They charge for rubbish by the yard. I was told I can get rid of 6 yards for £190 or 8 yards for £250.
In the end the men charged me £190 “because of the weight,” whatever that meant.
“This is a very heavy load,” they kept saying. “A very heavy load.”
I certainly feel easier in my mind now it’s gone.
There were two men. The one who drove the lorry was in charge. The other one was his younger brother. The young one was huge but flabby and did all the grunt work moving things up to the lorry. The older one was more muscular and smashed things to pieces before packing them flat. He was very impressed by my cupboards.
“These were built to last, weren’t they?” he said. He was swinging a mallet at the first one while his younger brother looked on attentively. “I’ve smashed up a lot of things,” he said. “But nothing as good as this.”
“My brother-in-law made it,” I said. The brother-in-law of my ex-wife I probably should have said. The two cupboards were the ends of a huge construction that originally held my daughter’s bed suspended four feet off the floor.
“He must have been trying to impress you,” the man said.
“He’s a woodworker,” I explained. That’s an upmarket carpenter. “They weren’t cheap.”
Eventually he broke the joints and knocked it flat. The younger one tried to smash up the second cupboard but he didn’t have his brother’s finesse. It takes more than brute force to flatten a well made piece of furniture. The more experienced brother showed him how.
After that he had to have a bit of a breather. He ripped open one of my rubbish bags. “What kind of books are these?”
“Literary stuff.”
“Oh!” He lost interest immediately. If he’d persisted he might have found my big book of the mighty Thor. But like Thor, he didn’t need much rest. He was back swinging his hammer at my chest of drawers.
When everything was all smashed up and loaded onto the lorry he shook my hand.
“Pass on my compliments to your brother-in-law,” he said. “Those cupboards were certainly something.”
“I will.”
His eyes still glowed with admiration. It was a poignant moment for all of us as we each paid our respects in our own way to something that was now gone forever.
