THERE was an incident the other day that delivered to me and to Geoff a home truth, one of the sort that gives pause for deep thought.
We were at my sister’s house, giving it the once-over in our best janitorial manner, in the absence of both Sis and her husband. I drifted off into the garden, which is lovely and acts like a magnet to me, while Geoff concentrated on the job in hand, like the sensible chap he is.
We reconvened in the hall, he having completed a satisfactory check of windows, doors and obvious burglar targets throughout the house, me having nothing useful to report at all.
Not wanting to shirk my share of the duties any more than I already had, I opened the door of my sister’s office (she works from home) to ensure all was well.
To say it appeared to have been ransacked would be an understatement. The entire room was in complete mayhem, as though toddlers had gone wild, or Tracey Emin had been let in. There were teetering piles of paper and stack upon stack of clutter on every surface and the entire floor was covered in yet more unstable heaps of books and paper.
Just visible was the computer. “Thank God whoever broke in didn’t take the computer,” Geoff said, with shock in his voice.
“I don’t think anyone has broken in,” I replied. “Look, the window’s secure and we know the alarm hadn’t gone off.”
“What the hell has happened in here then?” Geoff asked. He was behind me in the doorway as there wasn’t enough space for us both to stand in the room.
“Nothing has happened,” I said. “It’s just how it is. This is my sister’s office. She works in here.”
There followed a series of small explosions from Geoff as he questioned, firstly, my sister’s sanity and then how on earth anyone could work in a space like that and how had it not erupted in flames. The fire risk must be considerable, he stressed (in both senses of the word) and I think we ought to get out.
We did, and all the way home Geoff banged on about the horror of that room and its inherent dangers to life and limb and how could anyone of my sister’s intelligence . . . etc etc.
I was silent. What could I say? Then came the killer blow, the judgment that would forever hang over me. Geoff said, in the certain knowledge I couldn’t disagree: “If you had a room of your own it would look like that, wouldn’t it?”
It’s true, my natural habitat does tend towards a certain disorder, and although I protested to Geoff that I could never tolerate such chaos as my sister, I knew he knew I was floundering.
So who do we blame? Not Dad. He worked from home and had a most wonderful study, well-ordered, with proper filing systems, and more than a thousand books from which he could instantly pluck the very one he wanted. I loved it in there. It was warm, too, which Dad said it had to be because the intense cold and damp of the rest of the house would damage the books. Wise man.
But Mum is a world-class hoarder who I swear would have disappeared under a tsunami of newspapers and books by now if I hadn’t instituted regular clear-outs. Sis doesn’t join in, come to think of it, but leaves the task to me.
With that realisation, I suddenly feel superior, like a tidy person. I must leave a note for myself to tell Geoff – and hope I can find it.
Sally Hill's Journal 