Over the road, the man at number three has been working in his front garden for the past two weekends. First, he dug out all the earth and now he is laying concrete.
As I walk past him with the dog she sniffs at a pile of leaves while I watch him crouch seriously, wielding a spirit level.
Arriving home moments later I declare, “I’m going to put those pictures up,” with a resolve borne from inadequacy.
The pictures I refer to are pieces that were given to me on my birthday, three months ago, and last Christmas, ten months ago.
Moving them from the mantelpiece to the dining table I go into the kitchen to try and find a tape measure.
My son is having a conversation with his girlfriend about arrangements for her birthday.
“Are you going out to dinner?” I ask.
“We’re having lunch but Lena’s going for dinner with her friends in the evening,” my son tells me.
I look at her and she smiles.
“Leaving you behind?” I say, looking at my son.
“Yes,” he says, flicking his eyebrows towards the ceiling.
They are having a good-humoured discussion about whether he is going to stay home so that he can collect her at the end of the evening or go out with his friends leaving her to get a cab back with her friends.
“You should go out,” I tell him
“Yes, you should,” his girlfriend adds.
He likes to keep people happy.
“It’s hard being me,” he laughs.
I tell him to read “Iron John”, a book about male identity that addresses the issue of what it is to be enough of a man but not too much of one.
I worry that the things I have taught my son will only be useful in fulfilling a scant half of what is required to be a man, although I remain hopeful that he will adequately make the rest up for himself.
I’ve modelled being at some ease with emotions well enough, possibly too well.
I’ve probably inadvertently taught him to feel uncomfortable with choosing his own needs over someone else’s. Not a wholly negative lesson but unhelpful when used to excess.
What I certainly haven’t taught him is how to level the front garden and concrete it using a line and spirit level.
We have never mixed concrete together and I have never done it alone. We have not slept in the woods, built a shed, stripped down an engine, or changed the sash in a window, although I did show him how to change the wheel on a car a few months before my own car fell off the jack while I was changing the wheel.
I have taught him how to make fresh pasta, which is a life skill with infinite value.
Although I also remember once that my wife told me, in the middle of a very heated row that,
“There’s more to running a house than making dinner.”
(Sound of door slamming off to the left)
It’s true. The thing is, I’m really good at making dinner and I’m not great with a drill or a screwdriver.
Up the road, another one of my neighbours is perched on a ladder painting his bay windows which looks a bit high and precarious.
I turn back to my pictures.
Having assembled a hammer and tape measure I’m ready to begin, only to find that I don’t have any picture hooks and the drill isn’t charged so I can’t use screws either.
I abandon the picture hanging and have a look through some books to decide what kind of cake to make for Lena’s birthday.
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