name out loud. ‘Because younever know,’ he said to me, ‘how and where they might have ended up. Their
names may be all that was left of them.’
No one ever suggested that we put up a
stone to my father. I imagined Matthew on his evening walks to the cabin, standing at
the edge of the tide and saying his son’s name out loud, into the wind:
‘John Venton!’
10.
For seventeen years after my father died
nothing much happened, and then a pigeon flew through my window. It still feels to me
now as though it was the pigeon that precipitated events, as though it had been winging
its way towards me for years. It was like the butterfly in the Amazon that launches the
avalanche, or tidal wave, or whatever it’s supposed to launch. Of course, it was
Corwin, not the pigeon, but the pigeon’s entrance was more dramatic. Perhaps it
was part of Corwin’s subconscious, unleashed. Or perhaps even of mine.
After Mum moved out, Corwin and I claimed
Thornton for ourselves. Corwin declared that he was taking over our father’s desk,
which had always fascinated him with its secret drawer in which our father had allowed
him to conceal a hundreder conker and a Swiss army knife. Corwin swept the contents of
the desk into a box and placed it on top of the box on Mum’s side of the bedroom
wardrobe. Then I took down the Laura Ashley curtains from the garden room and moved my
workbench down there. That was how it started.
During term breaks, we dared to do what had
never been permitted our mother. We filled boxes with the domestic clutter of centuries:
dusty single balls of saved wool, battered fans, bunches of dried lavender. We threw
nothing out. Some superstition prevented us actually removing anything from the house
and upsetting the delicate chemistry of its atmosphere. We stored everything in what had
been our parents’ bedroom. At first we stored the dusty, broken, useless things.
Then we began to curate. We asked Matthew, ‘Do you mind if we move this orthat?’ And he never did seem to mind, so we stopped asking. Over
the next three years boxes piled up under the bed, on the floor, on the bed.
And we cleaned. We applied buckets of
lemon-scented Jif to every surface. We lifted furniture and hoovered up the mouse
droppings. We pulled woollen blankets out of the corners of cupboards and released
clouds of moths. We hung the rugs over the washing line and beat the dust out of them.
When the house was clean, we painted. We started in the attic – we painted everything in
my room white: the floors, the walls, the mantelpiece, the furniture. I took down the
curtains and left the windows undressed so that when I woke in the mornings I could tell
from the light in the room what colour were the sky and sea even before I opened my
eyes. We boxed up everything from Corwin’s room: Che Guevara and
The
Communist Manifesto
and
The Dark Side of the Moon
. We took his bed
apart and rolled up the carpet and shoved it in with everything else. All that remained
in Corwin’s room was a mattress on the bare floorboards and a wardrobe. Then we
shut the door on our parents’ room and locked it. We hung the heavy key in the key
cupboard in the kitchen.
After storm-tides we collected debris from
the beach: wraiths of driftwood, which we balanced on string and hung over the landings;
runic stones and spheres of rusted iron, which we placed on the ledges. We strung
garlands of sea-perforated pebbles on frayed fragments of rope and arrayed bleached bird
and sheep skulls on the mantelpieces.
Matthew never objected to this desecration
of the ancestral seat – occasionally he would ask after a painting or an ornament that
had been part of his home-scape for seventy years. When we said, ‘We packed it
up,’ he would say, ‘Oh, did you?’ It was as though the house slumbered
in hibernation behind the door of my parents’ bedroom. Matthew didn’t change
a
names may be all that was left of them.’
No one ever suggested that we put up a
stone to my father. I imagined Matthew on his evening walks to the cabin, standing at
the edge of the tide and saying his son’s name out loud, into the wind:
‘John Venton!’
10.
For seventeen years after my father died
nothing much happened, and then a pigeon flew through my window. It still feels to me
now as though it was the pigeon that precipitated events, as though it had been winging
its way towards me for years. It was like the butterfly in the Amazon that launches the
avalanche, or tidal wave, or whatever it’s supposed to launch. Of course, it was
Corwin, not the pigeon, but the pigeon’s entrance was more dramatic. Perhaps it
was part of Corwin’s subconscious, unleashed. Or perhaps even of mine.
After Mum moved out, Corwin and I claimed
Thornton for ourselves. Corwin declared that he was taking over our father’s desk,
which had always fascinated him with its secret drawer in which our father had allowed
him to conceal a hundreder conker and a Swiss army knife. Corwin swept the contents of
the desk into a box and placed it on top of the box on Mum’s side of the bedroom
wardrobe. Then I took down the Laura Ashley curtains from the garden room and moved my
workbench down there. That was how it started.
During term breaks, we dared to do what had
never been permitted our mother. We filled boxes with the domestic clutter of centuries:
dusty single balls of saved wool, battered fans, bunches of dried lavender. We threw
nothing out. Some superstition prevented us actually removing anything from the house
and upsetting the delicate chemistry of its atmosphere. We stored everything in what had
been our parents’ bedroom. At first we stored the dusty, broken, useless things.
Then we began to curate. We asked Matthew, ‘Do you mind if we move this orthat?’ And he never did seem to mind, so we stopped asking. Over
the next three years boxes piled up under the bed, on the floor, on the bed.
And we cleaned. We applied buckets of
lemon-scented Jif to every surface. We lifted furniture and hoovered up the mouse
droppings. We pulled woollen blankets out of the corners of cupboards and released
clouds of moths. We hung the rugs over the washing line and beat the dust out of them.
When the house was clean, we painted. We started in the attic – we painted everything in
my room white: the floors, the walls, the mantelpiece, the furniture. I took down the
curtains and left the windows undressed so that when I woke in the mornings I could tell
from the light in the room what colour were the sky and sea even before I opened my
eyes. We boxed up everything from Corwin’s room: Che Guevara and
The
Communist Manifesto
and
The Dark Side of the Moon
. We took his bed
apart and rolled up the carpet and shoved it in with everything else. All that remained
in Corwin’s room was a mattress on the bare floorboards and a wardrobe. Then we
shut the door on our parents’ room and locked it. We hung the heavy key in the key
cupboard in the kitchen.
After storm-tides we collected debris from
the beach: wraiths of driftwood, which we balanced on string and hung over the landings;
runic stones and spheres of rusted iron, which we placed on the ledges. We strung
garlands of sea-perforated pebbles on frayed fragments of rope and arrayed bleached bird
and sheep skulls on the mantelpieces.
Matthew never objected to this desecration
of the ancestral seat – occasionally he would ask after a painting or an ornament that
had been part of his home-scape for seventy years. When we said, ‘We packed it
up,’ he would say, ‘Oh, did you?’ It was as though the house slumbered
in hibernation behind the door of my parents’ bedroom. Matthew didn’t change
a
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