13. Seph
CHAPTER 13
SEPH
Claire: What time did we say we were meeting?
Max: Five. Pizza delivery is six. I’ve sent a money request though as I’ve pre-ordered and paid.
Me: All done. Georgia’s made a cake too.
Payton: What flavour?
Me: Chocolate. Feel free not to eat it. I’m sure it’ll taste terrible.
Max: You’re just wanting it all for yourself. You need to watch it – your waistline’s growing.
Me: Nothing wrong with my waistline and as long as Georgia likes what she sees, that’s all that matters.
Payton: She did mention you’d become more cuddly.
Me: She did not.
Payton: No, she did. Seriously. She said you were getting a bit fleshy but she liked it because it gave her more to cuddle. You reminded her of a teddy bear.
Me: I’m not getting like a teddy bear.
Me: I’ll bring a salad to go with the pizza tonight. Health food.
Payton: Good call.
Me: Did Georgia seriously say that?
Payton: No. You just fall for it every time.
Max: Cal, you haven’t sent me the money.
Callum: Been sedating a lion at the zoo so I could clean his teeth. Will do it later. Has everyone given Mum their keys back? I can’t find my set.
Max: When’s the last time you used them?
Callum: Not for years. Which I guess says it all.
Me: It kind of does. I haven’t given mine back. I’ll do it tonight. I can’t believe it’s the last time we’ll be there.
Claire: You never know. We might end up knowing the family who’re moving in there.
Me: We kind of do. The man who’s buying it is the surgeon doing Rose’s procedure.
Jackson: You’ve kept that quiet.
Me: I kind of forgot about it. These last couple of weeks have been a blur.
Max: That’s putting it mildly. Vic wants to know if anyone’s staying at ours tonight. She says all she’s doing tomorrow is the sweet sum of fuck all, so if any of the kids want to stay at ours, she can ‘look after them’.
Jackson: Can she have Teddy and Isobel? Van’s got a meeting first thing Monday and I’m in court, so we were going to ask anyway.
T here was some more organising, usual for a Sunday during the school holidays when childcare was often an issue. Some of the kids went to summer holiday clubs, such as Luke, who just lived at a soccer camp every week it was on, but most of them wanted to spend their time as freely as possible, and when they were with some of their cousins, they could be bored.
There was talk next year of three weeks at Mum’s family home on the West Coast of Ireland, which was near to the beach and unspoilt. Mum’d loved her summers there, although they weren’t full of sunshine, it was Ireland after all. Vic and Wren had already decided to spend the full three weeks there, and there was every chance me or Georgia or both would be there too.
This summer though was full of cobbled together last minute arrangements revolving around meetings that couldn’t be postponed and deadlines that came up all too quickly. Summers went too quickly. I remembered the summers from when I was a kid, usually spent in Oxford, running amok around the fields and into the village, swimming in the river and climbing trees until I was hungry. I remembered Mum shouting at me for looking like I’d been rolling around like a dog in fox poo and actually hosing me down on one occasion.
Those summers were a long time ago now, so much had happened since, but I now understood that I’d never comprehend the speed of time or slow it down. I just needed to make the most of these summers where the kids were little and unburdened with heartbreak or work or souring friendships.
Leaving the house where we’d grown up in London today would be a milestone. A moment that we’d long recall, the memories made in those four walls savoured.
But we wouldn’t be making any more there after tonight.
Georgia made her cake and I listened to Evie and Maxwell read their books – one complaining about it more than the other. Rose was involved in some online conversation about books, because why do anything else? – and Luke was reading the latest transfer deals for the Premier League. Our two youngest weren’t bothered really about the house sale, and Luke was rarely bothered about anything that wasn’t football.
It was only Rose who asked questions about it.
“How long have Grandma and Grandad lived there?” She asked me as we walked round, me carrying the cake which was brave of Georgia, while she wrangled the twins.
“Since before I was born. You know Auntie Payts and me were born there. And Ava.” I didn’t remember Ava’s birth. I knew it’d been quick and traumatic for Max and Jackson, but she and Mum had been okay and I had a new sister.
“Will it be weird them not living there?” She pursued the topic.
“Kind of. But it isn’t my home anymore. That’s with you and your Mum and has been for a long time.” We approached the gates to the house, nothing different in how it looked. The drapes and blinds were just the same, but there was an emptiness that pervaded the glass, although I suspected only I could see it.
I rang the bell, because like Callum, I couldn’t find my keys. It’d been years since I’d gone round there when my parents weren’t in, so I’d never needed to unlock the door myself.
Mum answered, her hair flying everywhere, cheeks flushed and she was smiling. “You’re the last ones here. Typical.” She took the cake from me. “Everyone’s in the kitchen and courtyard – go through.”
She exchanged a few words with Georgia and kissed the kids, following behind us with the cake.
The furniture that was being left with the house was the newer stuff, I noticed, the pieces they’d bought since we’d all moved out. It was bare of ornaments and the walls were empty of the photos and artwork my parents had collected over the years. I wasn’t sure yet where it would end up or if they were intending on selling some of the art. One of our cousins was an art curator in a London gallery, her husband an artist himself, so if they did sell it, she’d be the one to advise.
The rugs that’d been on the floors were all gone, as were the rows of shoes, some of which had been mine from when I had been living there.
“It doesn’t feel like home anymore,” I said, a twinge catching in my chest. “It feels completely different.”
Georgia stopped in the hallway, the kids all bustling through into the kitchen, moving out of earshot.
“I wondered when it’d hit you.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned.
“You’ve been really relaxed about it, as if it didn’t matter, it was just part of the course, but the look on your face now - ”
I nodded, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close for my sake not hers. “It’s not my home, G. It hasn’t been for years and we can’t hold onto a place just because of what happened there. I get that, but seeing it so empty makes me realise that it’s just a building, bricks and mortar. We were what made it our home.”
“All that’s true. And this is the last time you’ll be here. Let’s go and sit with everyone because I think all of you will be feeling the same way.”
As usual, it looked like Georgia was right. My brothers and sisters had gathered together, beers and drinks in hand, forming a group that was being left alone to an extent by our partners and children.
I walked over and sat down next to Payton, putting my arm around my twin for a hug that she gave back for once.
“Last night.” I stated the obvious.
There were nods rather than abuse for a change.
“Do you remember when we ended up being locked out here?” Max stretched his legs out and nearly knocked over Jackson’s beer that’d been left in a precariously stupid spot.
Claire laughed. “I remember trying to stand on your shoulders so I could get in through an open window. I was nowhere near and then you nearly dropped me.”
“You moved too much. It was like holding up a squirming worm.” He shook his head. “Was that when Dad had his study at the front of the house so he couldn’t hear us?”
“It was. And the twins were with Aunt Bernie for the day. I think Mum was pregnant with Ava and we were outside for about four hours.” Claire recalled more detail. “Dad thought we were all out with Bernie.”
“We usually were if she was here,” Jackson rescued his beer properly this time. “She was always more fun than our parents.”
“Aunts and uncles always are,” I said. “That’s why all your kids prefer me.” It was kind of true. I knew I was the uncle of choice a lot of the time but that was mainly because I could still give piggy backs and had no limit on sugar intake, unless you actually were my offspring and I’d have to cope with the aftermath.
Mum sat down, which probably saved me from being slandered by my own kin.
“Last night.” She looked around the walled garden. “I’m actually relieved now.”
“It’s the right decision,” Max said, putting his arm around her. “The house doesn’t feel like the place we lived in now all the stuff’s gone.”
“No. It doesn’t. It doesn’t even feel like the house we viewed all those years ago. Before me and your dad got married.” She smiled at the thought of it. “We’d only lived here two days.”
“You made us stay with Dad’s parents in a hotel.” Claire piped up. “I never understood why you didn’t stay in the hotel. You could’ve had a honeymoon suite.”
Mum smiled over at our dad, who was carrying a small glass of whisky. Some things would never change.
“We’d just spent a couple of million on this place and another small fortune furnishing it. We were entitled to christen the place.” Dad sat down next to Mum.
The rest of us looked mildly nauseous.
Max turned to him. “Seriously?”
Dad nodded. “Yep. That sofa, the one you all loved sleeping on – that was the first place.” His eyes were dancing with amusement so I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or winding us up.
I decided, for my sanity, that it was the latter.
“Aside from anything that we really want to pretend never happened, what’s your favourite memory of living here?” This was Ava. She had her phone in her hand and looked to be filming us. “Let’s start with Mum.”
Our mother smiled, looking so much like Ava, just with different coloured hair. “The day when I came home from the hospital with Ava and you all crowded in the bedroom to meet her. I knew that Ava would be the last so for the first time I had all of you there together, just like now, which is the last time in this house.” She didn’t tear up which surprised me, because Claire had.
“Dad, what’s your favourite memory?” Ava switched the focus of the camera to him.
“The day you left for college, even though you were going to America and we’d only just found out. All of you were doing well, either at college or working, in your own apartments – I think that’s when Callum, Max and Jackson were renting an apartment together and I never knew who would be staying there with them. But that afternoon when we’d dropped Ava off at the airport and then came back to an empty house – I felt like I’d got it right as a parent. You were all doing well and we’d done our bit bringing you up. You’ll all understand that one day. Savour it because a year later they’ll start coming back.”
He was smiling, but I just about understood what he meant.
Ava panned the camera around us all, pausing at Max. “You’re the oldest. What’s your favourite memory from growing up here?”
“I’ve got a few. Jackson jumping off the top of the wardrobe because he thought he could fly’s a personal favourite because it illustrated what an absolute eejit he could be. He was so upset that he hadn’t flown.”
Jackson was making indignant noises which Ava ignored.
“What else?”
Max looked at Claire. “I lost my virginity in the secret room, which none of you knew about until now because you chose to believe a rumour.”
Claire looked aghast and Ava definitely caught that. “I thought it was that girl from school?”
Max shook his head. “She wanted to and I refused because she was just using me. I did have some self-respect. She bragged to everyone and I didn’t want to make her look bad, so I let it go. It was here in the secret room and I don’t think I was the only one to lose it there, was I, Cal?”
Callum shook his head. “True. No details coming your way. Too many small ears.”
“What else do you remember, Max?” Ava said, refocusing. “Your best memories.”
He nodded, looking around at us. “I think the birthdays we had here, and the treasure hunts Marie would come up with that were just to keep us busy for a bit but we all loved those. We had a couple of Christmases here too, which were good.”
“I always preferred to have Christmases in Oxford,” Claire said. “It was more likely to snow there and it always felt more holiday-like.”
“So what are your favourite memories?” Ava lingered on her.
“Bringing Eliza here for the first time after she was born and walking round the house with her, telling her about me, that this was where her mum had grown up. And I think it was here where I met Killian for one of the first times.” Claire glanced over to where Killian was setting up some obstacle course for the kids. “He and Max had come back to stay for a night out and I saw him all dressed up to go out. I don’t think either of them came back home that night though.”
Killian came over, leaving Owen with the kids. “I caught some of that. Was that when I saw you here for the first time?”
Claire nodded. “I was in my school uniform and you were in a shirt and trousers, ready to go out. I was mortified when you met someone else and didn’t come home that night.”
“You were hospital bait, Clairey. If I’d have looked at you, Max would’ve put me in intensive care because you were sixteen.” He gave her a soft kiss on her cheek.
“So you waited until she was eighteen?” Max shot him a glare, but there was nothing to it. “Brave.”
Killian laughed, slapped Max on the back and went back to the kids who weren’t paying any attention to us because the obstacle course looked like something off a TV programme.
We carried out with the memories, Payton recalling a birthday party for the two of us, Ava remembering being allowed to choose the wallpaper for one of the guest bedrooms when she was thirteen, working with the interior designer and then deciding that was what she wanted for a career too. Callum remembered Marie’s thirtieth birthday when Dad threw a party and I recalled when I’d been left alone by myself in the house for the first time and hid in my room with a chest of drawers blocking the door because I was useless on my own, which we all knew.
By the time pizza came, Ava had an hour of video footage for whatever she was planning, and the sun was beginning to look drowsy in the sky. The kids had successfully completed the obstacle course and went about devouring pizza and we switched the conversation to plans around this week’s childcare and heading to Oxford for the late Bank Holiday weekend in a couple of weeks, which would be the next time we’d all be together.
I watched Rose nibble on her food, her usual book in hand, standing a little away from her siblings and cousins. She wasn’t as pale as she had been, but she had been quiet. I figured it was to do with this being the last time we’d be in this house, understanding this was the first time she’d encountered the end of an era.
There’d be more to come. Beginnings and endings were part of life as were the way they were interwoven through different layers.
“What’s up, kid?” I said, going over to her.
She pointed to the rose bush, orange roses that were in full bloom. “I bought that for Grandma for her birthday when I was seven.”
“Do you want me to dig it up and we can plant it in Oxford when we go in a couple of weeks?”
She shook her head. “No. I want to leave it here. It’s pretty in this garden and it likes it here. I just hope the next family keeps it.”
I gave her a hug, not mentioning that one of the people moving in was her surgeon, or that she’d never know what became of the rose in the garden either.
We packed up, the rest of the things that needed to be taken loaded into cars, not that there was much left and for the last time we left our keys on the console table near the front door – those of us who could find them – and Marie locked up.
“Goodbye, house,” she said, giving it one last look. “Thank you for being our home.”