('Orlando', Virginia Woolf, 1928, Hogarth Press)
“Here. Pick one.” Said my
gentleman friend, flicking a card over the desk at me.
I had arrived for my regular weekend
fix of coffee, cats, and newspapers. His house reminds me of the
Ambassadorial London flat in which I grew up. I feel ‘at home’
with the cracks in the ceilings, the occasional dodgy floorboard, the
wallpaper peeling a bit here and there. I’m even strangely fond of
the Crittall windows that let in howling draughts. My home though,
built in 1880, had massive wooden sash windows with huge weights
inside the frames. When the rope in one of them broke, I remember
rescuing the weight and dragging it around after me pretending it was
a dachshund. I called it ‘Bozo’. We were inseparable. The window
never did get fixed. We wedged it open with a brick.
I picked up the card and turned it
over. He had apparently ‘won’ a subscription to one of a
selection of four magazines, but didn’t fancy any of them. Thought
he’d leave it to me to choose.
The choice was depressing. Fashion or
Gardening. Nothing on aeroplanes or archaeology that would have
delighted us both. Sighing, I picked one of those monthly glossies
that was all about how to live in the English countryside.
“Yes” he agreed. “It’s
probably going to be the least offensive.”
Famous last words.
When the first edition arrived, he had
left it in its wrapper for me so I could have the excitement of being
the first to view what we assumed were going to be articles on dry
stone walling, coppicing, conservation, rural political issues, and
the best footwear for staying upright in mud. What we found were page
after page of adverts for weird granite-topped kitchen ‘island’
units (“What’s that even FOR? Not as if you can sit at the damned
thing...”), obscenely priced copper ‘farm worker’ bath tubs
stuck in the middle of bathrooms with billowing muslin curtains in
the background, and article after article featuring the ‘work’ of
yummy mummies making dollies and doylies, pottery, whimsical
paintings, and carving ‘decorative’ wooden things in converted
milking sheds.
All this industry went on, we noted,
while the children were away at boarding school, and hubby was away
all week in London, working to pay for it all.
It was a powerful emetic, but the
thing that struck me most overall however, was the fashion for grey.
50 Shades of. Everywhere. Walls, floors, carpets. To top it all off,
there was usually an arrangement of large stones featured in the
middle of a table or something. The smarter the country residence,
the more likely it had been painted to resemble the interior of a
19th century institution.
As masochism took hold, I started
snooping on Zoopla for houses in my area for around the £2million
mark. The sellers had all been reading the mag too, it seemed. No
matter how elegant the exterior, how noble, Georgian, or ‘character’,
the interiors all looked exactly the same. Viciously ‘clean’
lines, savagely smooth surfaces, chrome, glass, skylights, brushed
metal floor lamps, ceiling spot lighting. I found myself wondering
why, if someone wanted a modern home, they didn’t just buy one, or
have one built. I also found myself dreaming of a massive Lottery win
so I could buy just one of these beautiful properties, rip everything
out, and return it to its former gracious glory.
 |
| So inviting on a cold winter's day... |
Yet, for a few months, I’ll admit we
did continue to enjoy jeering at this magazine together. It was a
bonding experience. I would find it in its wrapper every time. I
liked to think my marvellously indulgent gentleman friend was
indulging what he realised was my fondness for rending and tearing
(first witnessed when he handed me a knife to pierce the film on a
microwave meal). The reality was of course, that he just wasn’t
interested. I made sure I read bits out to him though. I wasn’t
going to keep the experience all to myself. Especially the icky,
fake, ‘romance’ column.
This was a monthly glimpse into the
world of a fictional country widow, looking for love among the hay
bales. It was suitably ‘ditsy’, and frightfully middle class. One
somehow couldn’t imagine our heroine copping off with a terrier man
or a poacher. Game-Keeper or MFH, maybe.
At one point, this fictional Country
Calamity Kate fixated on a new neighbour. Her stalking antics were
terrifying. I rewrote the piece from his point of view and sent it to
the editor. It was not favoured with publication.
Not even an acknowledgement come to
think of it. Whoever was writing these giggly 1000 words every month
was undoubtedly one of the Ed’s chums. They probably made jam
together.
Nothing if not loyal, these ‘country’
folk…
©
Emmeline Wyndham - 2018
