Whether it’s old age or too much time together in isolation, I don’t know, but Dave and I are exhibiting distinct signs of madness. We are beset with a witches’ brew of irritations: things that don’t work, problems we can’t solve and stuff we can’t fix, plus each other’s maddening little habits.
He has been tipped over the edge by his car. Its sensors have gone haywire, bonging and pinging and beeping all the time to tell him his tyres are flat, his seatbelt isn’t on and his bonnet isn’t shut. None of this is the case, but he has to keep stopping to check, because the dashboard is flashing urgent messages and the constant, deafening “Bong! Ping! Bong! Ping!” is – as it’s designed to be – unbearable.
Two visits to the garage haven’t silenced it. I dare not inquire any more, for it will precipitate a profane rant about over-computerised cars. Anyway, I’m far too busy wondering where my own marbles are, as I sit outside with a long stick on my knee pretending it’s a gun. I’ve a full-time job protecting the song birds.
We used to have a big wire nut feeder on a bird table in the middle of the lawn, which attracted woodpeckers and nuthatches. For several days in succession we found it lying on the grass, nuts scattered. We blamed the wind even when it wasn’t windy. The next day, full and heavy, the feeder vanished. Red squirrels, I thought. Plenty around. Two working together might have dragged it off. Pine martens even; they’re strong and clever. High kudos bragging rights for those kinds of burglars. A friend was less grandiose. Crows.
And the minute he said it, I remembered. There had been two of them, perched at the very top of trees either side of the garden, ominous black figures on surveillance. I’d noticed them because they’d sat for ages, creepy harbingers. I’d rolled outside and waved my arms; they hadn’t moved. But the minute I got a stick and lifted it like a rifle, they flew off. I even shouted, “Bang!” like I was eight.
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Of course! The crows had stolen the nut feeder. They’d recced the situation, had a few trial runs when they’d dropped it, then – perfect job. Now I’m ready for them. I’m not physically able to wire the feeder to the bird table, damn it, but the stick’s on my lap, loaded with my best tomboy gun noises, and I’m a mad old vigilante on wheels.
Inside the house, the bonfire of irritations brings me out in a rash. It’s everything. Impossibly tangled appliance wires. Door handles I can’t turn. Curtains hanging off rails, which neither of us can fix. My chaotic office. Lightbulbs with weird fittings and unreadable wattage, which we can’t find replacements for. The new TV that’s so smart it’s stupid, and we have to keep switching it off at the wall to reboot it. So Dave can watch Liam Neeson killing yet another baddie.
The tyranny of cooking. The fact that Dave won’t eat potatoes with their skins on. In any form. Doesn’t eat rice either. And pasta only as spaghetti, and only with bolognese. Was ever a man so fussy? Was ever a woman so controlling? Dave’s irritations include wood-burning stoves, the lack of sport on TV, microwaves with too small buttons, queuing outside a shop for a tin of beans, me “standing over him”, the mournfully closed doors of the pub, online banking and payments, mobile phones, and barricading his sofa with coffee tables at night to keep the dog off.
Ah, the dog. The tyranny of walks. The smell. I detest dog-smelly houses. And our dog’s addicted to rolling in poo. He wears, permanently, an aroma of billy goat and dog fox with notes of ripe deer carcass. We’re forced to wash him. It’s usually dark and raining. While Dave, with extremely bad grace, fetches warm water and holds the lead, I cantilever out of my chair, rag in hand, mouth firmly shut to avoid a) exploding at Dave’s sulk, or b) getting brown water in it when the dog shakes.
I had a friend who said you knew a relationship was terminal when you couldn’t stand the sound of your partner’s breathing any more. We’re not at that stage. But, oh, for the pub to open so he can cheer up and I can watch what I want on TV.
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Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after breaking her neck and back in a riding accident in April 2010