One minute the house is full – when I walk in the oldest one, and his friend, and the middle one, and my wife are all fussing over a manual juicer the oldest one has brought back from a car boot sale.
“What’s going on?” I say.
“We’re juicing,” says the oldest. There are 20 spent orange halves on the worktop, and an inch of juice in a glass below the squeezer.
“Is it working?” I say.
“Sort of,” says the middle one.
“I might have bought the wrong kind of oranges,” my wife says.
“Did you buy wax ones?” I say.
Twelve hours later, I find myself alone. My wife has decided, with very little warning, to take a train to Dorset to stay with a friend. Everyone else has already packed off. The house is empty, apart from the animals lying on the kitchen floor watching my every move. I can’t remember the last time this happened to me; it must have been more than a year ago.
I don’t mind spending time alone, but I can’t pretend I’m good at it. Within 45 minutes I am talking to myself. Anything over 48 hours and I start to eat with my hands.
But whenever I’m obliged to spend a fixed period alone, a bigger problem presents itself: I don’t know how to use the time. Sitting in my office shed, I find myself paralysed by indecision.
It’s not as if I have no options. I have too many options – tax paperwork, minor home repairs, unanswered emails. I could clean my office – an annual event now three years overdue. I could cut the grass, but I won’t get any credit for that.
I leave my office, cross the overgrown lawn, step into the kitchen and look around. Three lounging animals raise their heads.
I could, I think, try to find a more long-term solution to the dishwasher problem – there’s something wrong with the door latch, so it only works if you seal it shut with packing tape first.
“But in a way, that is a long-term solution,” I say, to no one, “because I’ve got plenty of packing tape.” The new dog thumps its tail against the floor twice.
“I’m not talking to you, of course,” I say. “But this door thing, it’s such a stupid problem. Why can’t my problems be more intelligent?”
“Miaow,” says the cat.
“I didn’t mean to open up the floor for debate,” I say. “I was just passing through.”
I could have a bath, I think, or read the book group book, or both. I could choose one of the five Scandinavian drama series I am currently halfway through watching, and finish it off in one sitting. I could, I remind myself, just return to my office and do some actual work – it is, after all, 3pm on a Tuesday. But work is my primary excuse for being unavailable to do other things. If no one’s here to make demands on me, what’s the point?
The old dog stands, sneezes, and pees on the floor at my feet.
“Great,” I say, lifting the dog and depositing it in the garden.
After cleaning up the piss, I end up back in my office sitting at my desk, holding a banjo but not playing it, while watching global financial indices plummet in real time. This has become my default hobby: a ringside seat to the end of the world.
I receive a text from a language app suggesting that now might be a good time for an Italian lesson.
“It’s been two years,” I say.
I get an email from my accountant, asking for my now very overdue tax paperwork.
“Ugh,” I say. “The pressure.”
My wife sends me a picture of four seedlings sitting in a box at some kind of country garden sale.
Her text says: “Do you want these?”
I answer: “What are they?”
“Some kind of bean,” she writes.
“Yes please,” I write. There is a pause in our communication. On my computer screen, various financial indicators are performing a synchronised dive in slow motion.
“Sorry we’d already left,” my wife writes.
I think: I could plant my own seedlings, or get to the fish shop before it closes, or do those stretches for my back. The new dog sticks its head round the door and yawns performatively.
“I’m actually right in the middle of something,” I say.
The dog enters, pushes its snout under my left elbow and lifts.
“We can go for a walk in a minute,” I say. “But as I’ve explained before, I’m an important businessman, and I …”
“Miaow,” says the cat, from the doorway.
“THIS IS MY TIME,” I say.