Moving the Furniture

          This week, I re-positioned an armchair and in doing so made a small but significant change to my outlook. Not only do I get an altered visual perspective when seated, but the spatial dynamic of the room is changed so that a previously ‘dead’ corner has now been brought into use with the aid of a side table I had earmarked for sale on Gumtree. It’s been six months since we moved into this flat and, whilst we are intent on setting it up to suit our lifestyle, I am keen to avoid the trap of creating the kind of later-life abode that is comfortable but immutable and really only a form of premature entombment. Hence the occasional re-shuffling of furniture and ornaments.

          The unwanted stuff in the garage, destined for Gumtree listing, has begun to diminish. The easing of lockdown emboldened me to advertise at last, inviting would-be buyers to view and collect. It seems I need not have waited, however, since buyers so far have insisted on delivery: Sandy, from Newcastle, who bought the hi-fi speakers, got me to pack them up and send by Parcelforce, despite my misgivings about the possible damage in transit; Paul, from across town, wheedled me into delivering the ladders because he didn’t have a car; and Shane, from Torquay (an hour’s drive away), also played the ‘I don’t have a car’ card, so I duly joined the fleets of ‘fulfilment’ vans plying the roads.

          Gumtree is a useful addition to the local newspaper classifieds and corner-shop window boards – if they still exist – but I have found it intriguing beyond its transactional functionality. I notice the user etiquette that has developed and the ways in which mutual trust is built in the lead-up to the deal. The tone of the initial email might be quite curt – “Is this still available” – but can soon turn friendly, with “please”, “thank you” and “would you mind?” lubricating each exchange. And there is that innate curiosity that drives you to speculate on what sort of person you are dealing with at the other end of the line – why are they buying/selling? what is their situation? – and the visceral need to know what they look like, to put a face to the voice. In the case of Sandy of Newcastle, I never saw him (I say “him” because my unconscious bias that tells me that only blokes buy hi-fi speakers) but ‘he’ had a very polite manner, even to the extent of emailing to confirm safe delivery of and satisfaction with the goods. Paul, the ladder-buyer, was not the rough builder that my mind’s eye had fixed upon. He was a 30-something, cheery-faced office-wallah who, having just returned from living in Hong Kong, had bought a house and was fixing it up. But the most intriguing of the three was Shane.

          Initial correspondence was by email, during which it was established that he would buy the amplifier if I delivered it by Saturday afternoon. Was he about to throw a party? When we spoke by phone, he seemed young and polite, but in an old-fashioned way, offering “refreshments” on my arrival. He also had a very faint trace of a foreign accent. Approaching his house on a steep, narrow street in an otherwise nondescript suburb, I was confronted by a two-metre-high, impenetrable fence, behind which small terraces populated by exotic statues led down to a patio door from which Shane emerged, shyly. His geekish long hair framed an inexpressive face that had eyes only for the amp. Conversation did not flow, so I declined the refreshment and forgot to ask him about his deadline. I did ask him if there was a turning at the top of his road, but he did not know. “I don’t go out”, he said. “No worries”, I said and bade him goodbye. But as I left, I’m sure I heard the sound of a tomb being sealed.