Noel's House

Authors note: This weekend I had the unfortunate task of clearing out the house of a friend of the family who passed away a few weeks ago.

*

Noel, along with his sister Renee and her husband Ric were friends of my uncle, and my sister, brother and I spent many summers at their farm, running wild and playing outside in the fields.

I have fond memories of the two houses, joined but yet separate. We spent hours running up Renee's stairs from the living room, down the second staircase into the kitchen, through the open door into Noel's kitchen, up the stairs and onto the dresser, climbing through the narrow gap into the loft and dropping down back into Renee's house to start over.

The times I sat in the garden, discussing painting with Ric, explaining why I preferred the muted pastel tones of watercolours (as he did) in contrast to my sister who preferred the bright, vibrant primary colours of oil or acrylic (as Renee did).

Days chasing sheep around fields with my brother, clutching handfuls of mouldy bread that we desperately wanted them to eat, while they, showing an unusual amount of common sense, backed away until by accident we'd managed to herd them into the shearing pen that Noel had been trying to get them in all week.

Running to the bridge at the end of the garden to wave at the trains passing on the branch line, pretending to be railway children and hoping for an old gentleman to come and save us from imagined poverty and a father who was too often absent.

All these memories came pouring back as I sat in the passenger seat of the Volvo on our way to the farm, and yet when we arrived it was so different and yet so much the same that I felt conflicting emotions.

I tried to capture the images on camera but somehow they came out too bright, too modern to say what I wanted, and I'd left my watercolours at home, not realising I'd need them.

I attempted a brief sketch on paper with a Biro, but although I could capture the scene, I couldn't show the atmosphere of neglect, the smells, the taste, the gritty feel of the dust on my skin, and so, when I got home I wrote this short descriptive piece.

It's not perfect by any means, and it's not a story as such. It has no real beginning, middle or end. It is purely a memory amongst many memories, a snapshot in time, an imperfect watercolour landscape for the person who taught me that painting in watercolours is about building layer upon layer of thin washes, each completely nondescript, dull and boring on their own, but in combination with each other, creating something special.

For Ric and Renee, and for Noel, may God love you and watch over you.

***

The track from the station, once smooth and well tended by loving hands, now stood overgrown with grass and pitted with potholes from the recent rain.

Bumping over the displaced stones, the raised centre line scraped along the bottom of the car. No 4x4 or tractor here, just a middle class Volvo estate, complete with ageing accountant and overexcited Collie, and me, of course, sitting quietly in the passenger seat, thinking to myself, this was more than just a months neglect.

Three houses along this track, the first at the start, where the road was still smooth and well cut, and at the end, the two we were headed for, once a large farmhouse, then split into two separate but joined dwellings for our friends Ric and Renee, and Renee's brother Noel.

I remembered the last time we visited, before Ric and Renee passed away, the way both houses had been as one. The door between the two kitchens always open, more of a symbol of apartness than a barrier to our running feet. The entrance to the loft another adventure, joining like the lofts in C S Lewis's stories so that we were part of both houses, had access to wherever we wanted to go.

I knew, of course I did, that things were different now. An outsider had bought the house from the farmer, both halves, although Noel's lease had proved to be unbreakable thanks to the work of my uncle.

I knew that the houses were no longer the same as my childhood playground and yet still it came as a shock to me to see how things had changed.

***

We pulled up at the end of the lane, the path leading to the sheep fields now overgrown and impassable, orange plastic now fencing in the animals to hide the way the wooden posts had rotted down to nothing.

The road down to the railway bridge was barred with a new wooden gate, the sign reading 'private, no public right of way'. The grass freshly mown and neat in heavy contrast to the overgrown jungle around us. A recently purchased 4x4 parked on the verge behind the gate. Clearly the incoming owners had no need to worry about the state of the lane any more.

Resting on the gate I looked longingly at the bridge as a train rushed past, turning to my Uncle as he climbed unsteadily from the drivers seat.

"I take it we can't..." I asked, and watched as his face fell. A railway buff himself we'd spent many summer evenings on that bridge, the trains hurtling along below us as he'd tell me and my brother the types of trains and their history.

"No," he replied heavily, seeming to shrink a little under the weight of memories. "Not any more."

He led the way, sadly, leaning heavily on his stick, to the little side gate, the one we'd never used when Ric and Renee were alive, when no fancy 'private' sign had excluded us from the garden, when what was theirs was ours and what was theirs was filled with children's laughter and the scent of Ric's cigars.

Lifting the latch on the rotten post, the small gate dropped down on its hinges and scraped a quarter circle on the ground as we passed, as if the few screws remaining were reluctant to let us through, knowing that when we were done here the whole building would pass to the new owners. New owners who neither knew nor cared for its history, who would tear down anything imperfect or old and replace it with gleaming steel, glass and varnished pine, bereft of scent, emotion and empathy, and turn the old cottage into a sparkling city show home. The typical Londoners country retreat, rustic but with all the comforts of modern living.

Closing the gate behind us, I lifted it up to hook the latch, feeling the rough, damp wood under my fingers, a sharp contrast to the warm, smooth artifice of the barrier next door. And although the latch was held on now with just one screw, and a screw I had to twist back into the rotting post before it was secure, somehow, it felt stronger and more permanent than the flimsy faux wood newly installed on the other side of the hedge.

This one had a past. The post bearing the scars of several moved hinges, the rusted latch worn almost through from use, even the circular marks on the dirt beneath it showed that someone had been here. What did the other have? It was perfectly formed, it didn't droop, rot, it would never need altering or repairing. It would leave no mark, no reminder. It was just a gate.

Dragging myself away I made my way to the front door, following the click, scrape of my uncles unsteady gait, the paving stones slimy with moss and cracked from years of use.

The fruit trees that had once neatly framed the path had grown wild and now, entwined with vines, met overhead, creating a tunnel reminiscent of Secret Garden fantasies, the light filtering through dimly and casting ghostly green shadows as the trees swayed gently in the wind.

The front door was solid wood, the frame warped from damp and time, requiring considerable effort to open successfully, dropped on its hinges like the gate so that to open you had to use the rusted cast iron handle to lift the heavy oak and push inwards with force.

Inside the cottage, the smell of damp dog, dust and neglect was overpowering. The curtains were tightly shut and I turned to open those on the window closest to the door, pulling back in distress as the ageing fabric crumbled beneath my fingers. It was clear that they hadn't been touched in many years.

Standing on tiptoes I pushed the top of the curtain runners across the rails, unwilling to damage the fragile material further. The daylight fought to get through the trees, bouncing off the dusty windows and alighting on the net curtains, once white but now a dirty black.

Spider webs, encrusted with dirt, covered the window frame, working in from the corners as if the woodwork was a fly to be consumed.

Reaching out to brush them away, I felt them crack beneath my fingers, hard and delicate with age, no longer clingy and flexible as I'd expected.

The small movements I'd made had raised a cloud of dust, my uncle sinking into a chair in a fit of coughing, the action causing more dust to be expelled and I rushed around the lower floor of the cottage, opening windows as I found them, my mind taking in the horrific sights before me and at the same time expelling them and painting over with memories, the carpet not black, encrusted with dog hair and crushed insects but white and springy, new as it had been 20 years ago when I last visited. The wallpaper not peeling and stained with damp but fresh, cream coloured with small pink flowers, Renee's choice. The kitchen cupboards not brown with grease and dust but bright sunflower yellow, the gloss paint shining in the sun.

"What happened?" I asked myself, my thoughts emerging from my mouth in a gasp of pain.

"He got old," my uncle replied wearily with a sigh, "and he got tired."

Looking over at him, I saw, perhaps for the first time, that he also looked old and tired. And I realised how hard this was for him and not just for me. They'd been friends since before I was even born, both born in the last years of the war, both growing up in a world where you worked hard and you did your best, so unlike the world of today.

And Noel had worked hard, even to the end he was still up with the sunrise, out with the sheep, cutting the grass, keeping the fields ploughed and sown, and when he'd come home of an evening he was just too tired to keep the house as well, Renee had always done that job. And so he'd just carried on with his part and let the rest fall to rack and ruin around him for probably the last 15 odd years.

I felt a deep sadness, wondering why none of us had noticed how bad it had gotten and I saw my uncle was thinking the same. This was no way to live. But then since Renee had died we'd always met in town, he'd claimed it was the only time he got out any more and that was probably true, but had he also been ashamed to let us see how far he'd fallen, how much he'd let himself get behind.

And why had we not noticed? Even when we'd dropped him back he'd discouraged visitors, the dog didn't like strangers, he had no milk, all the excuses he'd used to prevent us from seeing the state he'd gotten into. And yet he must have known that we' d have helped him out without a second thought, come round once a week and given it a good clean, or even hired a cleaner if he'd preferred. But he was too proud to ask and we were to stupid to notice.

This then was our punishment, our shame, to stand here and take in the true extent of the damage caused by our neglect and to always feel regret.

And so I stood, and I catalogued our failings and filed them away in my memory as a stark contrast to the happy childhood pictures.

The delicately patterned wallpaper, heavy and expensive, peeling away at the corners and hanging down, the paste strong enough that the plaster was still attached in places, the weight pulling the paper down further and exposing the bare brickwork.

The dog hair, a thick layer covering the once white carpet until the colour was unrecognisable, encrusted with mud, dirt and dust, mould growing in the corners where the water seeped through, the floor just loose bricks embedded in mud and covered in carpet and rugs, the cottage had no foundations, no damp course and no central heating.

The huge expanses of cobwebs at the windows and around the doorways, hard and yet fragile at the same time, the spiders long moved on to more fertile breeding grounds.

The piles of filthy stinking clothes on chairs in the corner, threadbare and covered in mud - with no washing machine and no laundrette he wore them for six months at a time before throwing them away and buying new. Only a few months earlier he'd been raving at the discovery of £5 jeans in Tesco. In a bag we discovered a pair, unworn, along with a fleece and t shirt from the same range.

The kitchen was stocked with only cans, the cooker filthy and with a thick layer of dust and grime showed how long it had been since he'd cooked. Had he ever cooked for himself?

Empty jars stood side by side in the cupboard, the labels reading things like 'plum chutney' and 'mums marmalade', the writing Renee's, the glass immaculate and completely at odds with the rest of the cottage.

In an old mustard tin at the back of the cupboard we found a roll of notes, tightly wrapped in an elastic band, in the biscuit barrel, below the custard creams furred with mould, we found more money.

The bathroom was filthy and damp and stunk of urine and mould, although the tiled walls were clean and the shower curtain new. In a rusty tin that claimed to hold shaving soap, we found yet more notes, Noel, we were discovering, had many secret stashes.

The door in the kitchen that joined the two houses was fitted with several locks and a door handle, the handle element removed on this side. I could only assume that the owner had decided they didn't want Noel to be able to access the other part and so had retained entry from their side only. In response, Noel looked to have covered the door area with a large dresser type cabinet. Solid oak and immovable, at least by someone with my meagre strength. I wondered briefly how he'd managed to place it himself before memories of happier times drove me out of that room and into the dining room.

Expecting to see table and chairs and dressers bulging with crockery, I was shocked to realise that he'd converted this into his bedroom, a large bed taking up most of the space along with a chest freezer and a plastic dog bed full of plump pillows sat by the window.

The walls and floor here were in a similar state of disrepair and I noted that as with the front room, there were rusty plug in electric heaters lining the room. Curiously I looked around, searching for a reason, and it took me a moment to realise there were no wall mounted radiators, no central heating.

Returning to my uncle I asked about this, remembering from my youth that the houses had both always been warm. He reminded me that Renee had always had both Agas on the go when guests were around, then he told me that apart from the power shower in the new(ish) bathroom, the cottage boasted no hot water supply, no central heating, in fact apart from the kitchen and the bathroom in the new extension there was no running water at all. Up until the late 1980s they'd had all their water from the well.

It had been Renee who instigated the new extension, the water supply, the power shower, when she realised she was getting too old to lug water about and boil it on the stove for baths.

Thinking back, I remembered the old well, now hidden beneath a rock garden, my uncle told me, and I wondered at how they had survived for so long without modern amenities. But then I suppose they'd never known any different, born and brought up in the cottage that was just the way things were and always had been.

Taking the stairs up to the top floor, I walked carefully, feeling the boards bend precariously under my feet.

The damage up here was both lesser and greater than downstairs. It was clear that the three bedrooms had not been used in many years, the office in the attic for even longer.

The dust was thicker here, the cobwebs larger and more prevalent, there was even one brave spider sitting on the sill glaring malevolently at me.

Ignoring him I looked around, spotting the hatch into the second loft and staring in amazement that we managed to fit through a hole that small. The one on the other side was much larger, this merely a venting hole around a foot square. Tiny really and a good 6 foot from the floor.

Up here you could see clearly the way the joists in the ceiling had warped and sagged with the changing seasons, a lack of warmth and care causing them to droop alarmingly and giving the impression that the whole ceiling was just waiting to fall in.

The sheer devastation hurt my chest and I sat down heavily on the bed, sending up a cloud of dust as my head fell into my hands, my eyes leaking from a combination of pain and happy memories. I just couldn't reconcile what was with what had become. And yet still, if you can feel emotion for an inanimate object, I loved this house. As dank and dark and dirty and decrepit as it was I loved it and for that moment I wished I could stay there, restore it to how I remembered it, full of warmth and laughter and 1970s décor. In that moment I hated the new owner for what they were going to do to it. They wouldn't care about what had happened before, happily ripping out its heart and soul before replacing it with sterile steel and cold glass, ignoring the charm and character they would rip down the wallpaper and white wash the plaster, leaving one wall bare as a 'feature'. They'd put in the latest central heating and combination boiler, turn one of the bedrooms into an en-suite bathroom, replace the yellow Formica kitchen tops with 'rustic' look wood chip or black marble. I hated them. I absolutely hated them with all my being and I knew with all certainty that whatever this used to be was now gone.

Wiping my eyes I bagged up the few remaining 'personal' items and stowed them in the car. Taking one final look for any more hidden stashes or secret hiding places I exchanged a glance with my uncle.

Tomorrow the one month grace we'd been given would be up and the house would revert back to its new owners.

They could deal with cleaning it up and clearing it out. We had everything we needed, the photos, the keepsakes, the memories.

They'd lived next door to Noel for 7 years, been his landlord for the same length of time, and never once had they lifted a finger to help him, hoping that by letting him sink deeper and deeper he'd choose to leave of his own accord.

Well he was gone now, they'd got what they wanted, now it was their responsibility to clean up the mess they'd made.

Pulling the boot lid down I climbed into the passenger seat of the Volvo and shut the door. With one final, longing glance, I turned my head resolutely forward and sat stiffly, trying not to cry. In a way it felt like another funeral and in a way it was. We were both in mourning for the house and the memories we had. Soon, the house would be gone, just another sacrifice to fashion, a 'private' sign on a railway crossing and a 'private' track that only a 4x4 could access.

But while the new owner had their 'privacy', would they be as happy there as we had been? Somehow, I doubted it.