Fiction, June Gemmell

The Homecoming

She stood in front of the old house and breathed it in. The summer breeze lifted the dust from the warm pavement, ruffled the bushes at the front door with its fingers. The windows seemed different now, darker, empty of life. But the front garden looked broadly the same, just more tired. Overgrown shrubs framed the lawn, untidy limbs spilling out in all directions.

She hadn’t been here since the the clearing out of her mother’s furniture and belongings. The boxes of photographs, assorted cheap jewellery and tea sets still lay untouched in her garage two hundred miles to the south. She had selected one photograph from the box, her favourite, and put it into a silver frame. It was of her mother as a young woman wearing her new summer dress and a homemade daisy chain, hair windblown and eyes squinting into the sunlight. 

Someone else lived here now. She didn’t want to trespass, but no one seemed to be around. The driveway sat empty of cars. Someone was sawing in a distant garage, and she could hear the murmur of a lawnmower further up the street. 

The first paving slab on the path was still split in two and she traced the line with her toe. A parched little geranium at the front door tipped its head to the side and stared at her sadly. She raised her eyes to the windows again. The curtains were different, alien. Unfamiliar ceramic cats sat on the windowsill.

On summer days she had sat on this doorstep, mixing rose petals with water and sugar in jam jars, making perfume. On winter days she had kicked snow off her boots against the top step, fingers numb. Her mother would be there with a hot cocoa to grasp between freezing hands. Her mother was always there, for scraped knees, cut fingers, and later, wiping away tears when boys broke her teenage heart. 

She had no memory of her father. He had left before she was two, and he was never spoken of afterwards. For her whole childhood it was just her and her mother. 

For a moment she thought she saw movement at the window, and she caught her breath, but it was just the reflection of clouds scudding across the blue sky. No sound came from the house, no shuffle of slippers up the hallway, no call of a voice. 

On either side, the neighbouring gardens were altered, fences pulled down, walls put up, driveways pushed into front gardens. She wondered if any of the ghosts of the long gone neighbours were still there, looking out of their windows, watching her. 

She hadn’t been here much in her mother’s later years. Mainly because she lived so far away. She should have phoned more often, she knew, but after she moved, her mother was more sullen over the phone. She would give short, clipped answers to her questions, always giving the impression that there was something else she would rather be doing. And at the end… well she hadn’t made it up from Manchester in time. She swallowed hard at the memory. She should have left earlier, but there were things to be organised at work.

Her mother had died as she drove over the border. The hospital phoned. She sat in the lay-by for a long time, not sure how she felt, not sure what to do next. 

In the end she had driven to the hospital to see her mother who was serene, but absent. She felt she should say something, but what? Goodbye? She couldn’t break the silence in the death room with words. None were sufficient or appropriate. 

The next week was spent in activity, funeral preparation, lawyer’s meetings. She arranged for the house to be cleared except for the few boxes she took home with her. 

She walked up the side of the house. The old lilac bush had seen better days. It still pushed out a few isolated blooms here and there between the bare twigs. She held back from pressing a blossom to her face. She was worried the remembered fragrance would be missing, or not the same. But the flowers reached out as she passed, and brushed her arm. 

Like a thief, she padded round to the back. She remembered the ping and echo her footsteps used to make in the small narrow space between the two high walls. She breathed in the air, as if the same air would still be there after all these years. She did feel in a strange way that something of the small child she had been was left here. And she searched, in vain, for a sense of her mother. 

The washing line between the two concrete posts was gone, replaced by a modern whirlygig hung with striped towels, spinning in the drying wind. There was a new garden hut, a scattering of colourful plastic toys across the lawn, and a swing with a shiny aluminium frame and a red seat. 

She knew that her mother hadn’t come to terms with her move to England, but it was where the work was. She ran her fingers along the ridged plastic seat of the swing. She seated herself on it and scanned the back windows for signs of life. Nothing moved.

Slowly, slowly she moved her legs to and fro. Higher and higher she swung with flushed cheeks and hair blown backwards and forwards, above the fences and hedges. She laughed aloud. Just at that moment she pictured a dark haired woman hanging out the washing, sheets flapping on a summer day. The woman bent down to pick up a peg and a small child encircled her neck with a daisy chain. They exchanged a smile and the mother kissed her forehead. 

Her sob caught in her throat. She whispered something but the sounds were fragile and got lost in the air. Then, louder over the fences and treetops she called out ‘Sorry’.