Shed With A Hole

When I was a kid, my Dad built a shed. Sheds have their secrets. Closets have skeletons, which they kick out when they reach maturity, to entertain families and friends, and to provide gossip. But sheds see and hear things. The shed that my Dad built saw me grow up. My Dad had probably wanted to put ‘man things’ in there but instead we children stored our bikes in it. But, now that I am older and have moved to the other side of the world, I know one shed that has its secrets. This shed is your typical wooden, once oiled shed, and in need of new hinges and a fresh coat of paint on the old 1960’s door. It belongs to my husband’s childhood friend and I remember the first time that I went into it. I carefully opened the door. What ‘man things’ would I see in here? Well there it was, the October calendar girl looking coyly at me as her nipples winked like the first stars in the dusky sky. I looked at the bench and saw tools, both power and manual. In the corner a bin, with plastic, paper, old rags and some bent rusty nails.
When my husband and I visit the husband’s childhood friend, I have a cup of jasmine green tea with the girlfriend, while the boys head to the bottom of the garden, to the Shed. We talk about work, friends, shopping, and of course the other halves.
‘What does he do in the shed?’ I asked intrigued.
‘He has some time on his own’, the girlfriend said. ‘I think that it’s important in a relationship, don’t you?’
‘Absolutely. So does he make things? Carpentry or, uh, or does he just hang out?’
The girlfriend shrugged.
‘How has his quitting smoking been going?’ I asked. The husband’s friend gave up the vice three months ago at the request, or should I say order, of the girlfriend. I agree with the girlfriend’s view of smoking but she treats my husband’s friend like her child. She tells him what to do and when. Did I also mention the how? But perhaps he likes it that way. Perhaps his Mum treated his Dad in the same way? I am not a psychologist. I should not speculate.
‘He’s doing really well, he hasn’t even touched one’.
I supped my tea lovingly, but longed for a chilled glass of sauvignon blanc. It was 5.30pm already. I changed the conversation to the sale of their house.
‘We have another open home tomorrow. I’ve been scrubbing the kitchen, cleaning and vacuuming all day. I hope this one goes better than the last one’. The girlfriend glanced at the table and noticed a spot of dirt she had missed, so got up to get a cloth to clean it off. Then she sat back down and picked up her mug of tea.
The kitchen door opened and our men came in. My husband smiled at me, and his friend went to the toilet. As he shut the door behind him his girlfriend put her mug on the table and yelled, to my astonishment, ‘Don’t dribble. I’ve mopped in there today’.
I cringed for the boyfriend and looked at my husband with a disbelieving smile. I wanted to grab him at this point and tell him I would never do that to him. He answered me with a grin and his eyes told me ‘I know you wouldn’t’.
‘Seriously. Is she serious? No, really?’ I asked my husband as we left, walking down the garden path, passing the shed.
‘Wait a mo. I’ve left something in here’, said my husband as we walked by the shed. He opened the 1960’s door with the old yellow paint that I can only describe as pork crackling. I followed him in, and that’s when I saw dusky October, who surely shouldn’t be that orange. In addition to the tools and the bench I saw in the dark corner, a small chink in the old pine wood of the shed wall. Below it, on the bench, was a funnel and pipe, of the type that I used at university to down a pint of bitter as fast as was stupidly possible.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Oh, the pipe and funnel? That’s to get rid of the smoke from the Shed so we don’t smell after smoking in here’. My husband grinned. Not too whipped I thought. The boyfriend is not too whipped after all.