Happened to Willow Today’ list.
It’s a bit long-winded, but it’s become a habit – and as habits go, it’s not as bad as, say, crack cocaine or eating your own bogies in public (in private is a different matter – we’ve all done it).
I started the note-keeping when Mum’s case worker recommended she do something called Life Story Work. As by that stage my mum’s life story seemed to have stopped – in her mind at least – at about 1999, it seemed like a good idea.
It’s a way of helping her stay in touch with her memories and regain an element of control – reminding herself of who she was and who she is, I suppose. Sometimes I catch her reading it quietly, glancing up at me every now and then, and I know she’s trying to re-make the connections between her little girl and the grown-up woman standing before her.
Yes, it’s sad – but it’s happy too, in its own way. Celebratory. And she’s really good at it. She’s always been one of those craftsy people, my mum, and her book is a beautiful patchwork collage of photos and postcards and old ticket stubs and even those little plastic bracelets they put on babies in hospital. It’s part life story, part diary, part practical – amid the reminiscences and memories, she’ll add in little reminders, like her address, and my phone number, and the name of the dog. We’ve had a series of Border Terriers, and she sometimes gets them confused.
At first, I started up my own notepad just to keep her company and make it all feel a bit less weird. But I’ve got into it – and who knows? Maybe one day I’ll need it myself. Scary diary. For the time being, it’s a bit of free therapy at least.
I usually make lists in it, as I don’t have a lot of time on my own to sit and indulge in stream of consciousness rants. Lists keep it simple and usually make me laugh when I read them back. I once wrote the words ‘sausage rolls are brilliant’. On ten separate lines. I guess I’d really enjoyed a sausage roll that day.
Today, though … well, today, I had lots to report, didn’t I? Especially about the imaginary Edward Cullen, who may or may not be real, and may or may not be the new owner of Briarwood.
There has been much talk in the village about this new owner. About who it might be, and when he or she might get here, and whether they’ll be part of the gang or just play lord of the manor. About why they wanted to buy the place at all, given the state of it. We’ve spent literally hours debating it in the café. What can I say? Not much happens round here.
Frank, Cherie’s husband, reckons it’s some foreign investor who’s going to tart it up as a posh corporate retreat for stressed executives. Frank is a farmer, but he has a vivid imagination. Edie May, who is almost ninety-two and has an even better imagination, reckons it’s been bought by Tom Cruise as a holiday home – but she’s not been quite right since her niece bought her a Mission: Impossible box set. Laura, who manages the café and is a bit of a soppy romantic, is convinced that it’s a young couple looking for a dream home to raise a family in.
I’m here at Briarwood because I’m being paid to clean the place, by an estate agent in Bristol. My mum is safe and snug with Cherie at the café, and they’ll all be waiting for me to get back – desperate for me to spill the beans and fill them in on what I’ve seen.
The problem is, as things stand, I’m going to have to tell them all that the House on the Hill has, in fact, been bought by an eternally teenaged vegetarian vampire. That should raise a few eyebrows.
Inside, the house isn’t quite as daunting as I remembered. It’s been empty since Mr and Mrs Featherbottom – yes, that’s their real name – retired, over a decade ago.
They’d moved to a flat in Lyme Regis, after spending years running Briarwood as some kind of private children’s home. That sounds terrifying in itself, but all my memories of the couple are really nice. Mrs F was round and often covered in flour; Mr F always seemed to have a fishing rod in his hand. In fact, I think perhaps I’m getting confused, and imagining them both as garden gnomes come to life.
From what I can recall, and from what the older residents of Budbury like Frank and Edie have said, it was quite a happy place – considering the circumstances of most of the kids. Some of them were orphans, which sounds pretty Dickensian; others were placed there because their parents just couldn’t be their mum and dad for some reason, like illness or work. It was part home, part boarding school.
Some of the children arrived in various states of distress – and pulling up in front of a building that looks like it might be patrolled by Dementors at night probably didn’t help.
That’s one of the reasons my mum used to come here. To help the kids. She was always a little on the feral side, my mum – never had what you’d call a proper job in her life. My three older siblings – Van, Angel and Auburn – spent the first years of their lives on a hippy artists’ commune in Cornwall, until I came along. Different dad, a few years later – which at least partly explains why I’ve always been the odd one out.
They all moved to Budbury while Mum was pregnant with me, and she picked up bits of work here and there – enough to keep us in gender-neutral clothes that could always be passed down, as well as funding our hummus and pitta bread habit. I suppose she was ahead of her time in a lot of ways – trying to get us to eat organic, never taking us to the doctor unless a leg was about to drop off, giving us weird names before Gwyneth Paltrow ever thought of it.
Here at Briarwood, she did a variety of things – yoga classes, meditation, arts and crafts sessions, creative writing workshops. She was just Mum to us, but I think to a lot of the kids she must have seemed like an insanely exotic creature, all wild curly hair and tie-dye clothes, smelling of incense and Patchouli oil.
As I wander the corridors of the building, I can still see the signs of all that life – all those young people, living here together, with Mr and Mrs F trying to make it as nice for them as they could. There are still old noticeboards on the walls downstairs, the tattered remains of tacked-up paper dangling from rusted drawing pins. I know I need to clear them off, but it feels a bit like I’m somehow defiling a sacred place. Vandalising a museum, maybe.
I pull one down, and part of the paper disintegrates in my hand. I can still see what it was about, though: Mr F taking part in a sponsored Fish-a-Thon to raise money for Save the Children. I smile, and place the sheet inside two pages of my notepad. I don’t quite have the heart to throw it into a bin bag, which might explain why my bedroom is cluttered enough to qualify me for one of those reality TV shows about hoarders.
I continue my investigations, leaving the front door propped open with a brick – there is electricity in here, I’ve found, but a lot of the lightbulbs are blown, and others are flickering as I go. I’m already slightly jumpy, and the sizzling sounds of the overhead lamps and the on-again-off-again light quality isn’t helping. Luckily, I have my fearless guard dog with me – Bella has her nose to the ground, and is dashing around in strange looping circles that only make sense to her. She’s making a snuffling sound like a seal as she goes, which is reassuring in an otherwise silent building.
I work my way towards what I remember was the office, and Mr and Mrs F’s living quarters, and again find something of a time capsule. Most of the furniture is gone, but there are a few odds and ends: a pile of mouldy paperbacks; empty filing cabinets, open and gaping; the desiccated remains of a potted plant that may or may not have been an African violet in a previous life. The bay window is grimy, but sunshine is pouring in and dappling the whole room with
