I’ve lived in many places. Flat-shared with the pleasantly eccentric, to the certifiably insane. Watched mice (plural – not singular) run across kitchen floors and purple-grey damp pull ceilings down. At the age of thirty, just after I bought my first flat, I made a list of all the addresses that had led me there. It was over twenty-five. And sometimes I think I went through all that chaos and upheaval so one day I could write about it. Because, trust me, and I hope you do by now, I have some stories …
But this post is about the address that stuck. The house that became a home. Because, property owner or not, it wasn’t until I reached the age of forty that I managed to stay anywhere longer than three years.
Eleven in fact. And we only left a few weeks ago. And it’s not so much that I miss the walls and the rooms and the shape of the space in which I lived for so long, but I’m definitely still in mourning for the time spent there. The years cashed in, the milestones we passed which will only become more distant as I move further down the road.
The night before we left, I wrote a list of everything remembered because there may come a day when I won’t remember, and I don’t want that to happen. I never want to forget the house that became a home.
It was a large townhouse. Three floors, four bedrooms with space enough for unexpected additions, which turned out to be a very good thing indeed.
Here’s that list.
First viewing. February. Heavy boots dusting snow over the welcome mat. A shy Chinese boy hiding behind his father as the door opened.
Next time was May, before we moved over. Sitting at the kitchen table and telling the twins that this was our house now. One of them, or both of them, saying, It doesn’t feel right, mum. One of them, or both of them, saying No. I can’t remember more clearly and I don’t want to, because like a wound that won’t heal, this memory is too tender to examine closely. I knew the move would be hard for them. I also believed it would be good for them.
We joined the neighbours that same evening to help clean-up the grassy area behind the houses. S threaded flowers with the girl-next-door and I remember thinking it might all be alright. The man in the house at the end gave all the kids a ride in the back of his truck; and there were many kids. Two in the end house, two in the house next-door-but-one, two to the right and three to the left. More would come. When they pulled off, shrieking with excitement, I thought again, this might be alright.
Later that evening everyone pulled out tables and chairs and ate together. L and I took a box of wine out. I flew home the next day, wobbly for many reasons.
As summer ended I was flying back for good. Crying as I said goodbye to my parents, crying as I arrived and four weeks pregnant at the age of forty-three.
L didn’t believe me. I went into the bathroom and took another test.
I was still crying weeks later, a can of beer in my hand because we’d decided.
And still crying a week after that, sitting on the bottom stair the morning of the appointment, looking at L and saying, I can’t go through with this.
Like the way the portrait option on a smartphone blurs background, the time before and after this particular morning no longer exists; it’s just me sitting on the bottom step, L looking back at me. The moment is a single poppy head, in the otherwise harvested field that is my past.
Soon enough it was summer again. I’m walking the twins to school. A big sister now, S is so proud. E just wants to push the pram, test the mechanics of it.
A Big Pram. A huge second-hand old fashioned pram. And here’s another poppy head: I’m heaving that pram up the steps of the front garden to the pavement, the crib slipping off its’ chassis, my knee jamming it in place, the wheels slipping and baby M? Well he’s sleeping just as sound as a baby should.
And then it was Christmas, S and E camping out on the living room floor, waiting for Santa.
Me creeping between them filling the sacks.
Summer again. S & E and the kids from next door playing out on the long warm evening before we flew to England. The girls performing a pop song, young voices, slender hips swaying. Their brothers forced into the role of audience, squirming with embarrassment and throwing out high-pitched laughter, because this was years before their voices would break.
Christmas again. Playing Come Dine with me and recording our scores in the laundry room.Home-made advent calendars for the twins. Floating candles in the bath in one pocket, time with mum, on their own, in the next.
Tea in bed, so many summer mornings, the balcony door wide open. M tottering out of our room, into S’s room, out to the balcony and back in through our room again. All of us pretending to be so surprised to see him! And him collapsing onto his padded, nappy bottom, unable to stand a moment longer so puffed up with his own joke and rascally cunning.
That too-warm, too-long day, with the curtains drawn to keep a July sun out and I’m feeding M every 15 minutes, one measured inch of fluids. He’s too sick to take more and too dehydrated to risk less.
That too-cold, too-long night, holding him as he threw up every five minutes. The terrible violent retching of his tiny body. Timing the gaps and the flood of relief as five minutes lengthened to eight, then twelve and twenty. The beautiful sleep we both fell into hours later.
Another summer morning with a coffee still hot and M asleep in his pram in the hallway and me watching Polly Pockets, tied to string, parachute past the kitchen window. One beautiful poppy head memory of happiness.
M dragging his potty to the front door to be closer to me as I tried to place an order with the Fish-man. The fish-man, intent on the sale, ignoring the smell.
Earth day, by candlelight
The first double-digit birthday.
The violent teenage slamming of E’s door, the barricading of furniture. The balling up and hiding under his duvet, me sitting on his bed as he sobbed. Shall I stay? and him nodding a silent, yes.
S’s rashes and acne and tears. The relief of the medication that cleared it.
E’s sprains. M’s cracked bone.
The constant weather of the hallway. Skate bags, tennis bags, beach bags, swim bags. Boots, shoes, trainers, sandals, slippers, flung, piled, tossed and lost. Keys, phones, receipts, leads, coins, apple-cores, lego, leads, string.
The old kitchen table that came across.
The old dining table we inherited from L’s parents.
S’s London wallpaper.
E’s plane wallpaper.
M’s Thomas The Tank engine wallpaper.
M scrawling his name on everything. Under the coffee table, on the window-sill, behind the blinds, next to the coat-rack.
The penciled height-lines on the kitchen wall.
Eurovision, big sleepovers downstairs.
The inflatable pool.
The trampoline.
The ping-pong table.
The Spring bulbs mum planted in the back and front gardens.
The tree I tried to dig out.
The space for bikes I dug out. Shovel after shovel after shovel of dirt.
Candles in the kitchen window for Lucia mornings, the darkest day.
Five bicycles flung on the back deck when E and his friends arrived home, 3am one summer morning.
The paper airplane runway, E made, that we stepped over for weeks and weeks.
S’s goldfish and coming back from England to find hundreds of goldfish babies. The shame as I swished them down the bathtub.
Swim lessons, that first winter.
Swedish lessons that first winter.
Skating lessons that first winter.
Those years when every day had an activity. Sometimes two. Sometimes three.
M and O, such very good tiny friends, holding hands on the way to the park.
The so-so-shy Chinese twins, who eventually went back to China.
D and A. Our first tenants after we converted the basement to a self-contained flat.
Hearing D come home from his dishwashing job at 2 am. A’s scared face when she told me she was pregnant – as if we’d throw them out! The tiny cat-like cries of their new-born.
Airbnb days.
Five Argentinians playing football with M and roasting meat on the grill.
The Pakistani diplomat and the servant who ran away.
The Malaysian student, whose mother flew in for his graduation with a suitcase full of home-made food – which he left behind in our freezer.
My desk. Starting in the spare room which never got to be a spare room. Moved to the corner of the living room -
the hallway downstairs -
our bedroom -
and finally E’s old room, where it settled.
Laying out the scenes from the first book across the floor, trying and trying to gauge an order.
Seeing the twins off on the bus, that misty August morning, the first day of big school. Heart cracking. Another poppy head .
Waving M off on his bike.
Saunas on a Sunday.
Kahootz.
Cluedo.
Monopoly games that died from lack-of-interest, or self-detonated in a fit of bad sportsmanship. (Usually from me.)
The lemon tree I couldn’t keep alive.
Watching E walk back from his driving-test, knowing he had failed. Then watching him walk back a week later, knowing he had passed.
Yoga in the living room.
Weight workouts in winter on the upstairs landing.
M slipping into E’s army boots on his first weekend home.
S standing by the car, E ready to drive her, pillows and duvets filling the back window. Me crying again …
All this in the house that became a home.
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Tank you for reading. The best way to support my writing is simply to share my work.
This is wonderful! What a great way to preserve your memories. You've inspired me to write about our home too. Thank you for sharing this colourful slice of your life.