Twenty-two

Last night I dreamed I went to Chiswick Street again. To be honest, I didn’t just dream it: for the past couple of months, I’ve schlepping backwards and forwards to Chiswick Street every other day. Four years after my dad tripped down the stairs, broke his shoulder and ended up in a secure dementia ward with a charming young security guard called Brandon to stop him taking his clothes off and wrestling naked with the male nurses – then hastily bundled off to a care home in the Lake District on the eve of lockdown – my parents’ empty house is up for auction.

They bought it in 1980 for twelve grand. It has three storeys, six bedrooms and a front room with a chandelier and a wood burner that the man from Border Cookers proudly told me is the size they’d usually install in a castle. It’s now a terrace but was built as an individual house in the early 1800s. My mum said it was the builder’s house and is extra large with a huge front door and a staircase in the middle of the building rather than at the front.

My parents loved a big house and a challenge. When they bought Chiswick Street it was a shell and they did it up themselves with their typical energy and complete lack of regard for even the most basic creature comforts. We lived in it at times without floorboards, without hot water, without heating (although that was a permanent feature – to my knowledge, the castle sized wood burner was only ever lit twice and then it melted the varnish off the dining room chairs) and without a working toilet. Amidst this chaos, they not only carried on as usual but hosted family and friends for extended visits. This included a French exchange student, daughter of a wealthy dentist, who lived in a pre Grand Designs era steel and glass palace at the foot of the Pyrenees. I’ve never forgotten the look of horror on Marie-Pierre’s face as my mother laughingly pointed out the narrow plank we had to navigate like tightrope walkers to get from one side of the room to the other. The poor girl spent the two weeks of her stay repeatedly refilling a hot water bottle and sobbing; it’s no coincidence I wasn’t invited back to her splendid bidet-rich house the following summer.

My dad did all the DIY and my mum did most of the decorating. They never seemed to be bothered about when or whether it was finished and I’m pretty sure when I left home for Uni in 1983, there were still components of modern household essentials missing. I hated DIY and was hopeless at it. My parents gamely encouraged me to slap on wallpaper paste and tighten nuts and bolts but after I accidentally pulled the sink off the wall while helping my dad tile the bathroom (my dad shrieked in exasperation ‘You really are the most unfortunate woman’ – a phrase that has echoed down the decades as I’ve written off cars, sliced off bits of myself or simply found something has crumbled to dust in my hands) I was relegated to handing non-sharp implements to someone at the top of a ladder or making the tea. That suited me. Although I once got so homesick when I rang them from a call box in Manchester and heard them hooting with laughter at a device that detected pipes and wires under the plaster (there had been at least one life threatening electric shock and a flood) I had to borrow a tenner from my pal and get the train home.

Eventually, it was beautiful. Huge, cold, draughty – apart from the kitchen where they had a renovated Rayburn that belted out heat. My cousin described the kitchen’s literal and figurative warmth with the faint undercurrent that something unexpected and dramatic could happen at any time.

I have written before about my parents’ unstinting hospitality. While Liz would effortlessly serve up a roast for 20, Pete was the short order king. Nothing beat sitting in the kitchen while my dad rustled up toasted cheese, bacon sandwiches or poached egg all made to the most excellent point of sizzling crispness, melting creaminess or whatever the key feature of that dish was. He’d often have made the bread himself – he specialised in a wholemeal brick that was delicious toasted – and he’d carve off a doorstep. There would be a splash of Worcester, a grind of black pepper, a perfectly laundered and ironed napkin (Liz was a fanatical ironer), a minor mishap – he’d drop something or spear himself or set fire to a tea towel (misfortune runs in the blood) – there’d be some swearing and finally, just as your cup of tea was cool enough to drink, he’d hand you something delicious. He’d always make one for himself to keep you company.

Liz died in 2021; Pete died in 2022. Since probate was granted and we’ve had the house on the market, my brother and I have been clearing the final bits and pieces. I’ve rescued the last of the crystal and my brother has taken the oak kitchen table. It’s fit for nothing but firewood but for so many years it was the centre of the house. One drawer was Granny’s office. She kept all her paperwork, cash, a torch and a range of torture implements – ‘for doing your father’s bunions’ she explained – which she’d rummage amongst and whip out in emergencies. The shed was an extension of the office drawer with everything in it. When my brother strode in one day and asked if there was a piece of leather – not too long, maybe six or seven inches – he could use a knife strop, there was: of course there was. Onn the door panel between the kitchen and the utility room with all the grandchildren’s, the cousins and the cousins’ kids heights marked on it. My niece Molly’s height is first recorded December 1996 – two weeks after she was born. Jessie and I went back last Saturday and measured and dated our heights and dates for posterity. She was the smallest; she’s now almost the tallest.

The kids had the run of the house. There was a dressing up box in the attic and Jessie and Lottie would quarrel over the length of gold lame while Molly patiently waited to see who won the argument to be the princess so she could be the princess’s dog. Two year old Jessie scribbled on the wall paper in the hall with felt pens and was rewarded with indulgent chuckles. In later years, when she was about seven, I came home from work to find Jessie – completely unsupervised – cooking her own tea over a brazier in the back garden.

On Thursday, I will close that massive front door for the last time. The door we held the kids up to to shout ‘O-P-N!’ through the letter box when we visited; the door Liz and Pete would open and say ‘no thank you, not today’ and pretend to slam in our faces (this lifelong habit considerably slowed down the dementia diagnosis), the door they’d latterly snib from the other side so I couldn’t unlock it with my key and then I’d ring the doorbell and couldn’t hear it, so I’d stand on the step debating with myself whether it wasn’t working (it usually wasn’t) or whether they were slowly tottering up the hall. If I rang again – no point phoning because they’d routinely leave the phone off the hook – I’d risk my dad eventually getting to the doorstep, furiously flinging the door open and bellowing ‘will you stop ringing the fucking doorbell!

On Thursday, someone else own the shell it has become and make it gorgeous again – a family home that cousins and in-laws and grandchildren and friends can’t wait to visit. They’ll put in heating, fix the doorbell and plane the bottom edge of the front door so they don’t have to shove it with their shoulder to open it.

Chiswick Street will breathe again.