Spuds to Peel

Ben Wildsmith

I’m never good on the phone. It’s because I can’t see the person on the other end and it triggers paranoia that they are pulling faces at having to speak to me.

You’d think that the onset of video calling would have solved this problem but, alas, that comes with its own angst as I become convinced that I look ridiculous, or my home is being judged by whoever was inconsiderate enough to put me through social hoops like this.

This morning, not long awake, I took a Christmas call from England and actually negotiated it quite well.

I remembered to ask how people were, remained present and listening, reflected back the correct tone of voice and kept it light. This last stricture of seasonal etiquette had proved beyond me on Christmas Eve when, after finishing watching The Abandons on Netflix, I subjected Mrs. W. to a twenty-minute, gin-fuelled Marxist critique of the programme’s shortcomings.

It was a Yuletidal faux pas surpassed only by the time I made a religious relative watch the complete works of Bill Hicks on DVD one Christmas afternoon. I meant well on both occasions, but timing is everything.

I was smashing the phone call, though. I diluted my characteristic sarky humour to a seasonally appropriate pitch and described how the day was here in Wales.

Absolutely beautiful this morning, wasn’t it? After all the rain we’ve had, it’s so nice to have some clear skies, I babbled, pretty sure I was on safe ground.

Then it happened. Coming to the end of my section on the weather, I paused, expecting a reciprocation about conditions on the other side of the country. None came. There must be no silence during phone calls, not so much as a nanosecond.

The only way to negotiate them is to race onwards, arms pumping like an Olympic sprinter racing towards the finish line where the call can be ended and I can commence fretting that I said the wrong thing and made a fool of myself.

In this moment, silence enveloped me like a disorientating fog, and I began to panic. Say something, for God’s sake! Distract me from knowledge of my own mortality!

On the silence went, until I could take it no more.

‘We’ll probably go for a walk later,’ I blurted out eventually. Mrs. W. looked at me half-puzzled, half-amused. ‘Going for a walk’ is emphatically not the sort of caper I generally suggest, particularly on a thick-headed Christmas morning with spuds yet to be peeled and further phone calls to accomplish.

It is, however, precisely what she would like us to do more often so I found myself checkmated into physical exercise because of my unwillingness to cease mental exercise.

A pause in conversation should be an agreeable rest, not misconstrued as a portal into the abyss. My inability to tell the difference had landed me outside in the winter sunshine with my big coat on.

We pottered down towards the river, over the bypass and past the rows of terraces behind ours. Houses facing the main road were, we noted, more ostentatiously Christmassed-up than those hidden away from it.

How much of all this, I wonder, is for joy, and how much to give the impression of it?

The sky was paintbox blue. The mottled, Monetesque Rhondda skies fascinate me, changing from one end of the street to the other as if emotionally unstable.

Usually, they are all about the drama, but this morning’s bright peace settled over our stone houses like reassurance. Some hardy souls completed their morning runs, knowing they’ll feel the better for it.

At the river, three ducks were enjoying the sunshine. Playfully, they swam against the current as it came off the weir, testing their strength before jumping out on to the bank.

‘Reminds me of our Lord Jesus,’ I remarked, provoking a raised eyebrow.

Holding hands, we walked back to our warm home, and I felt everything all at once, the whole glorious contradiction of being a human in nature, at home, and in love. There were spuds to peel.