Tim Dowling: a bargain sofa sounded too good to be true. And so it was

At least once a week my wife texts me a picture of some secondhand furniture: a table from an auction site; a pair of lamps from a car boot sale; a bench from a vintage shop. My responses invariably infuriate her, either for being downbeat (“hmm”) or obtuse (“what is it made of”), so I assume she only sends me these pictures when she wants to be talked out of a rash purchase.

This time it’s a web link to a picture captioned “Love Seat”. But it seems larger than a love seat – it could easily accommodate two people who weren’t speaking. I think: maybe that’s what she likes about it. But the posted price seems reasonable. The main drawback of this sofa is that it’s in Basingstoke.

I text back: “Will it fit in the car”.

She texts: “Why can’t you ever just say something is nice”.

“It’s nice,” I write.

“Yes I think so,” she writes.

The dimensions of the sofa are listed, but when I go in search of the tape measure, I find my wife in the kitchen.

“I bought it,” she says.

“Oh,” I say.

“It was an absolute bargain,” she says. “And I’m going right past Basingstoke on Thursday.”

Contrary to what my wife claims, I do not actually enjoy being the bearer of bad news. But one should play to one’s strengths, and I’m good at it.

“I don’t think it’s gonna fit,” I say, staring into the car’s open boot, tape measure in hand.

“Are you sure?” my wife says.

“No, because it’s very close,” I say. “A centimetre here or there.”

“I’ll risk it,” she says. “It’s on my way anyway.”

On Thursday my wife rings me from the road. “It didn’t fit,” she says.

“I had a feeling,” I say.

“Yes, of course you did,” she says. “I’ve got the cushions and the legs.”

“Well that’s something,” I say. “How was Basingstoke otherwise?”

“We’ll sort it out next week,” she says.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment when a bargain love seat stops being a bargain. It’s still pretty cheap once I’ve factored in the cost of hiring a van, and even after I’ve purchased extra insurance because I have a bad feeling. However, when I consider driving to Basingstoke and back, I realise it’s no longer a bargain for me.

I’ve picked a hire place a bus ride away chiefly because they only have one size of van on offer. In my experience, while car hire companies are always coaxing you to pay more for a slightly larger vehicle, van hire places are always trying to give you the next size up for nothing, as if you’d be doing them a favour. I don’t want this to happen. I still have nightmares about the time I hired a van to move some furniture, and accidentally came home with a lorry.

This time the van is a normal size, but it’s stowed on the top storey of a low-ceilinged car park. In places it seems a very tight fit top to bottom: a centimetre here or there. I put the van in first gear, but I cannot bring myself to release the clutch.

“It must fit,” I tell myself. “They got it in here.” I proceed slowly, wincing, with cars collecting behind me.

At home I find a parking warden standing on the corner. Local restrictions are light – just two prohibited hours in a day – and therefore laxly enforced, but I appear to have arrived in the middle of a rare crackdown: every car in the street is ticketed. I drive around the block twice, but the warden is still there, arms folded, admiring his work.

On the second trip I see my wife at our gate, and I roll down the window.

“I can’t stop,” I say, executing a painful three point turn. “If I get a ticket, this becomes the most expensive sofa we’ve ever owned.”

“I’m ready,” she says. “Let me shut the front door.”

Finally, we are on our way to Basingstoke. “You were fine when you set off this morning,” my wife says. “And now you’re in a panic.”

“The situation developed over time,” I say.

“It’s a lovely van,” she says. “What kind is it?”

“I think it’s called a Jumpy,” I say.

“Appropriate,” she says.

“Do you wanna drive?” I say.

“Sorry,” she says.

One thing goes right: the legless sofa slides into the van with room to spare; there is no traffic on the way back to London; and after just two hours on the road I am returning my hire vehicle. With some relief, I sail up the ramp to the car park, gently clipping the Maximum Height sign as I pass under it.