Procuring a sofa a life-long affair

There’s a phrase going through my head, like a catchy song you can’t get rid of. ‘‘I sing the sofa.’’ It’s an odd, mesmerising little phrase, and I don’t know who originally wrote it. But I remember reading it, more than 10 years ago, in that sort of quirky little book that people give you as a present. The book in question was all about sofas. It seems farfetched that a humdrum piece of furniture could be the basis for an entire book – but sofas are more complicated than we give them credit for. Most of us sit on sofas daily and don’t give them a second thought. But they’re burdened with such a weight of emotional associations that their springs should be permanently creaking.

Sofas are intrinsically connected to our humanness, witnesses to daily fluctuations of health and state of mind. You lie on a sofa when you’re ill. You curl up on one when you’re feeling fragile. Perch on one when you’re nervous. Sink into one when you’re relaxed. Recline on one when you’re amorous, collapse on one when you’re hungover, and are banished to one when you’re snoring.

What’s more, your sofa – because usually it’s in your life for a long time – has to be something you really feel strongly about. Many people abandon cats, wives, dogs, or husbands, but can’t bring themselves to part with their sofas.

Perhaps this is why shopping for a sofa is such a fraught occupation. The only time I entered a furniture department with spending in mind, I felt ill almost instantly. The smell of foam and fake leather! The stuffy air! The claustrophobic mix of domestic anxiety and consumer determination! I had to go home and lie down. On my dumpy old sofa.

Leafing through a Murakami novel the other day, the word ‘‘sofa’’ leapt out at me. ‘‘I never understand how people can be lax about choosing sofas,’’ mused the narrator, proceeding to display the usual Murakami willingness to riff and digress.

‘‘There are people who drive luxury cars,’’ he explained, ‘‘but have only second- or third-rate sofas . . . I put little trust in such people . . . Procuring a good sofa . . . requires style and experience and philosophy. It takes money, yes, but you also need a vision of the superior sofa. That sofa among sofas.’’ Aha! I thought. So other people feel the pressure too!

For the past six years, my father-inlaw has been donating money to what he calls our sofa fund. He’s too polite to say so but it distresses him when he visits and witnesses our sofa, pulled from a skip, restored but still far from pristine. Every Christmas and every birthday he writes a cheque, which usually gets spent on essential things like rent and food.

Yesterday, at last, a sofa arrived into our lives: quietly, without fuss. We passed a shop window, saw the sofa, walked in. It was plain, it was modest, it was comfortable – and it was on sale. Before nausea could overcome me, I said, ‘‘Let’s buy it.’’

It arrives tomorrow. I’m far from sure if I’ll take to it, but I’m hoping for the best. Because a sofa – like a pet – isn’t just for Christmas, it’s for life. And anyone who likes reading, or lounging, or living, needs a good sofa.