The House
An original short story written about my childhood house, the last time I was there and the memories I have of the place.
The sun went down for the very last time from this view. From these co-ordinates. Forever. I breathed out a final sigh as everything changed from golden to a frosty muted blue. Then to darkness. Then to nothing. Would I remember it right in my memories? Would I make things up or slightly change them? I will never know the exact truth again. The exact way that things were.
The garden, 28 summers long. My bedroom, 3 heartbreaks wide. The house so full with everyone I ever was; now never knowing who I will become.
The kitchen was still ringing with the laughter of the 5 of us from last summer. The dents and scrapes and paint upon paint. The corners peeling in places, revealing red from what feels like a previous lifetime. The warm extractor fan light glowing in the kitchen, inviting us to tell all our secrets. The clock ticking like the heartbeat of this house. The gappy wooden floor boards creaking and moaning, worn out from our dancing and jumping. The pipes shaking and rattling in time to my sister’s piano playing.
I thought it was infinite and imperishable. Standing tall and still, housing all the selves I’ve been. We wouldn’t know it at the time but there was a last time we all lived in the same house. Me and my sisters. Each others’ shadows. Existing so expressively in the same place. The same voice, cadence and tone. Curl pattern and face shape. Strong chins and restless hands.
It would be nothing without my mother though. The house was a personification of everything she was. A collector, artist, nurturer, painter. The garden always in full bloom, proof of her care and adoration. Plants growing where we buried old pets. The table marked from craft projects. We were always making things. The living room always smelt like her perfume and candles that had just been blown out.
The garden went through seasons too, just like us. The gate to the alley, now grey was once the most vivid blue with a pink castle painted on. The patio at the bottom with the shed was once the space for the crooked trampoline, worn from years of jumping. And before that, the climbing frame that my Uncle built for us with the bright yellow slide. Memories of a time when my only concern as the youngest child was trying to make the adults laugh.
The mirror on the mantel above the fireplace was like the eyes of the house. It reflected back an image of myself at every age, every emotion. One of my earliest memories was watching my mother staring into it, concentrating, as she applied red lipstick from a little jar and brush. She was always a painter, and I watched her closely, trying to learn.
I thought of all the other mothers and daughters that lived here before. What their fights were about, their sadness and longing, their reasons for leaving. If the house emptied at once or one by one. If the mothers ever got tired of hoovering so many stairs. If the garden proved too unruly. Or if the coldness of the empty spaces seeped into their bones.
Despite it’s flaws, it always anchored me here. To the place I grew up. Long after I moved out, I would visit it often like an old friend. The house raised me too. The features and decor became so ingrained in my identity and routines.
My bedroom was once a manifestation of my brain, encasing all the dreams and hopes I ever had. The carpet stained from make up experiments from my teen years. The permanent dents in the carpet from the bunk-beds my sister and I shared as kids. Colours and clutter and collections of things grew around me. A museum of who I was, what I liked and what I wore. Witness as the world expanded day by day as I learnt more about myself. My fears melting away with each passing juvenile year. I spent so much time in those four walls; indulging in any idea, hobby or self reflection. Sitting by the open window in Spring, dreaming of my future and wishing up all the versions of me that I could become. The selves that would materialise if I wanted. With nothing to do but wait for adulthood, the way we wistfully waited for summer as kids.
In the Spring and Summer of 2020, while the world shut down, I was gifted a sliver of childhood again. The days were long and laid out in front of us, a glimmering promise that nothing could interrupt us now. Laying on the grass, lips numb from ice lollies. Drawing and thinking and wishing and hoping. For the very last time, we had nowhere to be.
In the years following, the house started crumbling from the seams. Leaking and cracking and failing. It was running out of breath. It started to retaliate by slamming doors and locking us in our rooms. We wore it out, I think. Our galloping up and down the stairs, as my mother would refer to it as. It almost felt like a challenge as a kid - hanging from the doorknobs and swinging from the sinks. Testing its strength. But breaking doesn’t always happen quickly or at once or in the way you think it will. We were living in this slow free-fall, somewhere between upright and collapsed. We squeezed every last drop out it, I think.
But it was ours. We owned it together. We lived here together. And we’ll never be able to say that again. I knew it was slipping away while I was living there. I always had this pre-emptive nostalgia for it. I knew we had something special. Now we are displaced across countries and cities and towns. Will we be changed by the new places we live?
As I say goodbye to the house, I also leave behind parts of myself I have since forgotten or not indulged in. A place where I was once a clean slate, where I was guessing who I was and making things up. It’s gone and I’m here. An adult in my own flat, new things collecting around me. Influenced by everything that has happened to me since.
There’s a common sentiment I think about often - that even if you could go back to the past, nobody would be waiting for you there. It has happened and it’s over. And as this deep sadness lingers inside of me, I know it is proof of a well-lived childhood. And as long as my family exists, I will have somewhere to call home. The house won’t last forever, but we will.
- Betsy Bailie