“Hello,” I say, “I used to live here when I was a boy.” The old lady, watering her plants in the evening sunshine, eyes me with a sharp look like a drawing pin.
“No,” she says, “I don’t think so.”
I seem to remember being happy there, though most of the memories I can pinpoint you would not call happy.
I remember vomiting at the dinner table after eating mushrooms for the first time. The vomit landed on the plate and I can still picture peas floating in a sea of sick.
I remember vomiting in the garden after playing football too soon after eating.
I remember standing outside on the patio while my parents shouted at each other inside. I seem to recall that it was something to do with a secretary.
I remember running into a door handle and blood pouring down my face.
I remember falling off my bike when I rode over a fir cone and my whole face being covered in blood.
I remember cycling down a hill and crashing into a man pushing his bike up the hill, buckling his front wheel. For some reason I was on the wrong side of the road. I cycled off and hid in a tree in my back garden, but the man followed me, rang on the doorbell and told my dad what had happened.
The next-door neighbours had a dog that I remember being as tall as I was. I thought it was the scariest thing I had ever seen.
But still I think I was happy there.
It’s a lovely evening. I want to show the kids where I used to live. Where I lived when I was their age.
We used to play out on the street a lot. I remember throwing dried dog poo at my friends.
The old woman looks at me like a question mark. I reckon her husband is dead. Don’t know why. Just get that impression.
“Well,” I say, “I don’t think I imagined it.”
“I’ve lived here for over twenty years,” says the old woman. She probably thinks, I think, that I’m too young to have lived there before she moved in. She probably thinks I’m younger than the forty-seven years I’ve been alive for. I do look, I think, quite youthful for my age. “How long ago would it have been?” she asks.
For a moment I am discombobulated. I feel like the kid in Flight of the Navigator – which was my favourite film when I lived here – who returns to his family home after being abducted by aliens thinking that only a few hours has passed only to discover that, like, twenty years have passed and his family have long since moved on. I feel like that for a moment. I wonder if this jagged-looking lady, like a broken shard of glass, has actually reordered reality, like, maybe this is a different timeline or something.
I have to compose myself and do a quick bit of mental arithmetic. “Thirty-five, forty years, maybe.” The lady looks annoyed. I seem to have that effect on people, even people that ought to like me. But she can’t argue with that, even though she looks like she still wants to. Her husband, I think, would have been nothing like me. He would have been a grafter, a hardworking practical man, useless around the house but great with a bit of wood and a dab hand with a screwdriver. I imagine he would have always combed his hair, and wore a tie on Sundays.
“I should think,” she says, “it’s changed a bit since then. I had an extension built.”
“Yeah,” I say, “it’s a different colour too.”
“No,” says the lady, “I don’t think so.”
“No,” she says, “I don’t think so.”
I seem to remember being happy there, though most of the memories I can pinpoint you would not call happy.
I remember vomiting at the dinner table after eating mushrooms for the first time. The vomit landed on the plate and I can still picture peas floating in a sea of sick.
I remember vomiting in the garden after playing football too soon after eating.
I remember standing outside on the patio while my parents shouted at each other inside. I seem to recall that it was something to do with a secretary.
I remember running into a door handle and blood pouring down my face.
I remember falling off my bike when I rode over a fir cone and my whole face being covered in blood.
I remember cycling down a hill and crashing into a man pushing his bike up the hill, buckling his front wheel. For some reason I was on the wrong side of the road. I cycled off and hid in a tree in my back garden, but the man followed me, rang on the doorbell and told my dad what had happened.
The next-door neighbours had a dog that I remember being as tall as I was. I thought it was the scariest thing I had ever seen.
But still I think I was happy there.
It’s a lovely evening. I want to show the kids where I used to live. Where I lived when I was their age.
We used to play out on the street a lot. I remember throwing dried dog poo at my friends.
The old woman looks at me like a question mark. I reckon her husband is dead. Don’t know why. Just get that impression.
“Well,” I say, “I don’t think I imagined it.”
“I’ve lived here for over twenty years,” says the old woman. She probably thinks, I think, that I’m too young to have lived there before she moved in. She probably thinks I’m younger than the forty-seven years I’ve been alive for. I do look, I think, quite youthful for my age. “How long ago would it have been?” she asks.
For a moment I am discombobulated. I feel like the kid in Flight of the Navigator – which was my favourite film when I lived here – who returns to his family home after being abducted by aliens thinking that only a few hours has passed only to discover that, like, twenty years have passed and his family have long since moved on. I feel like that for a moment. I wonder if this jagged-looking lady, like a broken shard of glass, has actually reordered reality, like, maybe this is a different timeline or something.
I have to compose myself and do a quick bit of mental arithmetic. “Thirty-five, forty years, maybe.” The lady looks annoyed. I seem to have that effect on people, even people that ought to like me. But she can’t argue with that, even though she looks like she still wants to. Her husband, I think, would have been nothing like me. He would have been a grafter, a hardworking practical man, useless around the house but great with a bit of wood and a dab hand with a screwdriver. I imagine he would have always combed his hair, and wore a tie on Sundays.
“I should think,” she says, “it’s changed a bit since then. I had an extension built.”
“Yeah,” I say, “it’s a different colour too.”
“No,” says the lady, “I don’t think so.”
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