I like a living space with contemporary and Spartan design but I know it will be difficult to keep such a place neat and
tidy. My study room (formerly my daughters’ study room) is chaotic as there are
stacks of books everywhere. A couple of weeks ago, there was a book sale and my
family ended up buying more than a dozen books and they are now occupying space
on my writing desk which was formerly my daughters’ writing desk when they
were in school.
I have read
about espresso book machine that print books on demand. How does it feel to
walk into a book shop where you do not see books? It is always a pleasure to meet book lovers as only book
lovers know how it feels to hold a printed book and run their fingers over the
pages as their eyes devour the writings.
During the
recent book sale, I picked up the debut novel written by Will Wiles. Care
of Wooden Floors is not a manual for caring of the wooden floors but
a satire. As the description on the back cover aptly describes : ‘Care of Wooden Floors is about
loneliness, friendship and the quest for, and struggle against, perfection. And
it is , a little , about how to take care of wooden floors.’
The unnamed protagonist, a freelance
copywriter from London has been asked by Oskar, an old university friend to
housesit his nice and pristine flat which is located in an unspecified part of
Eastern Europe. The story is narrated by the unnamed protagonist in first
person’s voice. Oskar is a minimalist composer who has to be away in Los
Angeles to deal with his divorce. Oskar is a “borderline obsessive- compulsive”
and despite having left very specific instructions on numerous notes throughout
the flat to instruct the narrator about how to care about his cats and the
expensive French oak floors, the narrator spills red wine on the floor and in
trying to salvage the damage, the result is disastrous. From the beginning, you
could smell something catastrophic particularly after reading about Oskar’s
four A 4 pages long of instructions, one of them being ‘DO NOT put any drinks on them without a coaster’ and ‘ If anything should spill, you MUST wipe it up AT ONCE!!!
So that it does not stain the wood. Be VERY CAREFUL. But if there is an
accident (!) then there is a book on the architecture shelf that might help you
. CALL ME if something happens.’
On Day Two, the
narrator discovers a wine stain.
The narrator
immediately runs a dish cloth under the tap starts to rub and scrubbing
‘There
was still a mark. The slightest, faintest curved, blush, hardly noticeable in
the natural grain of the wood. A birthmark awaiting its final laser treatment.
But now my eye was unstoppably drawn to it – as if was as large, as black, as
inescapable as the sofa.’
Over a period of
eight days, the narrator proves to be an unreliable house-sitter. On day five, one
of Oskar’s cats has been killed by the piano lid that was left open when the
narrator had forgotten to close the top of the piano after having it propped
up. He recalled that he had disobeyed Oskar’s note “ Please do NOT play with the piano” and as
he fiddled with piano keys, hit a key, the phone rang. The phone call was from
Oskar and after he hanged up, he completely forgot about the piano.
‘ The piano lid had dropped onto
the cat, breaking its spine. So the piano had been open – I had left it open.
The cat must have jumped up and dislodged the strut that held up the lid;may be
it had stood on the edge, rubbing against the strut. The caricature drunk
supporting himself on a lamp post . Slam. Had it been quick? There was no blood
on the outside, no scratch marks. The body would have to be moved, I thought. I
made a mental edit :I would have to move the body. It could hardly be left like
this . But where? ’
The humour is
wry and dark. The writing is
contemporary and stylish. Will Wiles writes about the scene after the
protagonist spent a late night with Oskar’s colleague:
‘DAY FIVE
White noise. Indistinct sound,
beneath hearing, the growl and whoosh of blood forcing through tight passages.
A two-part beat, the slave-driver’s padded drumsticks rising and falling as an
exhausted muscle trireme heaves across a treacle ocean. A heart, pumping hot,
thick goo in place of blood. Cells striving and dying. The electricity of the
brain whining like an insectocutor. A cascade of neural sparks, an
ascending, crackling chain reaction, synapses firing. Sensation – the sensation
of no sensation. Then, awareness.’
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