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M y wife wants to hire someone to put the garden in order. She knows I’ll object, because it’s really something I should be doing, but she also knows I won’t do it. In truth, I’ve lost heart.
Two scorching months without rain wreaked havoc on the garden: the lawn turned the colour of a winter sky; seedlings vaporised; established shrubs died. When the rains finally came, the garden bounced back – but by then I didn’t care any more. As part of her campaign my wife has let it be known that paying someone to fix the garden is no reflection on me, because I’m a businessman with little time to devote to things of the soil.
“If you’re promising this will never be held against me at any point in the future,” I say. “I am,” she says. “Then I simply don’t believe you,” I say.
“Anyway, I’ve already found someone,” she says. “He’s coming Monday.” “I figured,” I say. “And with all your free time, you can finally do the kitchen table,” she says.
I think: oh no. We bought our kitchen table 30 years ago from a workshop that was throwing it away. It’s made of four old roof rafters knocked together, and the top needs sanding down and refinishing about every five years.
I do it, on average, once every 10. “I bought everything you said you needed for the job three years ago,” my wife says. “I still need sandpaper,” I say.
“Specific sandpaper.” My wife keeps referring to the person she hired as “Gardening Steve”, rather than “Steve the Gardener”. I don’t know whether she is making assumptions about his qualifications – like, maybe he doesn’t know the Latin names of plants – but she is insistent. On Sunday afternoon I’m comparing the sandpaper I just bought with the footprint of my electric sander when my wife walks into the kitchen.
“Ready to start?” my wife says. “No,” I say. “These sanding sheets say ‘Universal Fit’, but it turns out there are three sorts of universal.” “Will you be here at 11 tomorrow?” she asks.
“For Gardening Steve?” “It makes him sound as if he has his own podcast,” I say. “Gardening Leave, with Gardening Steve.” “Can you remember to charge up the hedge trimmer?” she says. “He doesn’t bring his own hedge trimmer?” I say.
“No, he doesn’t,” she says. The middle one helps me move the table out on to the lawn. I spend the afternoon trying to sand off the grubby, gummy top layer, with the ill-fitting sanding sheets flying off the sander sporadically.
It begins to rain, and I call the middle one to help me carry the half-sanded table back inside. “I forgot how much I hate this job,” I say. skip past newsletter promotion after newsletter promotion “Maybe you can do the rest when Gardening Steve is here,” my wife says. “Are you kidding?” I say.
“In front of him?” The next day Gardening Steve arrives and, after a brief tour of the garden and its failings, begins work. It turns out it’s not shaming to have a much younger man stand on top of my ladder and hack away at a dead clematis. It’s actually a relief.
And for as long as he’s here, I can avoid the kitchen table. The only problem is: while he’s working, I have to work. I can’t just sit in my office shed, staring out of the window, because there’s a man out there cutting back a wisteria which has wound its tendrils around the handle of a spade I left leaning against the wall six months ago.
You’re a businessman, I tell myself. Look at your screen, and type. Steve, meanwhile, barely takes a break.
Under these circumstances I put in a relentless six-hour writing day. I get a lot done, but by 5pm my concentration is shot. I find myself, slouched and glassy-eyed, watching Gardening Steve pull up thick-rooted weeds on the other side of the open door.
Before I can stop myself, I speak. “Don’t feel, you know, that you have to ...” I say. “Sorry?” says Steve.
“I mean it’s not necessary to eradicate them,” I say. “As long as you can’t see them.” For some reason, this feels like life advice. “Yeah, OK,” he says.
“The tortoise likes those,” I say. “So I just let them grow back.” “Got it,” he says, resuming his work. With some reluctance, I resume mine.
I’m a million miles away when Steve knocks on the glass an hour later. “I’m off,” he says. “I’ll be back probably Wednesday.” “OK, great, thanks,” I say, thinking: I have Tuesday off!
Then I remember the table.
Source: The Guardian
