Leaving our family home stirs such bittersweet memories
We made one of those snap decisions that ends up lasting a lifetime. Well, almost a lifetime: 15 years to be precise.
When my husband and I first walked through the front door of our house in West London, we knew it was the one for us.
Back then, we were thirtysomething newlyweds, a couple of stone lighter and with very little baggage — emotional, political or otherwise.
Now, as we prepare to close it behind us for the very last time — we are moving home in a few days — we find ourselves rather more encumbered. Two children, two dogs, a hamster...and the many ghosts of the life that we have built together.
So many memories — happy, sad, bittersweet — come tumbling down through the years, collecting at my feet as I pack up the detritus of this little universe of ours.
Lying on the sofa, for example, heavily pregnant with my daughter, watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer and eating Green & Black’s almond chocolate; bringing this tiny, furious, purplefaced creature home in her car seat and wondering what on earth I was going to do with it; waking in the dead of night to find her staring intently at me with all the wisdom of the world in those beady newborn eyes.
I remember my son, now a gangly teenager, as a butterball toddler, lining up his toy cars bumper to bumper with solemn concentration and sighing with quiet satisfaction as he surveyed his work.
Later, watching him as he slept in the little box room, fat fingers clutching his blanket, eyes flickering beneath the dark sweep of his lashes as he dreamed his baby dreams.
Then there was the time my daughter threw a rock up in the air to see if it would bounce, and it came down and hit her straight between the eyes.
I ran with her in my arms all the way to the local cottage hospital and sat there feeling like the worst mother in the world as an egg-size bump appeared on her forehead.
memories of my son, falling over at his favourite soft-play centre and splitting his cheek open, having it stitched up at the surgery and then coming home and straight away tripping over the front door mat, re-opening the freshly dressed wound.
That raised a few eyebrows from the nurses, I can tell you.
Of our first dog mars, who got run over. Neither of my children had seen me cry before.
They stared in fascination as I picked him off the side of the road and wept uncontrollably over his little body, still warm, but lifeless in my arms.
SmaLL family dramas all, playing like tiny cine films in the silent theatre of my mind’s eye. Taking me back to the day when, after months of diligent stalking, mars finally saw his chance and pounced on my daughter’s first hamster (there have been several over the years).
he snapped its spine in his powerful Jack russell jaws in front of a horrified group of small girls, all of whom burst into tears.
I remember the winter I, too, shattered a few bones of my own, snapping my wrist and dislocating my hand after slipping on ice in the park, passing out briefly and then walking slowly home, zombie-like, as the adrenaline buzzed in my ears.
I pressed the doorbell. ‘Who is it?’ a little voice asked.
‘It’s mummy and I’ve broken my arm,’ I said.
at first they thought I was joking, but then the ambulance was called and I sat in the front room, being injected with morphine, while the paramedics tractioned it back into place.
and then there were the playdates, the dinners, the parties and, of course, the friends. Good friends we still have and good friends — as the man said — we have lost along the way. Those, sadly, I shall leave behind.
most of all, though, there’s my dear husband, who loved this house from the moment he first set foot in it, with its World War II anderson shelter in the back garden and its hobbitlike proportions.
For me, having grown up in Italy surrounded by all the beauty of that wonderful country, our home’s Thirties aesthetic was distinctly lacking in appeal (yes, I freely admit it, I am an architecture snob).
But he, being more heart than head, adored it. I could see it reminded him of his parents’ house in aberdeen, a simple, unpretentious home that could — and would — become his refuge from the world. Because however mad things were on the outside, michael always knew he could rely on there being a simple domestic calm within (well, most of the time).
I remember him coming home with his first red box, having just been appointed education Secretary in the Coalition Cabinet.
It sat there, grand and intimidating, on the coffee table in front of our sofa, about as unlikely an object for that location as a diamond tiara or a stuffed swan.
as the years wore on, we got used to having the box around. It
even had its own Government driver, travelling in airconditioned splendour to and from the department.
At the end of each day — often he would not be home until after 11pm — my husband would sit in his favourite armchair with a cup of tea or a glass of wine (depending on the day’s vicissitudes) and work his way through the Civil Service submissions.
He would have one ear tuned to the news, another listening to me prattling on about children and work and gossip, humming to himself as the stress and strain of Government temporarily subsided.
Later, after the EU referendum was called and he made his decision to campaign for Brexit, the madness and divisions of politics came calling at our front door.
One night, presumably after a tip-off, a photographer was spotted lurking outside by my daughter and her two friends, who were round for a sleepover. They came rushing down in their night clothes to warn our distinguished guests, who were about to leave.
‘Don’t worry!’ the girls said. ‘We’ll create a diversion and he won’t get anywhere near you.’ And so they did, shooting out of the front door and pouncing on the poor snapper. Assaulted by three 13-year-old girls, he did the only sane thing, and ran away.
It was last November that we finally realised we needed to move on. Now, as I write, the carpets are rolled up and I am running down the food stocks.
My daughter is excited, already planning her new route to school and fresh sleepover opportunities.
My son, like all boys, is wary of change, but provided I can recreate his room in almost exact detail in the new house, I think he’ll come round to the idea. Maybe.
As for me, I haven’t really had time to think. But my subconscious clearly has because for the past few weeks I’ve been having the oddest dreams.
It’s as though my mind, by day focused on cleaning out cupboards and packing boxes, is by night conducting its own internal emotional audit, parcelling up the events of the past years and putting them neatly away in readiness for the next chapter of our lives. So many memories, so many plots and plans, dramas and dreams, mistakes and triumphs.
Now it’s time to let another family write their story within these four walls . . .