Page 33 of Coming Home
‘Up here. Put the kettle on, love. I’ll be down in a minute.’
Hooking her bag and coat onto the wooden stand Violetta spotted Bern’s waxed jacket and wondered if he was there, and hoped that he wasn’t.
Distracting herself from all that was on her mind she took a moment to indulge in her ritual, the one she carried out each time she came home. First, she ran her hand over the antique mahogany stand that had always been by the door, a sentry guarding the entrance, even on the day her parents first saw the house. How it never toppled over she couldn’t fathom because it was constantly heaped with their school blazers and anoraks, hats and scarves that were haphazardly chucked onto the circle of hooks, dangling, clinging on.
Looking downwards to another original feature, she remembered how she and her sisters would throw their rucksacks onto the Victorian mosaic floor that stretched the length of the hall. It had stood the test of time, pounded by hundreds and hundreds of muddy footprints as they rushed to the kitchen for a snack and into the arms of their mum.
She stopped by the gilt mirror and took a second to tut at her pasty face that she’d tried to disguise with make-up. A red curl had escaped from her bobble hat that she left on, concealing the fact she hadn’t washed her hair. The mirror hung above an armoire, so heavy it was impossible to move, a monstrous beast, long and wide enough to hide a dead body. Its intricately carved doors, an arts and craft theme of flowers and swirling stems, hid its cavernous cupboards that had once contained their wellies, shoes and boots.
Their house phone still stood on top but rarely rung these days. They’d gone through quite a few over the years as styles changed and this one was her favourite, a replica, black, 1950s with a circular dial that completely befuddled her nieces and nephews and Darcy too. Violetta and Rosina had spent many an hour there, chatting to their friends or sitting on the battered Queen Anne chair at the end, willing it to ring and some spotty boy from the village to be at the other end.
Comforting. That’s what Appleton was. The rituals, the memories, the furniture and knick-knacks immediately relaxed her, reassured by the sights and sounds and smells of her childhood home.
Passing the huge lounge on the left she spotted the roaring fire surrounded by mismatched sofas and armchairs, some covered in throws to hide the tatty bits, a couple of new retro additions but mostly the furniture had remained the same since she was a teenager and the house had finally been restored.
In those days it had been the elder sisters’ job to bring in coal and wood then fill the scuttles in each room. Violetta had loved it, never thinking of it as a chore and used to imagine she was accompanied by the ghost of a maid. She’d named her Mary and she would tut and huff if the fire wasn’t set right or the grate wasn’t cleaned properly.
On the right was the dining room, only really used for special occasions, bathed in morning sunlight that shone on the huge walnut table that was piled with festive bits and bobs that her mum would use on Christmas Day. Violetta sometimes imagined that if she travelled back through time this room would be the one that looked the same, with its high-backed velvet chairs and fancy chandelier thatnobodybut her mum was allowed to dust.
At the foot of the stairs was one of the pine trees that they’d decorated weeks before. The house had been alive that day, a proper Appleton memory. Bern and Lou had brought in the trees and what seemed like a hundred boxes down from Room 101 in the attic. The gold and red of the baubles; the fluffy tinsel that all the kids seemed bloody fascinated by and draped around their necks; Max lifting Darcy up so she could pop the angel on top; her mum making a giant pan of soup. That day, Violetta didn’t have a care in the world. How a few days can change your life.
Again, Violetta shoved the things she didn’t want to deal with to the back of her mind for a few more minutes, saving her tale of woe, desperate not to think about the other thing – him.
Going into the long, wide kitchen that ran along the back of the house, she filled the kettle then spooned coffee into mugs while she waited for her mum to come downstairs. Taking a glimpse outside, Arthur, Mitzi and Petra were racing around the back garden that was more like a small field, darting in and out of the pagoda, chasing leaves and each other. Right there and then she was envious of them, playing carefree.
She pulled out a chair and sat at the table, exhausted even though she’d done bugger all. Taking it in, her old home, eased her soul. The creamy kitchen walls that bowed in places were lined with oak shelves, weighed down with cookery books and Kilner jars that contained all manner of ingredients.
The long pine table with its mismatched chairs in the centre of the room was where everyone gathered. At mealtimes certain places were still reserved for the sisters. It was the law. Placing her palms on the tabletop, Violetta felt them merge with the grain, moulded over the years while she sat in her place, eating, doing homework, colouring in, laughing with her sisters.
At one end, opposite her mum’s, a chair was pushed underneath. Now and then Violetta was sure that from the corner of her eye she’d spot her Granny Sylvia, drinking tea and reading the paper and, before she was banned, smoking a cigarette with an ashtray by her side.
The clock on the mantel chimed the half hour prompting Violetta to replay the day her mum gave them the task of working out how many times it had chimed since they’d moved in. The winner would get a bar of chocolate. With an answer of 24,820 Violetta won the prize and the number was lodged forever in her head.
The clock had been there when her parents bought the house and she’d often wondered how many more times it had chimed before they arrived. Apparently it was ticking so loudly when they walked into the room it sounded like a bomb. It used to drive her dad mad but her mum refused to throw it out, saying it was part of the house and therefore part of them.
Directly underneath, the black Aga was set into the chimney breast. It was her mum’s pride and joy and ever since the day it was installed she’d told her girls that it was the heart of their home. The heat it emitted spread upwards through the pipes, like veins pumping hot water and warming every room in the house.
Like all of the memories and stories she’d been told about Appleton Farm, they were her treasures, the things she clung on to, touched, coveted because they made her who she was, the real Violetta, not the woman in the mask who’d messed up, again.
And while she held on tight to all of her snapshots of the past, one of them remained the most important, most special. It marked the day she told her mum about Darcy.
Appleton Farm, Cheshire. October 2014
At the time, if she’d wanted to blame anyone it would have been her best friend Candy who had organised a girls-only holiday to Croatia. But Candy hadn’t got Violetta drunk to the point of being paralytic, so bad that she woke up the next morning inside a wooden dinghy on the beach, no knickers, no idea how she’d got there but with a vague recollection of what she’d done. Less so about who with.
Thirteen weeks later, her crazy fortnight break still a thing of legend, Violetta sat opposite her mum at the kitchen table and confessed that she was pregnant.
Always a beacon in the dark, the most unflappable of women, the only emotion her mum showed was an involuntary paling of the skin but otherwise she did a sterling job of keeping control of her facial muscles, giving nothing away. ‘Okay. So what happens now?’
‘I’m keeping it. And before you start to panic about money, I’ll be fine. I’ve been able to save really hard, thanks to you paying my student loan off, so I’ll have enough for a deposit on a place of my own soon. And I already know you’re not going to throw me out into the snow for bringing shame on the family name.’ Violetta smiled, never surer of anything, or appreciating the many benefits of living at home more than she did right then.
Her mum nodded. ‘So I take it there’s no point in us going round the houses and talking this through.’ After swallowing down resignation with a sip of tea she rested into the pine chair and watched Violetta intently.
‘Not really, no.’ Everyone knew that once Violetta decided something she rarely changed her mind and she was glad that on this occasion her reputation preceded her.
‘So you have it all worked out then?’
Violetta was winging it but tried not to let it show. ‘Sort of. As much as I can anyway.’
