Bored

“I’mbored,” she says.

“Go and be bored somewhere else,” I answer (I’m witty like that). I should have known she was coming. My foot’s beenacting up all weekend and like a sailor feels the sea in his bones I get impendingannoyance in my foot. She sighs like a child. She’ll be kicking the chair legsnext. I put down my pencil. “What is it?”

“Bored.”

“Read a book.”

“Read them.”

“Read them again.”

But no this is that special sort ofboredom that needs company. I remember being bored once, I had to wait threehours for a lift and by an unlikely chain of events I had no book (as I’d suggested),no music, nothing. Not a thing had been open, it had been then boxing day, andI in Victoria. If I had not had a colossal backpack I would have walked thetwelve miles home, but I did, so I didn’t. In the end – this wastwenty-something years back – I managed to phone someone I hadn’t been meant tobe seeing to keep me company until the father of the one I was supposed to cameto pick me up. Different times, different person.

“What you doing?” says Mme Roux.

Nothingat the moment, because you’re here. The sprouts are being made ready for bednow Q is home. My day has been crowded with seeing to them in the morning andas much work as could be managed before an appointment in the afternoon,funnily enough about my foot – so I should have known. I’ve got pictures todraw, pieces to write. There are games to prepare. I might like to eat to atsome point. I am never, not ever, bored. Ever. I know people who could neverlive a life of leisure. I could. There are worlds to write and places toportray, people to meet and none of them as it happens, real. There are alwaysthings for me to do, and other things too when I’m doing those things. If Iactually have an hour to myself then I can always crack on with learning aforeign language and having an ear for German I went for Spanish. Which ishard.

            “Can’t we have an adventure?”

            “No, no we really can’t,” I say.It’s my anniversary soon, fifteen years, I’ve got to crack on with making thegift this evening. I can’t be stumbling over lost valleys, not again. Or runfrom Cossacks, or throw an egg at Matisse (not our finest hour). I am neverbored, and not least because if ever I could ever, ever, get everything done,then there’s everything else I could do too. Galton & Simpson made Hancockspend a brilliantly conceived half-hour with Sid where they did nothing butbicker and sigh on a long, empty Sunday afternoon.

            So don’t tell me you’re bored. Don’tpost, write or semaphore me that you’re bored.

            It bores me. “And you,” I say.

            “What?”

Fuck it, I put my pencils away. I putthe pad in its folder. Mme Roux looks up, she grins. I’m going to bake rockcakes. She can’t make toast, that’ll bore her silly.

Hopefully bore her away.