We felt things moving along and even though we had our bed, a bed Elly chose without me, it was time for the floors to go down. I had managed to convince an Opel, Vauxhall to the Brits, dealer to let me test drive a car on the vague understanding that I was the country manager of an English firm who might have been looking to rent a fleet of cars for his staff. It wasn’t exactly honest but feeling guilty about conning a car salesman was like worrying about feeling a pretentious cunt while watching a French film on your iPad.
The battle plan was simple, buy all the stuff we needed before I had to return the car then actually start doing some work. We had already done the hard part of choosing between the greyish white, dark red, yellow, dirty yellow and all the other stupid colours of floor panels we could buy, choosing the mahogany. The panels slid in through the boot, over the back seat that had been let down and in between the seats in the front of the car. It was riding low to the ground and when it scraped the floor going over speed bumps I was thankful it wasn’t really my own car.
It did the job though and after several trips for various things including paint, underlay and tools we retired it as a delivery vehicle and took ourselves off to scope out kitchens. We priced up several kitchens at various retailers and even wholesalers. They were either in our budget and shite or what we wanted and expensive. The installation was going to cost nearly as much as the units so we took ourselves off to the black hole of young couples weekends that is IKEA.
We had our measurements and designed our dream kitchen. I forget exactly how much they wanted to install it but they were pushing their services hard and am not surprised considering they wanted more than the cost of a beer to screw the handles on. We persistently and politely refused.
I was going to lay the tiles and the panel flooring so I was sure I could build the kitchen as well. Marvin had been staying with Elly when the workers had been there and he helped move the boxes to the second floor. According to him he had been the foreman, overseeing the workers. Elly had let him stay because his Mum had thrown him out after an argument. I was suspicious but the help moving the large boxes was welcome.
It did bother me that he was eating food that I’d paid for, using my bathroom again and he had even planted some trees in the garden. Elly said that they were his present to us but he had a weird obsession with them. He also seemed to be constructing something out of the rubbish in the garden. To me it was just him slipping further into insanity but whatever kept him occupied.
He didn’t help when it was time to paint. He had to go on a pilgrimage with his friend. If you understand pilgrimage as a walk involving drinking then giving up when you realise that even though your fellow walkers are devout Christians they are not stupid enough to give you money for more booze. He returned to our house sullen but defiant. He had his excuses and watched on as I laboured.
He kept walking through our bedroom while I was laying the panelling. He would stand over me and offer up some pointless advice but mainly he was just getting dirt on the floor and Elly had to follow him around with a brush.
He vanished again when some guys picked him up in an old maroon BMW.
“He can’t stay here.” I told Elly.
“He isn’t hurting anyone.”
“He isn’t helping either and am sick of paying for him. I am not his mother, am not his keeper and he is a lazy cunt of a grown man.”
“Are you going to eat that.” She said pointing at a stacked burger.
“Yeah. Am hungry and I’ve earned it.” I said squashing it together.
The egg yolk ran over the thick slice of cheese and down onto the even thicker slab of meat that was my burger. I loved a good sandwich and after a day of hard labour I certainly thought that I’d earned the right to eat what I wanted.
Elly and her brother sat back and supervised but I was a doer and when I was done doing it was time to eat.
“You are what you eat.” She said snobbishly.
“So you are cucumbers and ice-cream.” I said playfully.
She flipped me the bird and started to read a baby magazine.
“It can’t be true anyway.” I said.
“What can’t be?”
“That saying, you are what you eat. I haven’t eaten any sexy beasts recently.”
I put down my sandwich and rolled Elly onto the floor. Our new mahogany panelled floor. It seems stupid but having measured up and cut the pieces, laid them down and connected them finishing off the aesthetic with the skirting board, I felt really proud. Much more so than I ever had from work, more than winning football matches or anything else, I knew what it meant to build something now.
After I’d finished laying Elly on the newly laid floor we disassembled our bed and moved it into our bedroom. The walls which I had planned to be a deep purple were an off white pink. I don’t know what Dulux would have called it but it looked like a baby’s strawberry yoghurt. The bathroom was orange and green, the kitchen was the dark purple on two walls and coffee on the others and Andrew’s room was sky blue. The hall was yellow but a sunset yellow, not the horrible yellow like the village church.
We slept well that night and the next day was dedicated to tiling. The bathroom was more difficult than the kitchen as it already had the toilet and shower installed so I needed to use the rotary saw to cut the tiles. It was fun but when the tile chipped up and nicked your skin it hurt like a muther fucker. I needed the protective goggles as well because a few times it would have caught me in the eye. I had read a lot about how to lay tiles on the internet and had also spoken to my Dad and Scott about it but I still managed to fuck up my first attempt. It took me much longer to chisel the mess I’d made back up and flatten the surface than it did for me to lay it correctly.
You live and you learn though. Mistakes made add wisdom.
It was nice to return to work and my sore limbs needed the rest. Marvin returned to my house and spent the week with Elly but there had been no progress on the construction of the kitchen or anything else when I returned on Friday afternoon. He had added to his weird structure in the garden and it now began to look like a fort.
I was king of DIY though, I could have published a book on it. I would have left the pages blank and sold it with a pen. I was relishing building my kitchen and was glad when Marvin left, leaving me, Krueger and Elly alone. The three of us worked in unison putting the cupboards together. Krueger must have thought it was too easy as he kept nicking my screwdriver, that or he wanted to do it all by himself.
The self assembly stuff from IKEA was a disappointment though. I opened the boxes and the pieces just laid there, self assembly my arse. No you needed the DIY king and helpers. The cupboards took time but were essentially easy, joining the separate units together was harder. A few doors might have gone on the wrong way round the first time and a few handles were screwed into the wrong place but it was all fixable. The worktop, heavy as it was, slotted neatly on top and fixed into place smoothly enough. The real indomitable bitch was cutting the hole for the sink to fit in.
Measuring the dimensions was an art form in itself so I gave myself a little wiggle room. I drew out the oval and drilled enough holes to get the jigsaw in and keep it on track. It was hard work forcing the jigsaw around bends and I broke a few blades as it thrust into the two inch thick MDF.
I would never have guessed that was the easy part. I slid in the sink only to realize that the wood had cut at an angle. I got out the sand paper but it wasn’t something that could be rubbed away easily. I fired up the jigsaw again and tried slicing off thin layers, it was like trying to peel a potato with a hedge trimmer. A more experienced craftsman might have done a better job but for me it was a game of attrition.
I conquered the hole and celebrated as I slide the sink into its resting place. The battle was won but the war wasn’t over. I had to fix the pipes and secure the sink into position. I had to slide inside the awkward space underneath the sink, my back and legs on the kitchen floor, my neck and head uncomfortably raised onto a hard wooden pillow. I reached up and fixed one part of the sunken basin into place only for another part to pop out. Krueger must have felt my frustration because just as I was ready to hand a beat down to the insubordinate sink he climbed up on my chest and gave me a very unwelcome wet kiss. The extra strain on my already sore neck encouraged me to give up for a bit and take the little guy for a walk.
The break was what was needed and everything slotted into place at the first attempt upon our return. Next I went to help Elly with the wardrobes that she had been trying, unsuccessfully to build. I was crouched over on the floor assembling one when a large side piece slipped from the wall where Elly had perched it and cut a chunk out of my back.
I jumped up and hoped around swearing like a sailor. I finally calmed myself down and found a tea towel to press against it. I wet the tea towel but it wasn’t enough so I looked in the freezer for something cold to hold against my wound.
Frozen peas were always the best and when I ran or jogged regularly I’d always keep a bag of frozen peas handy to numb any niggles I picked up.
I was upset that I had bleed on my new floors but then I saw Elly balled over with her face buried in her hands. It sounded like she was crying.
“Am ok, it’s just a bit of blood. I might need a few stitches.”
I put my arm on her to comfort her.
Comfort her?
I was the one bleeding!
I lifted her head and saw her teary red face. She was crying but only because she was laughing so hard.
“Glad I could amuse you. Take a look at it.” I said removing the tea towel.
“Is ok.” She said between snorts of laughter.
I had to drink some beer to numb the pain. The wardrobes could wait. After a couple of cans and a shower I proceeded to make my way into bed and collapse until it was time to go back to Warsaw and work. I admired my handiwork before I left. Slowly, screw by screw, this house was becoming my home.