I wonder how long it will be before class is determined not by income, one’s father’s occupation, school or socio-economic group, but by simply placing a load of foodstuffs on a table and seeing which ones a given person can name; which ones they can use correctly in a meal; and which ones they eat regularly themselves.[1] My mother maintained that she once heard a large lady get out of a taxi in Henley-on-Thames and accost a passer-by by braying at him, ‘my good man, is there any butter in this ghastly little town?’ In my mind’s eye, the lady in question is tall, bold about the nostrils, and voiced by Penelope Keith. While we were living in Henley-on-Thames ourselves, my mother picked up the habit of referring to builders and other assorted tradespeople as ‘little men’. I found this most confusing (as indeed any child familiar with the work of B.B. would). The men in question were rarely little, and yet I instinctively reach for both this awful term and my Penelope Keith voice whenever I have to deal with ‘little men’ myself.
Recently, we had some repairs made to the roof of the railway room, by a local builder named Tom. He came to survey the damage before starting work, which meant actually coming into the house. This seemed to discombobulate him, and he insisted on taking his shoes off and carrying them apologetically as we went in and out of various rooms to give him a decent look at the relevant piece of roof. We are not a ‘shoes off’ household, as anyone could tell from a cursory glance at the carpets, but he seemed more comfortable this way. Tom turned up a few weeks later, startling me by being on time and on the day we had agreed, accompanied by what I will refer to as a sous-builder. They set to work, fortified with horrible tea (I bought it specially, of which more later), and were finished by lunchtime. This meant that they came into the kitchen (each clutching their shoes forlornly) at exactly the same moment as Giant Bear came home for lunch. Lunch that day was avocado on toast because OF COURSE IT WAS.
The previous day, while purchasing the aforementioned horrible tea, I was suddenly overcome by a wave of reverse snobbery. Why, I reasoned, should I assume that builders must want builders’ tea (i.e. as strong as possible, with milk and two sugars)? We did already have some black tea in the house, but I somehow felt that neither lapsang nor Earl Grey would get the job done. And yet it seemed so silly to buy more tea, when we already have an entire cupboard dedicated to it: black, red, green, white, pink, orange and various shades of herbal in both bag and loose-leaf varieties, as well as two filters, a tea-ball and three kinds of hot chocolate. For guests so bewildered that they can only stammer ‘Whatever you’re having?’ we have the Mystery Jar, in which any lone or unidentifiable teabags are housed, and subsequently fed to the indecisive (see ‘Indecisive Cake‘). We are also in possession of no fewer than six teapots of varying sizes, and, bearing in mind that the house usually contains two people at most, twenty-six mugs. In the end, I bought a box of builders’ tea[2] anyway, but stashed it out of sight so as to conceal the fact that I had bought it specially. Halfway home, it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps they might prefer coffee, but by then it had started to rain and I had to take my chances. A few hours into the roof-repairing, we reached the moment of truth.[3]
‘Can I make either of you a cup of tea, Tom?’ I asked casually (or so it would seem).
‘Yes, please,’ he rumbled. ‘Milk and two’. I had an apple tisane[4], and we were all faintly embarrassed. A couple of weeks later, we attempted to purchase an avocado in Sainsbury’s and discovered that the man on the till had never seen one before and didn’t know what it was. Giant Bear said helpfully, ‘it’s a kind of pear’. This did not improve the situation.
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[1] I recently came across a restaurant review online, consisting of a single star and the following plaintive sentence: ‘They made my risotto with long-grain rice. Need I say more?’
[2] When we lived together, S used to refer to this as Normal Boring Tea (also called Ordinary Tea, like Ordinary Time); my friend H calls it Normalitea.
[3] This phrase actually comes from bullfighting, and refers to the moment when the matador makes the final stroke, attempting to sever the spinal cord by plunging his sword between the shoulder-blades of the bull. In doing so, his whole body is exposed to the horns, and if he does not hit his mark, he will be horribly gored. Truth indeed.
[4] My beverage of choice when watching a Poirot.
