Wednesday 12 March 2008

Table

New boyfriend A and I have moved in together. We have left my hometown and moved an hour's drive away, so that A can be close to his new post-doctoral job. Dad is very proud of A for having a PhD and of me for bagging him. My university applications have gone in, three of which are London colleges, one for teaching, one for Sussex and one for Kent. So far I have offers from two. In due course I will receive offers from all of them.

Our new house is pleasant and light but bare. I am not working immediately, until J settles into the local school.

This is the closest I have come to living in a pseudo-nuclear family in my life. I have my nose pressed againstthe cold window of the Ikea catalogue trying to work out how to complete the rosy picture. I am too grateful to A to see, yet, what he really thinks of me.

Dad wants to buy us a kitchen table. He drives us to a country pine warehouse. Nothing here looks anything like anything in the Ikea catalogue. Any item of furniture from here will only add discord to thepicture of family life. It would not co-ordinate with the Klippan sofa, the Gruntdal cutlery or the Svepa glasses. I hate everything here. Dad points to a round table. I hate it and request a square table or maybe a rectangular one, maybe in a fashionable blond wood with cuboid legs and straight backs. There is no such item in the country pine warehouse.

A has also been looking at the Ikea catalogue and agrees on thekid of thing we need.

A tells Dad the the yellow pine, flouncy table would be just right. Dad says it would be a good size and sensible. He says it's a family kitchen table, to last a lifetime.

The table is ugly.

A says a circular table would work well in our kitchen. Dad says yes, he's always preferred circular tables.

In that case I think he should get it for himself.

He gets us the table which he delivers and constructs two weeks later.

I hate the table.

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