Front Tim & Coco
It is early morning and I am sitting in the kitchen before anyone
else has had a chance to use it, drinking coff ee, reading headlines
and being quiet. The only sound is the noise of the tortoise trying
to force himself through the cat fl ap, and the cat itself, which is
sitting on the worktop, wanting cat food and getting none.
“Noel,” it says.
“I’m not Noel,” I say, quietly. “And anyway, there’s no cat food.
Cat food is on the list.”
My wife comes in, coat on, and takes a turn round the table
clockwise, with the dog following her.
“I’m going for a walk,” she says. “And I can’t fi nd my glasses. Do we need anything?”
“Don’t think so,” I say.
“Wayne,” says the cat.Adult learner
Coco Khan“Oh yeah, cat food,” I say.
“I’ll be back later,” my wife says.
“Enjoy the door.”
This is what we say to each other
when we part company : enjoy the door.
U ntil last week, our back door was
stuck almost fast ; to open it, you had to
shoulder the top half with such force that
I was afraid it would one day fall off the
house on to the lawn. At night, it often
took two or three sharp pulls, inward
and simultaneously upward, to get it
closed enough for the latch to meet its
corresponding hole. It was like that for
three years, and every time I tried to fi x it
I made it a little bit worse.
Then last week a man – actually three
men – came and put the door right. It
was not, it transpired, a straightforward
job. It took them almost eight hours,
but it was satisfying to watch their
mounting frustration and be no part of it.
That evening, after they’d gone, I gave the
door a gentle push from the outside and
watched it swing and click into place all
by itself.
“Whoa,” I said.
“I know,” my wife said, from the other
side of the glass.
It was by no means a cheap repair,
so “enjoy the door” means, in part,
“get your money’s worth”. But it also
means: in these diffi cult times we
must make a conscious eff ort to draw
pleasure from small things, such as a door
that does what doors are supposed to do,
because we can’t go out and there’s nothing
on Netfl ix.
I decide to have another coff ee before
I start work. I stand and open the back door
by pressing down the handle with a single
fi nger, pausing to appreciate the smooth
travel of the door as it swings outward
and thinking it will be spring before my
collective openings and closings cost
me less than a quid each. Then I fl ing the
old coff ee grounds on to the grass and shut
the door.
Our small lawn has a dip in it where
it was partly reseeded two summers
ago, and I’m trying to level it up,
using only coff ee. If nothing else,
the past year has radically changed
the sorts of things I am willing to list
under “accomplishments”.
As I rinse out my cup I try to calculate
how long it will take to accumulate
suffi cient spent grounds for a fl at
lawn. But I’m not the only person
who drinks coff ee in the house, and
no one else is participating in the
coff ee lawn project, because I haven’t
told them about it. As long as it’s a secret,
it needn’t be success; it just needs to
occupy my time between now and the end
of whenever. Not for the fi rst time, it occurs
me that I was born to live under some form
of house arrest.
After the coff ee is made, I realise it’s
long past the time for me to retreat to
my offi ce shed. I fi ll my cup quickly
and head off to work. In my haste, on
this one fi nal occasion, I forget to enjoy
the door: without thinking I throw my
shoulder into it as I always have, and fi nd
myself propelled through it at speed.
I end up on my knees in the mud, my
coff ee cup empty, its contents fl ung out
before me on the wet grass. Up close, I see
that I am surrounded by little domes of
damp espresso.
The cat comes to the door and looks
at me.
“Joan? ” it says I have always
found it gratifying
that one of my
friends , Jack ,
is a sommelier.
Probably because
I have not
updated any of my references for
“sophistication” since 1999, after
watching a Frasier box set while off
sick from school. Their life in the
penthouse with the ice-maker was
so “other” to mine – in the terrace,
with the gas meter – and at 11,
I missed the satire.
Thus, I still think of things such
as wine as chic. ( It’s also fun when
Jack talks to me as an equal and
I nod along, thinking in puns.
Any musing on supply chains and
climate, and I say, “Yes, quite!”
while sniggering a private joke to
myself, I guess it’ll be dealt with
case by case.)
Jack wasn’t feeling so fun the
last time I saw him, however.
Furloughed from work, he was
considering volunteer ing at the
local hospital. “I want to help,”
he said, downbeat. “What good is
a sommelier during a pandemic?”
His job now is to greet patients
with a mask and sanitiser, and
ensure they are seated safely.
He’s eff ectively the hospital
maitre d’: the skills he learned from
hospitality (putting people at ease,
crowd management, patience ) mak e
him a loved volunteer.
Alongside those who hold this
whole mess together (teachers,
health workers, shop staff and
more ), it’s easy to feel pointless.
I feel this way, too, sometimes,
like fatty excess. But we all have
skills and we all have value.
Whether they are the skills the
government wants (aren’t we all
supposed to become coders?) and
pa ys for fairly is another sorry
story altogether.
So next time the weight of the
world makes me doubt my worth,
I will remember my friend.
I hope he knows his worth,
too. He may not be fi lling
glasses right now, but I’l l
be raising a glass to Jack.Why is no one helping with my coff ee lawn project?
Tim Dowling
GETTYI
e
aa
ttt
sssCcc