Recently, a good friend from London came to stay. I’ve known him longer than almost anyone, which means that the basic niceties that normally exist between two people have long since gone out the window. He arrived, put his bag down, announced that he hadn’t had any dinner, and went straight to the fridge. What he found there horrified him.
“There’s a pool of water,” he said, staring into the bottom shelf. “Why is there a pool of water collecting in your fridge?” Then he pulled out a Tupperware, opened it and wrinkled his nose. “Mould,” he said, looking at me. “Actual mould!”
He seemed to expect an explanation. Had I really been unaware of these awful developments in my own home?
As a matter of fact, I had been aware. I had been aware in the same distant, disinterested way that I’m aware of the weather on any particular day. With a kind of Buddhist equanimity, I had accepted these things: the fridge puddle, the mouldy leftovers, as elements of my environment, no different from clouds passing overhead or drops of rain darkening the pavement.
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I told him not to be alarmed; there’s a pizza place near me. This resolved things temporarily. But over the next few days, he continued. Was I aware the sofa had a gaping hole in it? A hole large enough to swallow a man whole? What was wrong with the tumble dryer? Was there some special trick, or was it really broken?
(He was, I should stress, a delightful guest on the whole, in case he ever happens to read this and feels misrepresented. We had a lovely time.)
I did my best to explain. The fridge has always had a faulty door seal; warm air sneaks in, the motor overcompensates, ice forms and then melts, forming a pool. The sofa came with the hole, but the surrounding area is perfectly safe to sit on. As for the dryer, it has a delicate temperament; it responds to loving encouragement, not harsh words.
Three things became clear to me over the course of my friend’s stay. One is that I have been living in squalor for quite some time. The second is that I don’t mind. The third is that maybe I should.
I’ve been very happy in this house. It’s not a temporary sublet, or a rented room in someone else’s home, where, however kind they are, you always feel a little like an intruder. This is the first place I’ve been able to make mine. I put down rugs; I bought thick yellow curtains for my room. In the mornings, the light glows through them a nice deep, womb-like orange. My bookshelf is growing. Sometimes, if I’m feeling extravagant, I buy freshly cut flowers and candles for the livingroom.
So what if nothing works? So what if it’s messy? Isn’t being excessively house-proud kind of twee and bourgeois, a performance of taste and control that adds little to your real quality of life? Who hasn’t stepped into one of those sleek, minimalist houses with gleaming surfaces and felt a vague unease, a suspicion that the inhabitants are hiding something unimaginably perverse in their basement?
Or maybe these thoughts are just self-protection. There is a tendency, after all, to scorn the thing that is out of reach: to dismiss it in advance so that you can pretend it was an option. The prospect of endless renting has made us readjust our expectations.
Because the truth is I don’t know how long I can stay here, and it isn’t really mine. Emotionally, maybe, but not legally. And if I don’t fully believe the place will keep me, it feels foolish to invest too much. I can hang curtains, buy flowers, even put up paintings, but I hesitate at anything more permanent. Maybe I would like the walls to be pale pink, or green. But then I would have to repaint them before leaving. And so the walls remain white, as they were when I arrived. Years could pass and I’ll still be living here like I’m only passing through. The hole in the sofa gaping, the fridge water collecting. These are relatively trivial problems, but for the first time I’m considering addressing them. The option actually hadn’t occurred to me.
