There
was once a girl with plaits in her hair; mucky blonde, the same as her brother's.
She, her brother and her Mammy had travelled hundreds of miles from home to
this town on the South West coast. They arrived on the eve of the new
millennium in the middle of the night, when the waves were crashing over the
sea wall with a vengeance. She wasn't scared as they pulled up to the new flat.
She had everything she needed as long as Daniel and Mammy were with her. She
did well in her new school, and always made sure Daniel was safe.
One
day, her Nana and Grandad came all the way down south to visit. She was
bursting with happiness when the bus pulled up at the station, but her heart
broke in two when it pulled away again a week later. She knew her Mammy's did,
too. Nana cried so much every time they went back to Sunderland that Grandad
decided it just wouldn't do. It was the best day of her life when her Nana and
Grandad bought a house on a hill in Weston-super-Mare and never got back on
that bus.
A few
years passed, and the little girl's Mam decided that she wanted a house of her
own. She saved and saved and pleaded with the agencies to give her and her
children a home, and eventually one of them said yes! The girl walked with
Daniel to look at the new house, but they were met with a chain-link fence.
They put their fingers through the gaps, watching in awe - their new house was
a building site! Their mam pointed to a structure at the back, beside the
trees. She told them 'that one's ours'.
Nana
and Grandad took care of the family while they waited for their house to be
finished, taking the children to school and nursery and making them dinner
every single night. Unbeknownst to them, Nana and Grandad would always look
after them like this, and Charlotte and Daniel would come to love them just as
they loved their own Mammy.
On
October 31st 2002, their Mam slept at the house on her own. The floors were
bare stone and there were no curtains up. She was worried her children would be
cold, so Charlotte and Daniel stayed with Nana and Grandad on this first night.
The keys they gave her had a keyring on them which read 'Plot 8', but the
number on the white door was '31'.
Charlotte,
Daniel and Mam painted the living room terracotta all by themselves. They
filled the freezer with potato waffles and jubblies and the cupboards with
beans and sausages (already inside the beans, of course). They spent
every Saturday night dancing around on the cream carpets
to ABBA, Elton John, Shania Twain and Robbie. They sang
their hearts out on every car journey to those same songs.
They
wanted to share their beautiful safe place, and so one day Mam took them to
Whitehouse Kennels. They were to look for ONE cat Mam said. Charlotte was so
excited that she ran off in to the wrong place, where she saw a huge black and
white cat clawing at his cage. She approached cautiously, seeing another,
smaller cat hiding behind him. Their woeful eyes were exactly the same jade
green. The sign on the kennel read 'Felix and Cleo'. She spent a few seconds
with them, as if in a trance, then quickly turned on her heel and went back to
tell Daniel and Mammy she had found the cats that were coming home (Mam was
annoyed but when she met Felix and Cleo she loved them just as much as
Charlotte did).
For
years, Charlotte and Daniel had so much fun playing outside in St Georges,
going to Nanny and Grandad's for tea and coming home to play card games and watch
films with Mam. One day, Mam took Charlotte in to the conservatory for a talk.
She had met someone - a boyfriend. His name was Julian (which Charlotte and
Daniel found hilarious). Charlotte said to her Mam, tears streaming down her
cheeks, 'but it’s always been just me you and Dan'. Her Mam smiled sadly and
said, 'you and Daniel will always be the most important thing to me,' and so
Charlotte swallowed her tears and nodded, accepting that maybe now it would be
Charlotte, Daniel, Mam and Julian, so that her Mum could be happy. Julian was
kind and loved her Mum very much, and so she grew to love him, too.
They
always put the Christmas tree up on Nanny's birthday. They woke up each
Christmas morning at 6am, laughing with glee as they dragged Mammy out of
bed to make her go and check whether they'd been left presents or coal. It was
always presents - Charlotte and Daniel were always good and NEVER naughty... In
2007, Charlotte asked Santa for a Burmese mountain dog called Harley. One
frosty Saturday in December, a white van pulled up at number 31. Charlotte and
Daniel watched from the bedroom window as a farmer got out, a yellow Andrex pup
slung over his arm, her legs dangling underneath her. Admittedly, she wasn't a
Burmese mountain dog, and her name was Melody not Harley, but Charlotte was
wonderstruck. She did not think her life could get any better. Melody was
perfect.
In true
movie style, the next Christmas, Nana got sick. She managed to make it to
number 31 for Christmas dinner as she did every year, and Charlotte and Daniel
were spoilt as usual. The week between Christmas and new year disappeared in a
haze of opening new presents and eating leftovers as it always does. It was
time to go back to school again before they knew it (secondary school now for
Charlotte)!
On
January 4th 2008, at 7:30am, the phone rang. Charlotte was getting
dressed under her covers because it was too cold to get out of bed. Daniel was still
asleep. Charlotte heard the ringing, and she felt sick all of a sudden.
Her Mam had once told her 'nobody rings the phone before 9 in the morning or
after 9 at night - it's rude'. Suddenly, it stopped, and Charlotte was alone
with her racing heart. She thought she knew what her Mam was going to say. Nana
had gone in to hospital a few times before because of her bad lungs and the
hole in her neck. Charlotte was a girl who was very sure of herself, and
that day she was sure that Nana had been taken back in to Weston General.
Nevertheless, she stopped what she was doing, frozen still, and waited for her
Mam to come up and tell her and Daniel what to do.
Her Mam
broke down as soon as the phone hit the receiver. Charlotte's heart twisted,
and sure enough, when her Mam came to her, it was with the worst news she
had heard in her 12 years of life. Nana was gone. Charlotte, Daniel and Mammy
stood together at her funeral, holding one another in their tightest ever group
hug, sobbing and begging each other to stay forever.
Grandad
was a wreck. Charlotte watched him fall to his knees that day, and she spent
years dragging him back to his feet. She watched musicals with him, drank tea
from the mug she'd had her whole life and stayed over on the nights he felt he
couldn't be alone. Indeed, Ashbury Drive became a part of Charlotte just as Ash
Close was.
Charlotte
and Daniel began to hang out less as they became teenagers, but they still
loved each other dearly. Daniel still shouted for Charlotte when he had a
nightmare and Charlotte still asked Daniel to catch Pokémon on the DS for her
when she couldn't do it. Charlotte grew even closer to Grandad as her and her
Mum began to argue. She stayed with him for weeks at a time. She missed her
brother, her bed, and irritatingly, her Mum, and so she always went back in the
end. It was around this time that she realised her passion for words and
meaning, a love affair with the English language that only intensified in the
years that followed. She was still having fun, and she was still very happy.
Then,
one Friday morning in November, when Charlotte was 17 and crazy, just when she
least expected it, she met a boy. It was nothing like she'd thought it would
be; she was well and truly in love. It was then that she left number 31
properly for the first time in her life. They didn't know it at the time, but
that day, when she said a teary goodbye to Daniel in the doorway, something
changed in them both forever. At the time, though, she felt content that he
would be okay because he was in college and had just found a lovely girlfriend
- Britt.
She
travelled Australia for 6 months with Joel, where the back of a spray-painted
Toyota Liteace became her home. They were young and reckless, but everything
worked out for the best and those were the most amazing 6 months of both their
lives.
She
came home to claim her place at university. Her and Joel were set to move to
Cheltenham together, but as fate should have it, Charlotte was battered at
every turn. She didn't like the course itself, the student house, the move away
from her loved ones... As well as these things, honestly, she could no longer
see herself with Joel. So, she packed her things and threw them angrily in to
the boot of her Micra, muttering all the way, 'Go home Charlotte Dover. Go
home.'
She
soared down the M5 like a comet, burst through the door and fell in to her Mam’s
arms. Afterwards, she crawled back in to her bed, surrounded by the things she
had always known... but she realised was still broken-hearted. It became
apparent that it was not her home that she had missed, but her family, and that
Joel was a part of that family now, too. She set about correcting her
mistake.
Charlotte
lived at home for the rest of her degree, blissfully happy, with her family and
with Joel. Her mental health picked up, her grades went through the roof, and
she graduated with a 1st class honours in English. Mam, Dan, Britt, Julian,
Joel and Charlotte were all thrilled the morning she found out, and everyone
jumped around number 31 for a good 20 minutes, screaming with joy. Grandad
cried and drank a whole bottle of brandy.
…
...and
so here I am, facing the 'SOLD' sign that's swinging in the wind on the front
of Plot 8, trying to swallow my tears once again, fighting to retain my grip on
the knowledge that my home is not number 31 but Daniel and Mammy, and the
others we have brought together along the way.
I find
myself on the final pages of a chapter in my life, one that I never wanted to
end. Our house has borne witness to everything I remember - good and bad - and
I am afraid that without it I won't belong anywhere at all. But, alas, the book
is much longer than the chapter, and I am certain that good things lie in wait.
Things that will have us all jumping around, screaming with joy.
I have
thought about the last time I will leave the house, which will be the morning
of the 19th August 2018, almost 16 years after I first crossed the threshold.
It will be 5am, because me and Joel are off again, this time to Asia. We won't
come back to my home again. Five weeks afterwards we will go from Heathrow
straight to Nottingham to start a different life; a new career for Joel and a master’s
degree for me. My Mum and Ju will move to a cosy little bungalow and,
ultimately, to Spain, and Dan will move in with Britt permanently (if he can
live without his Mama that is). I will come to visit Grandad every other
weekend, as I've promised him.
That
morning, I think I'll send Joel out to the car with the bags, so that I am left
in our safe place alone for a last few minutes. When I shut that door behind
me, I will have to force myself to remember (rather poetically as that is the
way my brain is inclined) - the foundations of my life are not built from brick
and mortar, but from love.
