The man from the Corporation was fixing the bin-cupboard by the front door; trying, I think, to rip out the hinges and put in new ones. He kept going on about Rangers and Celtic to a joiner working at the next house along. I could hear their voices from upstairs, where I sat by the fire chewing a corner of the old, purple candlewick that covered my mother's bed. I stood up on bare feet, and walked to the boiler, a round thing wearing a furry jacket that hung in a built-in closet. They called it the immerser. I put my arms around it, and strained to make them go all the way, but even with my fingers at full stretch I couldn't grab the wooden thing behind. There was something there; I knew there was; it had been there for ages. My right hand could just flick the edge of the thing, just about pinch a corner, but there was no grabbing it. In the end I squeezed my body halfway round, and pulled hard until the thing loosened and fell into the middle of the room with me underneath it.

LRB 11 May 1995 | PDF Download