Right Tom-boy, off with the coat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s freezing Anna.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d says Ellie-May exiting the toilet. \u201cHeard you arrive over the flush.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe wants me to take the coat off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ellie-May comes and thumbs Tom\u2019s cheek, \u201cSo very, very tender.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou keep that jacket on then if you have to Tommy, but you must listen to this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMust I?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWheest now,\u201d Anna flicks the kettle, \u201cwe had a visit from the Dry-Rot Man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more fascinating than you think.\u201d Ellie-May passes Anna bread for the toaster. It\u2019s a six-slicer and one of the reasons why Tom Eale\u2019s climbed three flights of milk-stained steps to The Coldest Flat in Dundee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou know that orange stuff growing at the end of the hall?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYour mould that huddles together for warmth?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTurns out it was dry rot, not mould. It\u2019s gone now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut wait till we tell you about the Dry-Rot Man.\u201d Ellie-May puts a tub of spread in a clearing on the table and Tom reaches for it. She taps his hand. \u201cDry-Rot Man story first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anna warms her fingers over the toaster. \u201cWhat a guy. I mean what a total guy, the Dry-Rot Man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet me offer a more structured account.\u201d Ellie-May moves the spread to a spot further from Tom. \u201cMrs R finally did something about the mould – the rot – and this guy turns up on Sunday. Old bloke, about fifty, greyish hair and thin-built, like a fell-runner but with that pasty workie colour. ‘You girls students?’ he says and when we tell him he doesn\u2019t grunt or ask what we\u2019re doing he just says, ‘very good then.’ Anyway, he nips up into the roof void without a ladder and is down again in a few moments and begins telling us about dry rot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The toaster pings and Anna fishes out the slices with a fork. \u201cYou should have heard him Tom, it was an ode to fungal infection. Ouch. Hot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSeems dry rot\u2019s everywhere and spreading, It\u2019s a species on the make, but most of the time, most places, it still lives quietly enough, lots of dry-rot families going about their business and making sensible plans. Sometimes though they connect up and see a New Jerusalem or the Horsehead Nebula or something and start fruiting like buggery. Go all Dubai-ish and build big towers of flappy stuff. Shoot their cover. But only when the environment\u2019s just right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe means cold and wet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhich means The Coldest Flat in Dundee?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell done Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, your man,\u201d Anna holds out the steaming plate of toast, \u201ctells us how hard it is to kill dry rot, which wasn\u2019t a comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ellie-May puts the plate where the spread was, \u201cHow clever it is, how ingenious, how the old chemical sprays made his fingernails drop off – he said that was great – and what a hell of a beast dry rot is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe did kill the dry rot though.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe did Anna, we now have no dry rot. But he seemed sad when he\u2019d finished. Like Duncan Ban MacIntyre.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Kilmarnock player?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo Thomas, the Gaelic poet who wrote about the beauty of the deer on Beinn Dorain before shooting them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t be as pretty afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re impeding the flow now. Why don\u2019t you eat toast while we tell the rest?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, Tom stretches and opens the spread with two slices in his palm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Dry-Rot Man was packing up his stuff when we mentioned that Mrs R still hadn\u2019t fixed the leak and perhaps that\u2019s why it had been such bliss for the rot. \u2018Oh,\u2019 he says, \u2018have you got a hammer?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was thinking goodness, how are we going to pay for this? Mrs R won\u2019t. So I said he needn\u2019t worry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd I,\u201d says Ellie-May, \u201cbeing more astute said on you go pal. We\u2019re two young women remember. Next thing he\u2019s down at his van with the sprayer and back up with a hammer (why would we have a hammer?). Must have taken the steps three at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe was in good shape right enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThen he\u2019s out my roof light, nicotined fingers grasping the sides and now he\u2019s striding up the slates towards the ridge. Forget health and safety, forget scaffolding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI held onto Ellie-May. One slip and he\u2019d have been crumbs among the wheelies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNext thing we hear hammering, there\u2019s maybe a five-second silence and then the Dry-Rot Man\u2019s head\u2019s poking through my velux. ‘That\u2019s it sorted,’ he says. I smile\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe minced Tom. She was flirting like billy-o.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2026and ask how much and he says It\u2019s nothing, nothing at all and I wait for him to come back in through the roof light. But do you know what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe wanted toast?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re being flippant now. He said \u2018ta-ta\u2019. And disappeared up the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe\u2019d vanished. I thought we should call someone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were about to call someone when I suggested we look out Anna\u2019s window to see if he\u2019d fallen down this side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a job getting the sash up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe both looked down into the Nethergate and while we trying to decide if those were legs lying on the pavement or somebody\u2019s blanket we heard a whistle and who was it but Dry-Rot Man sitting over on the roof of the Cathedral rolling a fag.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe waved to us from one of the spirelets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe\u2019d got down somehow, trotted across the road and climbed up again in three, five minutes at most.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anna shakes her head. \u201cDear Lord, you wouldn\u2019t think that was possible. No ropes or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was an existential afternoon,\u201d says Ellie-May, \u201cIt would be better if you didn\u2019t laugh Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAn old bloke climbing about some roofs was existential?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat too I suppose. But It\u2019s the dry rot I\u2019m thinking of. Putting us in our place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI quite fancied him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tom and Ellie-May lower their slices together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, I did. You\u2019re losing heat gaping like that you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Got dry rot? Need help? Looks like a job for Dry-Rot Man! A conversation from Zusana Storrier about a local legend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[15,22,19,31],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-dundee","tag-nethergate-writers","tag-stories","tag-whimsical"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions\/989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}