Outside my Door - Mansels Road Greerton
Outside the air is still and heavy. The plants are drooping and I put the sprinklers on while I stand here watching and listening. I can’t resist tugging out a few more trails of clover from the earth where I am trying to create an English lawn. It’s irresistible how the long roots intertwine and one gentle tug can release a whole network of clover. I rake the ground over yet again, filling up my wheelbarrow with weeds, leaves and detritus.
The previous owners had a dog, and I am aware of the acrid smell that drifts from the kennel it once inhabited. I have five cats – two of my own, and three I am looking after for my landlord – and I can smell that, too. Beneath the house is a dark, dank cellar where they like to hide, emerging into bright sunshine with cobwebs on their whiskers and dust in their fur.
School holidays and a cacophony of sound. The neighbour’s kids have revived skateboarding up and down the steep driveways, fall off, and weep; complain about turns, and scream; do something right, and yell in triumph. Brothers and sisters bicker and argue as brothers and sisters will, and best friends fall out, make up, fall out and flounce home, flinging secrets and insults on the air.
Someone is burning rubbish – strictly illegal – and someone is smoking a cigar. I imagine the rich man on the deck supervising the work and puffing on a fat Havana while the poor downtrodden peon humbly totes the unwanted bits and pieces down to the end of the garden and strikes a match. Or perhaps its hamburgers on a barbecue uncleaned since it was purchased from The Warehouse on a special offer over three years ago.
Idly I pick off some lavender and rub it between my fingers. I decide to plant the olive tree, and weeding the small area of ground I’ve picked for it discover mint and bergamot, shoofly plants and chives. Delicious. No wonder the cats like to sleep here in the sun. Tomorrow I’ll dust off a deck chair and join them, if the rain holds off.
The Keys
The keys were lost again. Georgie knew they were not and had never been inanimate objects. She could swear they were inhabited by a malign life force that directed them away from her sight as soon as she had laid them down, scurrying under the bed, or lurking beneath a pile of newspapers. Or burrowing into the deepest, darkest corner of her bag confident they would never be found until, exasperated, late, driven to distraction, she would up-end the organiser and scatter everything far and wide - and there they’d be.
“You should hang them up as soon as you come in”, said Henry, and he went out and bought a key tidy – sunflowers, definitely not her style. He got out his drill, his slide rule, and the dustpan and brush. Lo and behold! Within twenty minutes his pedantic efficiency had secured the key tidy to the wall exactly where she could ignore it as she rushed in with a week’s shopping in bursting bags or late to pick up the kids or with the telephone ringing urgently on the kitchen bench.
Later on she would remember that Henry was due home and would expect to see the keys hanging there, smugly obedient, ready to hand. The search would begin and get more and more frantic. She’d bribe the children to abandon toys and join her in the hunt. The places they chose to check out got wilder and more desperate. Surely no one sane would put keys in their children’s gummies, in a butter dish in the fridge, or in the baby’s potty? By the time she found them she would be so mad she wanted only to hurl them out the window. Lost forever in the deep dark gully that bordered their section.
Then she would recall what the keys were for. To get in, get going. Oh, there must be some better way to drive a car or open a door. Perhaps they could put a coded entry pad on their front door. Perhaps someone would invent a voice-activated vehicle …
Huh! That was as likely as her turning overnight into a female version of Henry. Well, they did say opposites attract, thought Georgie, though she sometimes wondered for how long. And suddenly she sat down in the chair, the keys forgotten as she began to count her blessings and found them coming in below target.
Keys
If knowledge is the power, then information is the key. Finding out will bring you the keys to the kingdom. Lock a door on me, and you will experience a scorch of anger directed at you. This has something to do with claustrophobia, and something to do with exclusion. Especially lock me out of my own home or my own workspace, and I will explode with range. The jingle of keys in my hand is a powerful comforter. Piano keys – the expert spread of fingers upon ivory and black. What is the key and where is the door? Open, sesame. I would prefer a thumbprint to get into my house. I have spent hours searching for keys or waiting on a cold doorstep while I fumble in bags or pockets. I would like a silver key to the gates of St Peter which I imagine as made of lapis lazuli and mother of pearl. I would like to know how to unlock my mind, my creativity. I like boxes that lock without a key, puzzle boxes that no-one else can get into. I like a locked trunk with treasures from my past. I like a key to turn when I am inside the bathroom so no-one can get in and I am inviolate. I like a quay also – to stand and watch the water, watch the boats. A French detective could be Monsieur le Clef. What is the key motif of my life? Lack of focus, lack of drive. Dreams of locked doors and lost keys.
