If I could, I would buy those houses we lived in. To lay our claim on them. To stop the sands of time from shifting underneath them.
My grandparents’ farmhouse is for sale.
The Farm is where I spent many childhood weekends. It’s where my mum grew up, and where my grandad was born and died. It’s where my great grandparents lived and worked until they grew old.
Grandad died in January 1994. Motor neurone disease took him aged fifty-four. I was seven. I remember the morning with almost prose-like accuracy. The Mega Drive. The knocks at the door. That I was bought a Kinder egg.
‘How did he die?’ I asked.
‘His lungs collapsed.’
Had I really been told that? I imagined how this terrifying event might have played out: Grandad confined to his armchair in the living room, unable to breathe in the middle of the night and alone in the dark; Nana coming down from the bedroom in the morning to find his body. It was only recently I was told that they had been together; that she had laid his body down in front of the fireplace to make him comfortable as instructed by the doctor, and how he had looked into her eyes as he drew his last breaths. So: he wasn’t alone after all.
A schoolfriend of mine lived in the farm opposite. He and his mother were waiting when I entered the classroom with my mum on Monday morning.
‘Your Grandad’s dead,’ my friend announced.
‘I know,’ I replied.
On the day of Grandad’s funeral it snowed.
*
Piece by piece, lot by plot, The Farm has been sold off to its neighbouring farms. And now the farmhouse itself, occupied by my aunt, will no longer belong to the family.
We toyed with the idea of buying it ourselves. A rescue plan to keep the past alive. We discussed how we could extend it and put in an ensuite bathroom. Find some peace and quiet at the isolated farmhouse. It would be a dream come true.
Except that The Farm now is not the Farm of my childhood. Then it was deserted: the barns became places to hide; the shippon, with compartments that once contained cows, was a climbing frame; the entire farmyard was a sort of soft-play centre from a parallel universe. I’m sure there was risk at every footstep. But the farm buildings now belong to other farmers. It would be no good to escape to a remote farmhouse only to be surrounded by someone else’s farm and their busy working day.
*
For one reason or another, I was hesitant to publish this ‘postcard’ after writing it a couple of weeks ago. But here it is. Interestingly, in the last few days I have noticed that the past has lost some of the power of its pull. I can’t fully explain that yet. Perhaps its gravity waxes and wanes. And writing is a kind of exorcism. For the time being, I have my thoughts set on the future.
