorce and moving house — life’s most stressful situations. Time was ticking. Stella had not eaten in five hours. I did not know we had so many planks and boards and 2x2s the Engineer was wedded to. She was trying to stack them according to size in the shed.

I began trailing The Engineer around the house sighing. “We’re not going to be back in years, leave it.

“Look forward. You would have forgotten those birch wedges in the next few minutes.

“If the lawn dies, the tenant will have to make good, it’s in the contract.”

Then I began clicking my teeth. We had planned on leaving at 2:30 in order to drop the desk off and see my cousin Lila.

“No, you don’t need to mow the lawn now.”

“Is that bin bag full of screws and metal bits crossing the Channel with us?”

“Leave it.”

“Leave it.”

“Leave it, for God’s sake!”

Then the desk saga began.

The Engineer made the Desk five years ago when Stella was a few months old. Eschewing MDF, she plashed out on high quality birch plywood from Moss  Timber Merchants .

The aim was to craft a trestle desk to fit our study bay window exactly. Sketches were made. Circular saws wielded. Much planning (and planing) ensued. I hated the desk. It spun woodshavings into the same air my newborn baby was breathing next door. Hulking slabs of wood lay upstairs for weeks. And when it was finally done, it took up a third of the room.

And now, we wheezed as we dragged it out through the front door. Our neighbours saw us and came out to help. The four of us made our way across the street like a slow cortège bearing this beast on its last journey to eternal ignominy in a garage.

When faced with potentially embarrassing or stressful situations in front of acquaintances, I quip. Nadia and Paul hoisted the desk onto our roof rack. Then came the business of bungee cords and ratchets. Whoever invented ratchets deserves a death by them. As the Engineer cursed and tugged at bungee straps, my mind free-associated with evil psychiatric nurses, my pressure rose, and my tongue loosened.

The desk may not fit on the rack, the Engineer worried. Oh dear, we will have to torch it after all, I winked.

Everyone laughed except the Engineer, whose face had turned the shade of raw lamb’s liver as she struggled in the heat.

“We need something else, this strap is not secure, the wood is not secure,” the Engineer worried.

“How about a pair of scissors?” I quipped.

Finally, she snapped. (Rather her than the bungee cord on the M25, I thought.)

“It’s not funny!!!!!!” she bellowed. “Nobody’s helping me, you all just stand around and laugh at me!!!!!!!!!” A few choice swear words followed. Thankfully Stella was tending to Teddy inside the car.

If I was nervous before, I was close to a breakdown now. And I was fuming. How dare she create a spectacle on the street?

Poor Fiona and Paul made soothing noises and rushed off to Homebase, ostensibly to find another bungee cord, but secretly, I suspect, to get away from the two mad ladies and their plank.

An unsuspecting man walked past with his infant grand-daughter in a pushchair.  With an amused smile, he looked over and said something in a foreign tongue. “Polska?” I asked hopefully. Don’t know why, I don’t speak a word of it.

He shook his head.

“Deutsch?”

No.

It turned out he was from the Czech Republic. I said “bitte” several times and indicated the wretched ratchet, jammed and immobile. Nadia began explaining in French, he spoke over us both in a volley of Czech, left his bemused grand-baby in her pram in the middle of the pavement and set to. In a few minutes he had disentangled and tightened the bungee cord around the roof rack.

“God bless you, you are a good man!” I shouted, after a calculated English-teacher assessment of the most comprehensible English words to use in this situation. He understood. Beaming and waving, he steered the baby off with a final thumbs-up as he turned the corner. 

God sends angels. And in this case, angels not just to fix bungee cords but  to loosen the taut cords of my unrelenting heart. I sat in sanctimonious anger for half an hour, stiff, shrugging away the Engineer’s apologetic hand as we raced down the A3 to Surrey.

Then just like that, in an instant, I realised the temerity of my attitude. We had a car packed with all my goodies. We had dined where I had wanted. We were going to see my cousin. All my boxes had been ticked this weekend. All the Engineer had wanted was to safeguard something she had poured effort into for several weeks of her life. Why had I not seen this before? Next year, we will have been partners for 25 years. Am I still learning about respecting her?

I apologised stoutly and unstintingly. As always, she was generous.

“I know it’s only a small house,” she said. “And I know it’s only a piece of plywood.

“My grandfather made furniture but my mother lost it all over the years and there’s only one chair left for me to remember him by.

“I made this desk for Stella,” she said. “Maybe one day, she will use the desk to do her homework on. I made the desk.

“I made it.”

I wish I were more like the Engineer, imbuing achivements with significance and getting joy from every accomplishment. Rather, as soon as I finish one project, I tend to diminish it, pick out its flaws, and pine for the next excitement, a sort of cursed Tantalus lashed onto a hamster wheel, spinning into an eternity of unmet goals.

At that very moment, I promised myself that I would raise our child to listen, wide-eyed, to the tale of Mama making her desk, to run her hands over the silky wood, and to be overwhelmed by the honest sastifaction that has eluded me all my life, but which I still yearn for in the stillness of a quiet moment. At that very moment, I allowed my hand to be patted as we sped toward the Eurotunnel terminal, and into the future.

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