Writing

"We have to sell the house."

It's just a house.

Rooms next to rooms,

with things in them.

Rooms and things

- not why I weep.

This house holds memories.

Your house.

The only house I've always known.

Tall, narrow, on a steep cobbled street

- used to be a Dodgy Area.

Timeless

- to me.

Frozen

- to everyone else.

Record player, records,

from a time when there was only records.

Matching avocado bath and washbasin.

Olive green carpets,

shiny black banisters.

Wallpaper everywhere

- to my eternal fascination,

on the ceilings.

On the bathroom ceiling,

on the toilet ceiling,

on the ceiling of the bedroom I slept in.

I'd count the squares in the pattern

to get to sleep.

In your house I learnt to make

Proper Belgian Waffles Your Way,

moules frites,

couscous the way he does it.

Did it.

The living room is empty.

The sewing machine is gone.

Your sewing machine,

on which I learnt to

thread,

fill bobbins,

sew recklessly fast.

Where I learnt to

follow patterns,

apply chalk,

cut cleanly,

tack,

overedge.

Where you helped me make

my first dress.

Where I never learnt to knit, in the end.

The kitchen is empty.

Where I learnt that squids have beaks.

He taught me how to "clean" squid,

empty them of ink,

cut out their beaks,

how to slice those long rubbery aliens into calamari rings.

Where he held court,

told tales

of his adventures under the sea.

MY grandpa,

Deep Sea Diver,

picking oysters fresh from the seabed,

smashing them open with a rock,

seasoning with a dash of sea-water.

Best way to eat them, he says.

Said.

The cellar is empty.

The cellar,

which my brother and I would

cautiously enter as children

to pick a board game.

The place to find Fascinating Old Things.

Glasses that were just

bits of wire and glass

- the ones he, my grandpa, still wears.

Proper Old Books.

Newspapers so old,

SO OLD,

some tell of the coronation of the new

Russian Tsar.

The cat is gone.

Returned to the cat shelter.

Does he still ask for her,

search for her,

gratefully find her,

on repeat?

The attic is empty.

Where I slept a few times

when your friend from Paris was visiting,

and she stayed in my room.

Where my brother slept

when he was big enough.

Where your mother lived

the last years of her life.

Your formidable mother.

War widow.

Told you

that you could do anything

if you set your mind to it.

Single mother in the 40s, 50s,

right the way into the 90s.

Whose mother was a governess.

Whose father was a Worker.

The garden is not empty.

Your mother loved hydrangeas,

her favourite flower.

That's why you love hydrangeas.

That's why I love hydrangeas.

The garden is full of hydrangeas.

The chest, in the bedroom in which I slept (which is empty), is empty.

For years I slept right by it,

assumed it held sheets, towels

- Boring but Useful Things.

Never saw it open.

Until you sent me to it.

Two years ago,

to find the letter

your father wrote

to your mother's father

to ask for your mother's

hand in marriage.

I had to dig deep.

Read many Other Things

along the way.

I found it.

I read it to you

and we cried together.

I also found

Other Things.

I read them alone

and I cried alone.

The Booklet-

I'll come back to that.

Letters to your mother,

details of her war widow pension.

Your dad's old school books.

From 1917.

A century has passed

since his breathless analysis

of a pivotal battle:

A Needless Massacre.

The Somme.

A precocious school-boy,

critiquing authority,

grew up to

forge papers

to save lives,

organising and resisting,

in the next World War.

You still hate alsatians.

They bring back the day

when they came to the house.

The day your father left the house.

How long til you knew

he would never come back?

I never asked.

I can see it's still raw.

It's been nearly 80 years.

I knew "he died in a camp."

I knew not to ask more.

I saw photos in history lessons,

text books, documentaries.

They filled in the gaps.

They didn't prepare me for

The Booklet.

The Booklet

about the camp

in which your father died.

Sent to your mother

by his friend

who survived the camp.

Who hoped

it might give her closure.

Perhaps it did.

The pictures in The Booklet,

some circled,

annotated:

"this is where we slept"

"this is the wall we built"

"these are the steps we climbed

hundreds of times a day,

carrying the rocks

for the wall"

Carrying rocks

until they could carry no more.

Until they died

or couldn't get up

and were shot.

Your bedroom is empty.

Your bed is gone.

Where I'd snuggle up

between you and him

to watch American movies

dubbed in French,

and documentaries

that half-made sense.

And in the summer you'd put on the radio

and listen to The Proms.

I've never been to The Proms.

Maybe this year.

The study is empty.

Where we slept,

my brother and I,

when we were little.

Where many of the things

were his, my grandpa's things.

His little Belgian flag

that The American gave him

when the Americans came

to liberate the town.

His desk.

His papers.

His military tag.

His book of poetry

[- until he gave it to me,

with a story.

A story for another time].

His photos of his parents.

His mother,

who had a pet goose

that would sleep by her feet,

follow her everywhere,

and attack anyone who wasn't

his mother.

His mother,

who spoke Yiddish,

who opened the door to the SS,

refusing to believe

that they would do her harm

- as she had done no wrong.

His father,

who I realise now

I know almost nothing about.

"When is the interval over?"

He thinks we're at the opera.

The opera where he worked

as Head Usher

throughout my childhood.

Sharp in his suit,

his is the warmest welcome.

The politest reminder

- the performance is about to begin.

Perched on the steps,

surrounded by paying customers

over ten times my age

I fall in love.

Her name is Opera.

Over the years

Opera leads me to Literature

- I have to read that Russian novel,

the one that Opera was based on -

she leads me to History,

to Classics,

to Languages

and Art.

To feel and to think

the links between them.

Opera: my gateway drug

to Culture.

I haven't been to see Opera since

he was let go.

Has it really been a decade?

Only once in my life

have I paid to see Opera.

The ticket was a fiver.

A special scheme for young people

my friend told me about.

"When is the interval over?"

He asks again,

directs it at you,

the interval?

Shouldn't we get to our seats?

You look up,

calmly,

used to this now.

Glance at the empty corridor.

Think for a beat,

settle on a half-truth.

"We're at the hotel darling,

not the opera!"

"Oh of course, yes,

I forgot!" he laughs it off.

The house is empty.

No need to weep.

The memories are here.

I am holding them.