‘Not sure if this is for me either.’ I tell my wife
hesitantly as we try something new. After so many years of marriage you need a
bit of variety but this might be a step to far.
‘Just give it a go, or you’ll never know.’ She urges, as
I wish I’d stayed in bed this time.
‘I just think I’ll feel uncomfortable.’ I tell her
realising even as I utter the words I’m sounding like a spunkless bore with no
taste for adventure.
‘God thousands of people do this every weekend.’ She
informs me tersely. ‘Just relax and you’ll enjoy it.’
A grey-haired man in a hi-vis jacket waves me forward and
we swing into a field.
‘We’ll get bogged down here.’ I grumble as the wheels
spin and the traction control light winks on the dashboard.
Another officious looking character with a walkie-talkie
and that zealot’s control-freak look about him, bids me join a raggedy line of
cars disgorging more sparsely covered craniums and cellulite-blotted legs, plus
several picnic hampers.
‘We’re too young for this.’ I hiss to my wife, as a couple
in matching Berghaus jackets and sensible footwear ease out of a Volvo estate -
onto the estate.
‘Nonsense.’ She corrects. ‘They’re probably all about our
age.’
Now I’m depressed. As we walk towards the imposing
country house I realise belatedly I spend my working week looking at homes I
can’t afford - so this isn’t the best choice of weekend recreation. I know it’s
rude, but I can’t help staring at the other crumblies around me shuffling
towards the entrance booth of the National Trust property. I’m much younger
than this lurching stick-carrying, premium-outdoor-clothes-wearing bunch of
fifty and sixty-somethings. I used to pogo to The Damned I think angrily, as a
woman in those lightweight travel trousers with more zips than my bondage pair
used to sport, smiles politely at me, something that doesn’t happen much Monday
to Friday. I decide not to spit at her.
‘If we join today,’ gushes my wife looking at the leaflet
once we’ve gained access to the main grounds. ‘We get our entrance fee back and
a pair of little binoculars.’ The woman behind the counter had been affably
saccharine-sweet, the sort of gushing faux friendliness you only find in
volunteers, Bible-bashers and estate agents short of new instructions.
‘I don’t think we belong here.’ I tell my wife in a
familiar refrain, still scanning the elderly crowd for someone who at least I
feel looks my age and doesn’t dress like some in-bred minor royal posing for a
picture in Country Life. It’s the way I feel when I value a home that is
usually the preserve of the top-end agents. The types of braying weak-chinned
Charlies who have double-barrelled surnames, a minor public school education
yet manage an understanding of how to milk the common agricultural policy
grants. Where a home must have at least a Grade Two listing, a drawing room
doesn’t have toddler’s scribbling pinned to a fridge by magnets and the
livestock isn’t just a yappy terrier trying to shag your leg.
‘Oh my God it’s lovely.’ Coos my wife as we walk up to
the grand Palladian-style mansion some long-dead industrialist built on the
back of exploiting workers somewhere in the world. Coal mines or textile mills
on this island, tea or cotton plantations once you get past the Isle of Wight.
I can feel the old punk anarchist ethic still bubbling under despite three
decades of conformity, several house moves up the ladder and the uncomfortable
memory of all the worthless endowment mortgages I helped flog.
‘Don’t say, we must have it.’ I tell my wife mockingly.
Echoing the cry of a hundreds of other females I’ve watched urge their partners
to overspend on a flashy kitchen and newly installed sanitary ware.
‘Wow this is how the other half live.’ Continues my wife
as we enter another high-ceilinged room, walls covered with paintings and
tapestries pillaged from third world countries for little more than sparkly
smoke and mirror tricks and the promise of a God that still hasn’t turned up.
‘We’re not joining.’ I say firmly.
As it happens the mini-binoculars are rather good…
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1 comment:
'The other HALF'? That's the best joke you've ever written.
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