3-min read
Five years of doing dishes by hand.
Five years of guilt, filth and dry skin.
Our Sisyphean task had been as simple to solve as coughing up a grand and waiting three days for delivery. How had it taken us this long? The decision had gotten caught between flakey tradies who thought the job was too small and our own flirtation with bigger and better kitchen renos.
The intercom tone bleats through our peaceful apartment. It is loud enough to clench your heart and jolt the dog into manic excitement. Dave must be downstairs.
He is wearing tradie clothes this time, not the jeans and tucked-in polo he wore to provide the quote. His high-vis shirt and shiny bomber jacket are paired with cargo pants covered in dried streaks of silicone.
‘How are you, girls? We’re just replacing these cupboards with the dishwasher today, is that right? Nothing else?’
‘Yeah, perfect. Thanks, Dave.’
My partner is out, so I stand there wondering what happens next, while he gets himself set-up.
In between explaining to me that it was going to be a lot more complicated than he’d anticipated, we chatted about the weekend gone by. He tells me about a Canada-inspired pub he thinks I would enjoy.
‘My friend’s gay and he loved it!’
That’s nice. Obviously, my queerness doesn’t match my likes and dislikes with every other gay in the village, but I don’t want to be the lefty police, he means well.
He asks me whether he can borrow a screwdriver and I tell him my partner takes care of the tools. I’ll have to look around.
‘So she’s the man, then?’
My stomach drops. I know nothing about this guy. His question feels innocent, but the assumptions it reveals make me wonder what I have assumed about him.
I laugh weakly, wondering when my partner will get home. Besides, better to humour him than to get a leaky dishwasher.
The conversation pivots erratically to his Dutch mother. An immigrant parent. Common ground, that’s good.
I tell him my dad is French. It works. He makes a crude but well-meaning joke about France going downhill, too many ethnics. I laugh, wondering where he picked up such a satirical view of French racism.
In the space that intuition occupies before the rational mind kicks in, I realise it doesn’t add up. It’s not a joke. A similar moment must be happening for him, because I hear his jovial tone falter and he resumes his work. We are finally here. The awkward point of noticing the gulf of opinion that yawns between us. I can see the carcass of my integrity lying at the bottom, a victim of my silence. He’s gotten too comfortable. I’ve been too nice.
He finishes his work and leaves.
Focus on the silver lining.
What does it matter if the handy-man’s a bigot, you’ll never have to handwash a dish again.