Entry: The Watering Man (no. 6)

The Watering Man of number six is most reliably observed at dusk, when he emerges to attend to a front garden that, by any honest measure, does not require it. The garden is four square metres of gravel and three shrubs of the indestructible municipal type. He waters it anyway, slowly, with a brass can, and this is the behaviour I wish to record, because it took me two years to understand it. He is not watering the shrubs. The shrubs are incidental. He is watering the hour between coming home and being properly home, the decompression hour, and the garden is merely the excuse the hour wears so the neighbours do not worry. I know this because I do a version of it myself, with bins. We all have our brass can. Field note: the species is widespread, possibly universal, and is characterised by the maintenance of a small visible task that licenses a large invisible pause. Do not interrupt the Watering Man. He is not gardening. He is recovering from his day in the only socially acceptable form available to a man of his generation.