Jim is not an easy character. But he is very good decorator and by his own admission, very cheap. He has decorated lots of houses on our street. People ignore the health warnings about his temperament. Decorators like him are hard to find. He certainly gets on better with the wives.
Jim did some work on my house, good work. And not just decorating; roofing, rendering and a bit of plumbing. I ran around like a skivvy buying materials so he could keep up the good work. One day I made a joke about something he had done, left a valve shut, it was very trivial, but he took it the wrong way and walked off the job. I left grovelling apologies on his mobile and two days later he turned up as if nothing had happened. I even managed to make a joke about having to be careful not to rub him up the wrong way. But from then on, I handled him with kid gloves.
Jim is quick to bear grudges, quick to take offense, and he never forgets a real or imagined sleight. There was a perpetual ‘them’ or ‘they’ who conspired to do things the wrong way; who were out to frustrate him. Don’t get him started on parking wardens or Polish decorators. When he finished my job, I was glad to have him out of the house; glad not to have his brooding, sinister and small minded perspective to contend with. But whenever it rains, especially when it pours, I am grateful for the work he did on my slates and guttering; my roof is like the proverbial duck’s back.
I had not spoken to Jim for over a year, not since his father died. He’s not the type you want to engage in conversation; well you can’t in fact, all you can do is provide him with an opportunity to shed some more invective. But I was walking past his white van the other day and said hello. At first he ignored me, perhaps he hadn’t heard me. So I said it again, louder. He looked at me and said ‘Fuck Off’. ‘I was only trying to say hello,’ I said. ‘And I’m telling you to Fuck Off,’ he said. He meant it.
I realised at the time that something must have snapped inside him and didn’t take it personally; it was too bizarre. I later discovered he had had a nervous breakdown. Even though the attack was unprovoked and quite irrational, I am not sure it was entirely undeserved. I had thought and said enough things about Jim that merited at least a good Fuck Off. He almost certainly despises me; my type. In a way it was quite invigorating. We spend too much energy bottling up our feelings. Certainly he has, from what little I know of him.
Jim must be in a very dark place. He has no insight to shine a light on his demons. No wife to tell him to pull himself together. It’s all out there. I fear things might get worse, that Jim will flip into psychosis. One of his customers on the street is a retired professor of psychiatry. I wonder if he’ll tell him to fuck off. Maybe he should.
P.S. In case your decorator has just thrown a wobbly, Jim is not his real name.
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