Kit Whitfield's Blog: #2024MakeAMonster day 4: House

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Friday, October 04, 2024

#2024MakeAMonster day 4: House

#2024MakeAMonster

House

My granny never liked my dad.

She wasn't one of those mothers-in-law that resented a man for taking away her daughter; she mostly had criticisms of Mum too. If Mum ever mentioned in her hearing she'd had a problem with someone, Granny would say, 'Well, if you will speak to people like that...' Even when our neighbour had a breakdown and got it in his head Mum was planting spy-cams in his walls, Granny told Mum that no doubt if she'd been more careful how she spoke to him perhaps he wouldn't have fixed on her. Mum couldn't be perfect enough for Granny no matter what she did; it was always, 'Is that what you're wearing?' and 'Are you sure you should eat that?' and 'Where should this live? I'm sure it doesn't belong out on the table.'

So when Mum married Dad, Granny was at the wedding with a smile on her face like she was just one remark away from biting someone. I remember it vaguely because I was three years old at the time - another thing Granny had against Dad, although they'd been together for four years before that and they'd only bothered getting married because a friend of theirs got ordained and suggested it'd be nice to officiate for them. Granny referred to Dad as 'That roustabout of yours', which was her way of saying he was an engineer who went to work on rigs sometimes.

Well, we missed him a lot when he was gone; Dad was cheerful and gentle and would play with me for hours quite patient, showing me how to build things out of lolly-sticks and toothpicks. He always said that the pay was so good that he'd be retired before he was forty-five, and then he'd be around all the time; we could even live off-grid, he thought, with our own wind turbines and solar panels in a solid cabin we'd build ourselves. He'd bought the land already, so it wasn't just an impossible dream: that's where we were going. Mum and I loved the idea, and we didn't tell Granny, so it was just a sweet, cosy future we all had to look forward to, where we could have our safe base and from there we could make whatever future we wanted.

The fact that it was a long way away from Granny was an added benefit. 'Don't worry about the old witch, love,' Dad used to tell Mum. 'Once we're out from under her eye you can relax.'

I wanted that future too, and I knew Dad going on the rigs was how we'd get there, but I still missed him terribly, so he started this game to keep my spirits up. The plan was, I'd build something while he was gone and have it ready to show when he got back - but I'd have to figure it out because he'd send me the pieces bit by bit. If he could have sent me a daily letter he would have, but the rigs didn't get access every day, so instead he created a kind of treasure-hunt. Every day there was a new clue, and I'd have to figure out where in the house he'd hidden the little wooden spar or tile, and then I'd seek it out and add it to my collection. It would take a week or two before I figured out what the pieces added up to, but I had plenty of fun experimenting and guessing. This was our little thing: Mum would offer to help sometimes if I couldn't figure out the clue, but I wouldn't have it. This was Dad playing with me, and if it took me an hour to work out that he'd tucked it in among the spare kitchen rolls or under the stair carpet, I'd think about it and picture him giving me hints until I got there in the end.

Granny visited more when 'the roustabout' was gone. Mum found it tiring, but Granny wasn't to be put off. She lived local, and she seemed to know everything. If Mum said we'd have guests that evening Granny would say, 'But you never have guests on Thursdays, that's your neighbours' yoga evening and we know how they get about noise.' If Mum said we hadn't the ingredients for a big dinner, Granny would say, 'Oh now Lucy, what happened to all that food you had delivered two days ago?' I didn't know how she knew all these things; she must have had a good network of gossips, or else she had a nanny-cam hidden somewhere in our house or had trained the pigeons to report back to her, which was what Dad always said he believed, but however she knew, she knew. We were home, and she'd decided to visit, and that was that.

So she'd come around to 'help out' - 'Is that what we're having for dinner?' 'Have you lost your duster? These shelves, Lucy!' - and you'd think she would have had something to say about the fact that I wouldn't do my homework till I'd found Dad's hidden piece.

Mum had tried reasoning with me about it, but she gave up when she saw I couldn't concentrate till I'd done it; once I had my little spindle or felt strip I'd put it on my desk and do my maths and geography as best I could, but if I couldn't look as soon as I got home from school it felt like bad luck. Like I was telling Dad I didn't care he was gone, I suppose, and like something might happen to him if I didn't remember to wish lucky things for him. I knew rigs could be dangerous and I could picture him out at sea on that great metal mesh, and it felt impossibly fragile. That was why, I think, the pieces he left for me were to build a dollhouse - I'd figured that out after a week or two. It was going to add up to a nice, sturdy little thing, sort of a log cabin with a fireplace and a rug for me to weave on a little loom, and a table with little tools to cut out of cardboard. I could guess that once I'd finished, there'd be a little dolly Dad and girl, sitting at that tiny table making their tiny projects. All safe and warm in their nice little house.

It was what kept me happy, and Mum accepted that, and you'd have thought Granny could find a reason to give her a hard time about it. But the funny thing was, though Granny couldn't see a thing right with what Mum did, and she barely spoke to Dad when he was around and made sure to sit a little distance from him as if he were some kind of feral dog that might bite, she never had anything to say against me. The first time she came when I was doing my Dad-cabin, Mum said, 'All right, Mum, Jenny'll do her homework once she's done her little search. It's best to let her get on with it.'

Granny looked shocked and said, 'Really, Lucy, you should give that girl a rest. I don't know why you can't just leave her to it.'

That was the thing: Granny wouldn't hear a word against me. I should have been grateful, except that she only ever did it to tell Mum what not to say. And I wasn't comfortable with her anyway; she was always trying to tidy me up. 'Such pretty hair,' she'd say, taking a comb out of her bag and trying to make it into a ponytail. She was a very coiffed woman, Granny; always had her hair up in this elaborate bun, with neat pins stuck into it so it didn't dare let a hair stray out of place. I wasn't tidy like that and didn't want to be, and it didn't feel good Granny's comb on my scalp, but she larded it with compliments and always acted like I was perfect, or at least I would be if she'd just let me arrange her a little better.

So later that evening, when I'd found Dad's latest piece, Granny came up to my room to see what was happening. I'd finished my homework and was adding the newest pieces, which was my way of feeling like Dad was around: in the months when he was home he'd always promise to play with me once I'd got 'the needful' finished, and I was trying to preserve that routine. That day it was a little bag of pebbles, and I knew what they were for: I'd already found a backboard shaped like a fireplace and a little mould with some quick-setting resin, so it was time to make a stone surround. I'd have hidden it, honestly, except that when Granny came in she smelled the epoxy.

'Whew,' she said, 'what's that, my dear?'

'I'm just making something,' I said. I felt shy letting her see it, but she was already in the room and the house, what I'd made of it so far, was set up on my table.

She looked it over. 'You mustn't let your father bully you,' she said. 'He's not here with all his bits and pieces now, dear.'

That was so unfair I could have cried, but she was examining the project with minute attention. 'What in the world are these?' she said, picking something up.

I took them back, and while she would have been horrified at Mum's manners if she'd done anything so grabby, she didn't raise an eyebrow at me. 'They'll be for the roof,' I said. 'I want them.'

I did, too, because they were the best thing I'd found so far: little solar panels, real ones the size of credit cards. They were tiny, but they'd work, and I was looking forward to the days when I found the wiring Dad must have hidden. I'd be able to light small lamps, maybe even a fake fire in the hearth. It was part of teaching me how sustainable living worked; he said that once we had our own place set up we'd be able to help other people make theirs, and I'd begged him to teach me so I could work with him. Granny didn't know it, but that was what I wanted to be when I grew up, an eco-house builder in our family business. Dad said that I was a clever girl with good hands, and if I went on the way I was going I'd be as good as they got.

Granny looked at the panels in my hands, and she looked at the half-built house. 'Is this just a plaything, my dear?' she said.

'Yes.' I was very firm. Too firm: she didn't believe me.

'It looks almost like an architect's model, Jenny,' she said.

I went very quiet. I might have said that it was an old model Dad had given me to play with, or some other lie, but I was too young to think of something believable, and besides that Mum and Dad always trusted me. I wasn't in the habit of hiding things and I didn't have the knack.

'What is this, dear?' Granny said.

I just shrugged and said Dad gave it to me.

Granny didn't stay for dinner. A little later Mum came upstairs asking if I'd seen her, and I hadn't. She'd just left. We didn't even hear the front door.

Well, Mum left a message on her phone, mostly so Granny couldn't take offence that she hadn't asked, and we had our dinner. Since Granny wasn't there Mum didn't bother with three side-dishes; we curled up on the sofa with everything in one bowl each, and Mum said that she was starting a new class weekday afternoons, and she hoped I didn't mind, but the extra money would all go towards our big future plans and getting out of this suburb sooner. Mum was a masseur, though Granny insisted on calling her a 'physical therapist', and as well as seeing clients in the day she'd sometimes teach basic massage in the evenings. I liked the friends she made there, women with floaty skirts and men with big biceps and whirly tattoos; they said some things Dad called 'woo', but they had a lot of parties and the kids were allowed to come along, and we got to play with kites and juggling scarves and whirling poi balls, and they were a lot of fun. I thought it'd be all right if it meant more vegan barbecues at the weekends; that was mostly where I made friends myself.

I was right that Mum made some more friends there and got some regular customers. There was this one woman, Tasha, who was especially nice: she was covered in charms to ward off this and that and she had a herbal tea for everything, and she liked to weave ribbons into my hair and tell me animal fables. Mum said that Tasha had had a bad childhood and now she had some anxiety going on, and she thought she did rituals all day as a way of managing it, but if it worked for her then that was fine by Mum, and no question she had a good heart.

Tasha thought I was hopelessly given to science - by 'science' she meant practical engineering - but she also said I had a clear soul and forgave me for being interested in technical things. I was very wrapped up in building the Dad-cabin when they first got to know each other; I'd found more and more pieces, and I had the fireplace well and truly built, and the whole of the floor as well. The only thing that bothered me was that a bit of damp seemed to have got into it. I didn't know why, but some of the plywood on the floor was warping; I guessed it needed more treating and I thought I'd ask Dad about it when he got back, and in the meantime I put a heavy book on it to flatten it out. It was The History Of The World In 1000 Classic Poems; I'd never read it, but Granny had given it to me and it was the weightiest tome I had, and at least when she came to visit next she'd see it out on my table.

Granny didn't come to visit for a couple of weeks, though.

Tasha came to visit instead. She was very fidgety the whole time; she said there was a bad energy. Mum said nonsense, this was a loving house, and Tasha said yes, she knew that, but maybe they should look into the ley lines beneath just in case there was anything off about it.

Well, Mum didn't believe in ley lines, but she looked it up just to make Tasha happy and there wasn't anything. She said Tasha meant well.

When Granny came to visit next she was groomed and brisk as if nothing had happened. 'Well, dear,' she said, 'it's always good to have you home.'

She didn't even complain about Mum's housekeeping. And that was odd, because there was a drip in the ceiling. It was only over my bedroom, but I was upset about it - it had got my build for Dad all soaked. I'd moved it and put a bowl underneath to catch the drips, but the drips ran along the ceiling and got on my build again. The poor house was damp right through; The History Of The World In 1000 Classic Poems was dry, with only just a light sprinkling on its cover and its pages warm as toast, but underneath it my build floor was soggy.

I was trying not to cry about it. All I could think was how disappointed Dad would be that I hadn't done a better job, and even if I knew he'd forgive me, it felt like bad luck. I worried about him out at sea, and the feeling of water being out of control in our own house just made me think of terrible storms attacking my Dad.

Instead, Granny was on about Dad's absence. 'Really, isn't it easier when he takes his messy self away?' she said. 'We've been having a nice cosy time, haven't we?'

'Dad isn't messy,' I said, and Granny patted my hand as if I'd said something in support of her. I could smell her handcream on my skin later, even when I washed it off: expensive and herbal with a sharp under-tang.

'Mother,' Mum said, and her voice was a little shaky, 'Dave will be back next month and we'll be happy to see him. You know that.'

'Now there's no need to be tetchy,' Granny said.

'I'm not tetchy,' said Mum. 'Dave's my husband and he's Jenny's father and we want him home.'

'Oh, dear,' Granny said. 'Sometimes you just have to be stubborn, don't you?'

Mum had never really stood up to Granny, but I think she might have, except at that point there was a crash upstairs. Or not a crash, exactly - a kind of slumping noise, like the sound of a biscuit breaking when it's dipped in too much tea, except loud enough to hear through the floor.

I ran upstairs and saw it: my desk, where I sat and built with Dad, had collapsed. The leak had got right into the wood and it had just fallen apart. The little house I was building for him sat adrift on top of it like a boat lost at sea, with The History Of The World In 1000 Classic Poems besides it, its clean cover twinkling.

Granny stood in the doorway and said, 'You'd better clean that up, dear.' Then she left without another word.

She was patting her hair as she left; one of the pins had come out of it. I'd never seen her so close to untidy.

The next day Mum got a call from the land people. It was bad news, they said, about the ground where we'd been planning to build our self-sufficient cabin. The place had a river running through it, and that was fine; Dad had checked the flood plains and been sure the water table wasn't too much of a problem; he'd even planned to use the river to put in a kind of mill-wheel to make more clean energy. But there had been a flood. The waters had risen so high the land was water-logged, almost swampy. They were having to look into it as an environmental problem, but if we had any plans to lay foundations, well, perhaps we'd need to think again. Perhaps it could be addressed, but for now it wasn't a good spot to build.

Mum didn't cry in front of me. She held me and told me not to cry. 'Land engineers can do marvellous things,' she said, very sturdy. Flood management's a growing field. Dad knows a great one, they were at college together. We'll call him up, ask him to pull some strings. Don't be upset, lovie. We're more stubborn than this.'

So we neither of us said that our grand dream was now and forever a 'flood management' problem. That what we'd been looking forward to as an escape was now something to be stubborn about.

Tasha came round again. She said she had a very bad feeling about the place. It felt 'overlooked', she said, and she brought us a glass nazar amulet, one of those evil eye charms you hang up in your window. Mum hung it and said it was a beautiful shade of blue, and asked if Tasha wanted to burn sage too, that being the kind of thing the massage-class people liked to do.

'We've only got a bit of own-brand shredded on our spice rack,' Mum said. 'But we could have a go.'

Tasha shook her head. 'I don't think the problem's here,' she said. 'But I don't like it, Lucy.'

Mum told me when Tasha left that I wasn't to worry too much. Tasha had had a difficult life when she was younger and it could make her nervous.

I said, 'Couldn't it mean she knows what trouble looks like?'

Mum stroked my hair and told me not to fret.

But the next week we heard from Dad that he'd have to stay at the rig a bit longer. There had been an accident - we weren't to worry, he wasn't hurt. By good luck he'd seen it just before it happened: a bit of machinery had broken and swung down on them, and the guy he'd been briefing to take over had broken his leg, poor bloke. The helicopter had come and taken him to the hospital on the mainland, but he had to keep on till they could get a new replacement in, and it might not be easy - the weather had been bad, really bad these last few days. Lots of storms, he said. Not to worry, it was a good solid structure, but they couldn't get any safe place to land. He was thinking of his favourite girls and he'd be with us soon. We weren't to worry.

Granny was round to dinner that night. She looked better groomed than ever; her hair was freshly tidied up, pinned within an inch of its life like an effigy doll. 'You've been fine without that roustabout of yours, dear,' she told Mum, soothing and implacable. 'You've got all you need here. You'll see.'

So I went looking. I did it after Mum was asleep, because Mum tries to be sensible and she never did learn to stand up to Granny. And it was well-hidden, that hairpin bent this way and that till it looked, in tiny miniature, just like the model of an oil rig.

It was buried in our shower drain. Right where the water would lash it hardest. There were little snips on it, places where it would break.

She hid it very well. But Dad didn't just teach me to build. He taught me to hunt.

They said it was a freak accident, the fire that burned down Granny's house. If it hadn't caught so quickly she would have been able to escape. The firemen were very sorry they hadn't been able to save her; one of them apologised to us personally. He was a nice man, big and sensible-looking. It's a pity Dad won't be home till next week; he was the sort of man Dad gets on with. But the storms have stopped now and there haven't been any more accidents. My bedroom isn't even leaking any more, not since I went up in the attic and threw out the funny-looking sponge I found there. And the floods have gone down on our land, too; they say it should be ready to build on in a few years.

Tasha was very kind when I asked if she'd hold one of her vegan barbecues last weekend. She didn't even ask why I wanted to, or why I said I'd like to come early and help her set up. I looked up paper-folding and learned how to make a little house from the leaves of a book. The History Of The World In 1000 Classic Poems burned beautifully once I threw it on the coals.

posted by Kit Whitfield # 1:12 pm

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#2024MakeAMonster day 4: House

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