Drip, drip, drip. The noise of my downstairs London conversion flat, where the plumbing was fitted by turn-of-the-century sadists who booby-trapped the building so that if the upstairs neighbours ever dared to try to re-fit their bathroom, they would unleash a leak and never, ever be able to find the source.
Drip, drip, drip. The water drips from their bathroom, through my ceiling into my bathroom through the middle spotlight of the false ceiling, which is now camouflage-patterned with damp patches and horrible yellow watermarks, into a big red bucket.
Drip, drip, drip. It is like Chinese water torture. It started when the two brothers upstairs (I mean siblings. I’m not using the slang for black guys, before anyone gets too excited) put in a new bathroom a few weeks ago. I feel a bit sorry for them.
Handsome, polite young men they are. They bought the flat together recently, presumably because it is so hard for twenty-somethings to get on the housing ladder these days.
Little did they know that a few weeks after beginning their renovations, they would be dealing not only with a half-ripped-out new bathroom, as their desperate plumber searched for the source of a mystically evasive leak, but worse, with the wacky woman downstairs who is apt to burst into tears when she can’t get her Sky broadband booster delivered. Let’s face it, an incessant leak through the bathroom ceiling was never going to be something I handled with distinction.
At first, I was calmness itself. I let it all wash over me, so to speak. The XBB (ex-builder boyfriend) came round, assessed the situation, went upstairs to inspect the new bathroom and then consorted with the neighbours’ plumber, a cheerful Irish chappy in a long-sleeved white vest.
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