A few weeks ago our ninestorey block in a quiet Bristol suburb got a new porter. He sweeps the hallway like a champ, gives the stairwell a proper onceover every week and keeps the front area spickspan. In other words, hes doing his job without a single complaintexcept for one tiny quirk.
Before him, the place was looked after by MrsEmily Clarke, a lady with a heart as big as the building itself. She treated the entrance of our aging block as if it were the lobby of a grand manor, laying down a bright rug every time someone shuffled in. It was absurdly decorative and utterly out of place, but it saved countless toes from the crumbling concrete and the jutting rebar that threatened to turn a casual stroll into a trip to the doctor.
All nine windows on each floor boasted flowerpots, quirky ceramic figurines and a few eccentric turtleshaped ornaments. The sills never gathered a speck of dustEmily polished them as if they were museum pieces.
Then one day a gaggle of lads moved into the sixthfloor flat. Their idea of a good time involved cigarettes, a few pints of lager, and perhaps a cheeky shot of whisky. The flowerpots turned into ashtrays, the shelves became a cheap display of empty bottles, and the delicate figurines were trampled into tiny crumbs. The rest of us tiptoed around the noisy crew, fearing an outburst.
Somehow, Emily managed to befriend the lads, not only saving her beloved decorations but also persuading the boys to relocate their raucous gatherings elsewhere. The clamor in the hallway faded, and in place of the terracotta turtles now sat a tidy ashtray that Emily dutifully cleaned every day.
What truly impressed everyone wasnt just her rare work ethicthough she did start her shifts at the crack of dawn, humming to herself while scrubbing the lift doors and railings with a spritz of disinfectant long before that became the norm during the virus scare. It was the way she chatted cheerfully with the residents, even when they unintentionally increased her workload. When she swept up the endless stream of cigarette butts littering the back gardena task Im not even sure falls under a porters remitshed smile at the balcony smokers and never chide them for their unsavoury habit. Shed simply comment on the weather or the neighbours new garden gnome while gently wiping away their contributions. Over time, the buttladen carpet vanished, and the onceblighted rear yard sprouted tulips, marigolds and flamboyant chrysanthemums.
The most striking sight, however, was Emily when she wasnt in her battered orange jumpsuit. Shed appear with flawless makeup, a neat coiffure, sensible heels that never seemed to mind the rain, and an outfit in pastel shades that could make a spring garden blush. After a day of polishing the stairwell, she looked as though she were heading straight to the Queens garden partyonly her hat was missing.
Her husband, ever the gentleman, would pull up in his car, hand her a tiny flower, and plant a kiss on her forehead every single time. It was a little ritual that never failed.
At the end of August, the elderly ladies perched on the bench outside the block started whispering, Our dear Emilys last day is tomorrow; then shes off to retirement! What will happen to the hallway without her? The next morning I bought a modest bouquet and dropped it off at her little storeroom, where brooms, dustpans and mop buckets lived. To my surprise, a small crowd from the building had gathered: some with flowers, others with a bottle of champagne and a dram of brandy, the grannies shouting blessings while handing over homemade pies and jars of pickles.
Just then the sixthfloor ladsyes, the same ones who once turned the flowerpots into ashtrays swooped in. They taught 65yearold Emily how to take stylish selfies, showed her some funky filters on their phones, and, Im fairly certain, registered her on Instagram and TikTok.
Her husband, the orchestrator of this impromptu retirement shindig, looked a little bewildered as he crammed the cars boot with flowers, brandy and the assorted treats the local grannies had contributed.
Emily herself, dressed in a classic almondcoloured dress threaded with pearls and sporting a slightly bolder makeup than usual, listened intently, trying hard not to let tears spill. Perhaps she realised that no other colleague ever got such a sendoffnever in her life, never elsewhere.
Or perhaps she simply understood, on some quiet, intuitive level, that her modest, unglamorous toil had, without fanfare, made us, the ordinary residents of an ordinary ninestorey block, a little kinder and a touch better off.
