Viva Brighton Issue #67 September 2018

COLUMN
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Lizzie Enfield
Notes from North Village
The house is quiet and candlelit when I arrive home.
The teenage boys are sitting quietly, absorbed in a
game of Monopoly.
I’d expected to find them agitated and grumpy after
an overdose of online gaming.
“Is it ok if I have friends round for a bit of
technological carnage?” my son had asked, before I
left for a day in London.
He knows that, like all good North Village parents,
I worry about the impact of computer games, while
recognizing they are part of the social fabric of his
generation.
“Make sure you eat first,” I say. “Properly.”
As if green vegetables will protect him from screeninduced
hyperactivity.
“We will,” he replies and I can see that they have
eaten, as soon as I enter the sitting room. It’s littered
with coke cans, bottles of something blue, crisp
packets and sweet wrappers – and board games.
As well as Monopoly, Articulate is out, plus the chess
set and draughts.
“No one left to kill in Call of Duty?” I ask, raising an
eyebrow, which they won’t be able to see in the near
dark.
“Power cut,” my son replies. “There was a massive
thunderstorm and there’s no electricity now.”
“Ah!” I go to the fuse box hoping a flick of a switch or
two will restore it. But nothing.
I go into the street, hoping to find other neighbours
wondering when power will be restored, but see only
the soft glow of electric lights coming from their
homes.
It’s just our house in the dark.
I find a 24-hour electrician. I need to Pass Go to
afford his call-out charge but a credit card will do.
He arrives a couple of hours later, diagnoses dampinduced
short circuiting and says the remedy involves
extensive re-wiring.
It’s late by now and he suggests making a start in the
morning when it’s light. Will you manage without
power this evening?
It seems we will have to.
My son’s friends cannot. They’ve had enough of the
dark and board games.
They leave.
The following week feels much longer than a week.
There are so many electricians pulling up floorboards
and drilling into walls. And so little electricity.
We are reduced to a single power point and a
dangerous-looking array of extension leads. The
boiler is off limits so no hot water. The idiom “we’re
cooking on gas” gets used a lot. It’s the silver lining.
But eventually it’s sorted and everything works again.
And not long after there’s a knock at the door.
It’s one of my son’s friends, one of the candlelit
Monopoly crew; or so I think.
“We have electricity!” I say, triumphantly, as I open
the door to him. “And hot water!”
“Oh, that’s nice,” he says, looking at me nervously.
“Mum,” I hear my son coming down the brightly lit
stairs. “Jem wasn’t here last week.”
I think about telling him we’re playing Monopoly and
I have all the utility companies, but I don’t.
Illustration by Joda (@joda_art)
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