Clapham omnibus

I have a phobia about any practical task
February 20, 2000

"Is he trustworthy?" I ask the old man.

"He's a good lad, is John," says the old man, indicating the grinning, hulking figure beside me.

So I hire him. John has been hanging round our south London square and, on a pretext, has seen the inside of my flat, which is famously the most squalid on the whole estate. He has offered to decorate it for a mere ?200, but must have ?100 up front.

I trust the old man, the patriarch of four generations, all of whom live here. In 1935, he was one of the two young boys on cycles whom Lawrence of Arabia swerved to avoid in his fatal motorcycle accident. On the old man's authority, I rush to the cashpoint in Clapham High Street for John's money.

John enlists Tom to help him. Tom, the semi-detached, live-in lover of the old man's granddaughter, is an ingratiating Liverpudlian, who claims to have a mother who is a publisher. I go out that evening, and almost the whole of the hall is done. Later, Tom warns me about John, whom I already distrust, and says we must not give him a key.

The next morning, John asks for more money. After consulting with Tom, I sack him. He departs on a huge drinking binge which, Tom later tells me, almost kills him. Tom takes the job, and I pay him ?50, mentioning that, as I am so poor, I will eventually give him ?50 more plus a tip.

I see Tom a lot, riding round on his bicycle, and he gives me some LPs and a huge bottle of red wine, which turns out to be off. But he is in no hurry to press on with the work. I go away several times, to Portugal and to an artists' rest home, and the last time I am away he does the bathroom.

It is the remaining rooms which are the problem: they are damp and hard to move around in for all my thousands of books, magazines and LPs, plus all the clobber of a friend who died and made me his heir. But the real problem is me. Having had a mother who did everything for me, I have a phobia about the simplest practical task and have done nothing to rectify the appalling decorative state in which I took the flat when it was hard-to-let 20 years ago.

Tom finally begins the task of preparing the sitting-room, but has to leave suddenly. The room is more depressing than ever, but I sit tight. I am so short of money that I half-hope Tom will not do any more work, but one hot summer night he begins overturning the room, and I experience a surge of hope that at last I will have a decent home. After two hours, everything is piled into a great rampart, with only a tiny corner of free space left near the door.

"Can you do a tenner? You see, I need it to get some paint," said Tom.

"I'm sorry, Tom. I really would if I could. But you know how it is. We're all down to our last 20 pence."

"Too true," replied Tom. "Well, I'm off now. But don't worry. I won't leave you in this state for long."

Tom does not return. A part of me is glad. I hate him now. Life is difficult: it is impossible to reach my stereo system or the table or the window, and there is no surface in the flat on which to rest my word-processor. But I have always loved luxurious despair, the feeling that it is absolutely impossible for me to influence my own destiny.

The hot summer of 1999 continues. I see Tom from time to time, and he gives me a microwave oven. But I don't know how to use it, and he doesn't explain. He is in trouble with the old man, who often chases him across the square cursing. Much as I revere Lawrence of Arabia, I sometimes wish that he had not made the supreme sacrifice.

I am offered work translating Portuguese. I turn it down because I would have to work on the floor. Time begins to hang heavy. I try to explain the situation to friends but they find it hard to understand. A plague of flies begins in the dusty rooms, and I swat them off as I sit naked in a corner listening to a portable radio, the light filtering through the uncurtained windows.

I go out a lot. Often, on hot evenings, I ride the train to Peckham Rye and sit in the McDonald's. Late one night there I have my best moment of the summer, reading in Cees Nooteboom's Roads to Santiago about Magdalena Ruiz, the favourite court-dwarf of Philip II, while drinking a banana milkshake.

My depression becomes severe. I ask my best friend to come to the flat and help me return it to a semblance of what it was before, but he still hopes Tom might begin the work. Another friend offers to help put some books back on the bookshelves. I refuse his offer.

Two things finally rescue me. I am given Jos? Saramago's All the Names to review. Initially I hate the book, but then it works a strange magic on me, the metaphysical resignation in which it is steeped appeals strongly to my Portuguese side. I read the final chapters on Clapham Common in the last of the summer, sitting by the lake or in the caf?, and am filled with happiness, and the conviction that I must write again.

And finally my friend agrees to help me restore the status quo ante. He shows ostentatious disgust at the conditions in which I live, and drinks water from his own bottle, but in seven hours we finish the work. This is six months after the decorating project began.

Three months later the word-processor packs up, but in that time I write several articles and revise my novel. And I get great joy from the microwave.