My ceiling has unzipped itself.
I come in at 7pm to find water dribbling steadily onto my bed, and look up to see an ominous bulge in the ceiling. I show it to Kahlil and Liz from upstairs – who thankfully haven’t quite moved out yet – and they explain it’s due to a misfitting hot water joint they’ve installed. ‘Ikea pipe meets Victorian pipe.’ The joint is now fixed, but a fair amount of water has already leaked through the floorboards during the day, when everyone was out. Including me.
They apologise like mad, but I assure them it’s hardly their fault. These things happen. And it could have been worse. It could have happened when I was in the bed.
They fetch a broom and bucket, and use the broom to flatten the bulge so the remaining water drains into the bucket, ending the drips. I thank them, then wash and tumble-dry the bed linen and apply several rolls of kitchen towel to the puddle on the carpet. It could have been worse.
And then the ceiling collapses.
Lumps of damp, ancient plaster tumble onto the bed, exposing a dark three-foot oblong of wooden boards in the level above. The strip of wallpaper that held them in place peels down in its entirety, tearing noisily across the width of the ceiling until it reaches the other side. The effect is like a giant unzipping his fly. It takes the best part of ten seconds, and I blankly sit there and watch it happen, like Laurel and Hardy. Not thinking ‘I should act fast’, but ‘This is interesting. I wonder what’s going to happen next?’
After the dust settles, I go upstairs again and tell the neighbours. They’re mortified – far more than me – and spring into action, clearing up the mess, hoovering up the dirt and the dust, including the dirt which was there before the plaster fell in. Jokes suggest themselves about my room looking like a bomb has hit it – but how can anyone tell?
They clear the debris into bin liners, load me up with new bedding, do my washing up, and move the bed away from the gaping dark hole that now punctuates my ceiling, just in case anything else falls through. That’ll do for tonight. Watch this space. In case it falls down.
This has happened just as I was thinking that my life needed shaking up, that I could do with a real change. Well, the ceiling now needs to be re-plastered and papered, and to do that I’ll have to finally hone down my possessions and clutter so they can be easily cleared or packed away. Just as well I’ve been paring down my books and audio cassettes already.
The room now smells of clay and plaster dust. Which isn’t entirely unpleasant. It’s the smell of work. Of work past (the fallen plaster must be Victorian), and of work to come.
The drenched items on my bedside table – Ground Zero – include the Dalai Lama’s Little Book Of Wisdom. Maybe the plaster is a big fan of the Chinese Army. Plus a bookmark advertising a new work on Quakerism, Ground And Spring, which has a photo of a bubbling water feature. The caption is ‘Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing affright you.’
***
Earlier that day, I nearly collide with Cherie Blair as she comes out of the British Library Conference Centre. After that, I accompany Claudia A as she takes a terrified Sevig to the vets’ for his annual cat jabs. Given the relatively devastating events of the evening, these details now sound like witches’ omens.
