I THINK the place was called World of Tiles or Tile Planet. All tile suppliers seem to have galactic aspirations, but then they know you’re not going to be drawn to somewhere called The Tiny Shop of Tiles.
Unfortunately, size isn’t everything when it comes to tiles, because none of the suppliers I phoned had tiles that looked anything like a contour map of Australia. Since we’ve turned our downstairs toilet into an excavated section of Pompeii, the crazy-tile map is incomplete.
In the end, we had to scour the internet for days, peering at feeble photos of what could have been samples of moon rock for all we knew.
“That’s definitely them,” announced my wife excitedly, making me zoom into a photograph of an entire quarry.
“Is that insects on the tile?” she asked as the quarry workers became visible.
Eventually, we hit payload and found a company very far away who knew what we wanted.
“Like a broken-up map of Australia,” said the bloke on the phone.
There followed a slow intake of breath that got more expensive by the second until I had visions of this bloke nipping down to his personal quarry and chiselling out our slates by hand.
I think that quarry may have actually been in Australia. In fact, it would have been cheaper giving our toilet a dictator-chic makeover and covering it in gold leaf.
Curiously, when they arrived, the tiles looked nothing like the ones on our toilet floor. In fact, they looked nothing like tiles, although they were the right shape.
“Still, they are square,” I said to my wife as I turned one over hoping it might be different the fourth time round.
“They must clean up,” said my wife, meaning, of course, that I must clean them up, which I did by introducing one of the mucky tiles to our outside tap. For a few moments, it began to resemble something slightly similar to what we were after and then it reverted to type and grubbed over again.
“It’s still square, though,” I said as my wife gave it the full disgruntled inspection. Then we were back at the computer, peering hopelessly at photographs of quarries. In the end, there was nothing else for it: we would have to travel to Tile Planet for a consultation.
In this vast cavernous shed stacked with tiles, there was just one customer being served by an extremely attentive bloke.
“It’s not like you need tiles every day,” reflected my wife as we waited at the counter and listened to the wind whistling through the place.
On the other side of the counter, there was a small display of tile cleaner and sealer which I reckoned was just the job. Above it, there was a display detailing the various processes and products that were required to transform dusty slate tiles into gleaming colourful specimens. I was smiling with relief already.
Eventually, the one customer, a woman, decided she would take a sample tile home with her and the sales assistant carried it out to her car. He was very helpful.
He sort of jogged back into the store, rubbing his hands, then he wiped the metaphorical sweat from his brow and gave the counter a little drum.
I think he was about to say something like: “What can I do you for today, then?” But my wife got in first and explained about the slate tiles and how we weren’t sure if we had to clean them or seal them or glaze them or smash them to bits. Even at this early stage in the game, my enthusiasm was starting to wane.
“Aha, now I must just stop you there,” insisted the assistant, who turned out to be the manager of the entire Tile Planet, and himself, of course, since he seemed to be alone.
“How do you know they’re slate?” he asked, smiling away to himself and glancing back and forth at us.
My wife looked at me, I looked at her and at that moment we knew we were trapped.
“Because they’re the same on both sides?” I ventured nervously.
“Spot-on; we have a prizewinner,” declared the bloke, sending a ripple of excitement through my wife at the mention of the word prize.
“Now, then,” he continued, cracking his knuckles and swivelling round to look at the wall display behind him, “let’s consult the oracle.”
For a moment, I thought we were going to play some sort of game and I was beginning to get excited about this prize myself.
“You could colour-enhance, or seal and colour-enhance, or you could strip away, then seal and enhance or you could seal and just leave it. Of course, you’d have to clean first, then seal before you grout, do your grouting, then seal again or enhance and seal. What do you think?” he said, placing about a dozen different bottles on the counter in front of us.
We looked at one another blankly, so the bloke dived into detail about how each product worked and how each one had a particular job that had to be done in a precise order.
Twenty minutes later, we were still looking at one another blankly, so the bloke scratched his chin.
“Let’s take these bad boys out of the equation,” he said earnestly and pulled three bottles away, then consulted the chart again.
“What have we won?” asked my wife.
“Right,” said the bloke, “I think I’ve cracked it for you; repeat after me: clean, seal, grout and seal.”
So we did.
The third time round, I noticed we had been joined at the counter by another customer who was also repeating the magic mantra.
“And remember, if you get stuck, you can call the free telephone helpline,” added the bloke, drumming again on the counter with a flourish.
“Is it the Samaritans?” asked my wife, hopefully.
“Similar, but with tiles,” remarked the customer standing next to me.
On the way home, my wife decided it was old-style service at its finest.
“Clean, seal, grout and seal,” we chanted.