TOM JACKSON
My kids sometimes ask me what career
I would have chosen if I hadn’t chosen this
one. I didn’t really choose it, I reply; I just sort
of started doing it and hoped I wouldn’t get
found out. My options were restricted, I tell
them, on account of not being much good at
anything else. Some might argue, I tend to add
(fishing for a compliment that fails to arrive),
that I’m not much good at this either.
Hah, hah, they say. Silence. Tumbleweed.
I wouldn’t have minded a stab at acting,
politics or academia. Of course, the best options,
aged 18, are sport or music. But I was only an
average athlete and any semblance of musical
talent has given our entire family a wide berth.
Thinking it through, I reckon I might have
been a scaffolder. As a younger man, I liked
climbing. I appreciate a good roofscape. I enjoy
being outdoors. In my maturity, as a potential
gaffer, whenever we’ve had cause to hire a
scaffold, I’ve always been impressed by the cost
incurred. And thus the profits available were
I on the other side of the equation.
No doubt there are expenses involved
(insurance, transportation, storage) but,
dammit, it’s only a few planks of wood,
lengths of piping and clamps. The completed
edifice isn’t that complicated. Nor is it time-
consuming to erect or dismantle. And yet you
pay thousands of pounds to hire this simple
structure. If I’d started young and expanded
cautiously, avoiding any catastrophic claims for
industrial accidents, negligence or voyeurism,
I could be enjoying a well-heeled retirement
by now. No doubt my more scaffold-aware
contemporaries are doing precisely that.
This is a long-winded way of saying we’re
having the front of our house painted. This
maintenance work is well overdue, in two
senses. First, the house faces west, and thus
falls prey to the worst excesses of the prevailing
weather. Peeling, flaking, blistering, even rotting,
these depredations have all long been identified
and bemoaned by my wife. Second, we’ve lived
here 27 years. The house has always been
white. Time for a change, says Nicola.
I’m all for change. In theory. In practice,
I struggle to know what Nicola is talking about
when she tries to discuss the way forward.
We’re in Farrow & Ball territory, obvs, and
I’m sorry, but I’ve never actually seen either
a mole or an elephant exhaling. And even if
I had, I’d be pushed to describe the precise
shade, if any, of their outgoing breath.
Many years ago, 15 or 20, we were about
to have our kitchen redecorated. Nicolaconscientiously sought my opinion. Whatever
I may have implied in this column, my wife’s
instincts are basically democratic. She thinks
these matters should be decided jointly. Good
for her. Except Nicola is yet to fully appreciate
the depth of my indifference.
Back in the day, she tried to involve me by
way of colour charts and sample pots. Now she
employs messages on the family WhatsApp,
seeking comment on subtly varying shades
culled from paint websites. Technological
advance has made little difference: I rarely
have an opinion to offer and I often cannot
distinguish between the alternatives.
I hate to make a gender-related
generalisation but, on WhatsApp, while our
daughter, Rachel, will engage enthusiastically
in discussing the minutest nuances, I tend to
stick with, “I agree with everything.” Our son,
Sam, ignores the thread entirely.
The process is complicated because our
house (late Georgian, doncha know) boasts
if not the original – because that would be
downright peculiar after close on two centuries
of wear and tear – then certainly the traditional
sash windows. Such windows comprise many
and varied moving parts and surfaces. Some
of which, Nicola tells me, convention suggests
should be painted in a certain way, while other
parts and surfaces should not. I say, “How
fascinating. You decide.”
Going back to the kitchen makeover,
Nicola would spend ages on the phone to her
pals seeking their views. As an experiment,
I consulted five male friends on the same
subject. Two assumed I was joking. One
became borderline aggressive. One tried to
help, his advice fatally undermined when he
let slip he didn’t know what colour he’d painted
his own kitchen mere months previously.
The fifth, my pal Andy, demonstrating a
photographic recall of the layout, dimensions
and decor of our culinary space way superior
to my own (and I was standing looking at
it while he was in Bristol), was full of ideas.
I salute and curse him now as I did then.
“Let’s look at it from across the road,”
Nicola keeps saying, now that the process
(inshallah!) is almost complete. Let’s examine
the transition, from this, that and the other
angle. I squint dutifully and do my best to
summon up a fresh assessment that might
sound vaguely plausible.
It ain’t happening, I’m afraid. n[email protected]‘My wife thinks
domestic matters
should be decided
jointly. She is yet
to fully appreciate
the depth of my
indifference’
Beta male
Robert Crampton
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