The Doorbell

Somebody is at the door. Five accounts of eleven seconds.

FRANKLIN

A summons.

Let me explain what a doorbell is, since nobody in this house appears to understand it. A doorbell is a person, outside, requesting an audience. The request is directed at the senior resident. It is not directed at the woman of the house, who merely operates the door, and it is certainly not directed at the large yellow one, who was asleep.

I was at the door inside two seconds. I was at the door before the second ring, which I would like noted.

My position, which I held throughout, was that whoever this was should be brought in and presented to me properly, and that the handling of it by the staff, which consisted of opening the door eight inches and saying “oh, hiya,” was beneath the occasion.

They did not come in. They handed over a parcel.

A parcel. For all of that.

I have filed a complaint about the standard of visitors and I expect it to be actioned.

COOKIE

Eleven seconds, from the bell to the door closing.

I was on the shelf. I did not move and I was not going to move, and I want to record that I had identified the caller before the bell was pressed, from the van, which has a particular idle, and which stops two doors down and then comes along.

It is always the same man. It has been the same man for a year.

The household greets him every time as though his arrival is a surprise.

ABBY DOG

Oh, somebody’s here.

I don’t know who it is yet, that’s the whole point, that’s the good part. It could be anybody. It could be the one with the beard who sits on the step. It could be the small ones from the house with the blue door. It could be a person I have never met, which is the best outcome available, because a person I have never met is a person I am going to be very pleased about in approximately four seconds.

I got to the door. I got my whole front half round the door, actually, which is as far as you can get before somebody puts a knee in front of you.

It was the parcel man. I love him. He is one of my favourites and he knows my name.

He said “alright, Abby,” and he knew my name.

DAISY

I was in the hall, which is the wrong place to be when the door goes.

Everybody has to come down the hall to get to the door and I am in it, and I know I am in it, and the pug went over the top of me and the small one went round and I got up as fast as I could and then I was standing up in the hall which is worse, because standing up I am much bigger than lying down.

So I went back into the front room.

Then I thought I should be able to see who it was, in case, so I came back to the door of the front room and stood in that doorway instead, which is also a doorway.

By then it was finished.

It was the parcel man. I like him. I did not say hello because by the time I had sorted out where to stand he had gone, and I did not want to bark at him through a closed door because he had not done anything.

MILLIE

It was the parcel man.

The van comes at about the same time and it stops two doors down and you can hear him do the other houses first, so by the time the bell goes it has been coming for four minutes.

I stayed where I was.

The pug went past my head at speed and the small bearded one went past the other way and the big yellow one got up and sat down and got up again, and then they all came back, and the whole of it took about eleven seconds and there is now a box in the hall.

Same time tomorrow.