New boyfriend A and I have lived in the pretty rented house in an upmarket area for about three weeks when the company he works for announces that his department is being relocated.
After six months we move again. The new location is convenient for one of the universities I applied for. It wasn’t my first choice and my decision is based mainly on its proximity to new boyfriend A’s workplace.
Living in a small flat, A and I begin to dislike each other. Still, we look for a house to buy together. In fact, I am there at his mercy. As a student I have no assets to contribute to a house but we are a couple and have already decided we’re in it for the long haul, so I don’t see that as a problem. I will be able to contribute more when I have a degree, anyway I do all the housework (badly), cooking (badly) and laundry (badly).
I rake through local papers and estate agents’ listings and eventually find a house around the corner which seems to be the right size and right price.
New boyfriend A is able to afford to buy the house because his grandparents are giving him £75,000 for a deposit. Even now, looking at that figure makes me feel dizzy.
We complete in December and intend to move in the first week of January.
After New Year he tells me he doesn’t love me. I can’t remember why I don’t leave then but we move in as planned. In order for me to be able to move in with A, I sign a disclaimer. I will never be entitled to a share of the house’s value. At the time I don’t consider the long term implications of this.
Things pick up, I lose weight and look pretty again. I’m doing well with my degree, though not yet so well that it has gone to my head.
Dad makes a request. A and I are invited to his Royal Navy old boys’ reunion.
Great.
Tuesday 18 March 2008
Wednesday 12 March 2008
Table
New boyfriend A and I have moved in together. We have left my hometown and moved an hour's drive away, so that A can be close to his new post-doctoral job. Dad is very proud of A for having a PhD and of me for bagging him. My university applications have gone in, three of which are London colleges, one for teaching, one for Sussex and one for Kent. So far I have offers from two. In due course I will receive offers from all of them.
Our new house is pleasant and light but bare. I am not working immediately, until J settles into the local school.
This is the closest I have come to living in a pseudo-nuclear family in my life. I have my nose pressed againstthe cold window of the Ikea catalogue trying to work out how to complete the rosy picture. I am too grateful to A to see, yet, what he really thinks of me.
Dad wants to buy us a kitchen table. He drives us to a country pine warehouse. Nothing here looks anything like anything in the Ikea catalogue. Any item of furniture from here will only add discord to thepicture of family life. It would not co-ordinate with the Klippan sofa, the Gruntdal cutlery or the Svepa glasses. I hate everything here. Dad points to a round table. I hate it and request a square table or maybe a rectangular one, maybe in a fashionable blond wood with cuboid legs and straight backs. There is no such item in the country pine warehouse.
A has also been looking at the Ikea catalogue and agrees on thekid of thing we need.
A tells Dad the the yellow pine, flouncy table would be just right. Dad says it would be a good size and sensible. He says it's a family kitchen table, to last a lifetime.
The table is ugly.
A says a circular table would work well in our kitchen. Dad says yes, he's always preferred circular tables.
In that case I think he should get it for himself.
He gets us the table which he delivers and constructs two weeks later.
I hate the table.
Our new house is pleasant and light but bare. I am not working immediately, until J settles into the local school.
This is the closest I have come to living in a pseudo-nuclear family in my life. I have my nose pressed againstthe cold window of the Ikea catalogue trying to work out how to complete the rosy picture. I am too grateful to A to see, yet, what he really thinks of me.
Dad wants to buy us a kitchen table. He drives us to a country pine warehouse. Nothing here looks anything like anything in the Ikea catalogue. Any item of furniture from here will only add discord to thepicture of family life. It would not co-ordinate with the Klippan sofa, the Gruntdal cutlery or the Svepa glasses. I hate everything here. Dad points to a round table. I hate it and request a square table or maybe a rectangular one, maybe in a fashionable blond wood with cuboid legs and straight backs. There is no such item in the country pine warehouse.
A has also been looking at the Ikea catalogue and agrees on thekid of thing we need.
A tells Dad the the yellow pine, flouncy table would be just right. Dad says it would be a good size and sensible. He says it's a family kitchen table, to last a lifetime.
The table is ugly.
A says a circular table would work well in our kitchen. Dad says yes, he's always preferred circular tables.
In that case I think he should get it for himself.
He gets us the table which he delivers and constructs two weeks later.
I hate the table.
Tuesday 11 March 2008
Tooth
After his initial disapproval of my meeting any man with any intention under any circumstance, Dad gets on quite well with new boyfriend A. A is in his final few months of a PhD which Dad is finds impressive. He doesn’t discuss it much with A but I get the distinct impression that finally I have done something he can be proud of.
I have a week off my low grade and mentally unchallenging civil service job. Late the previous week, on the way home from work whilst eating a strawberry shoelace, I cracked a tooth. It was a bottom tooth. At the time, the sound of the tooth breaking reverberated around my skull and bothered me far more than the negligible pain. Since then, though, I had realised the tooth had split into two pieces, top to bottom, and that the outer half wiggled disturbingly.
I try to make an appointment with my dentist and am told that I have been struck off for cancellingtwo appointments with less than 24 hours notice. I attribute this to my line manager and grumble about it to new boyfriend A. A's flatmate's girlfriend, S, tells me that the same dentist did the same thing to her. I feel less targetted but realise I'm going to have to see the emergency dentist.
After making several phone calls they tell me to go for an appointment at a clinic which isn't on a bus route or within walking distance. I call Dad to ask him to drive me and look after J while I have my appointment.
The tooth has to come out. It is completely beyond repair but the extraction is not straightforward and I am in the chair for around 40 minutes. I am white when I go back into the waiting room. J is pushing a toy car around and Dad is reading an out of date women's magazine. I have a prescription for some extra strong Ibuprofen.
Dad does not take me home. I am supposed to be supervised for 24 hours. Instead we go to the new house, stopping at the village chemist to get the prescription filled. Dad sits in the car with J and I go in to the chemist. Due to the length of the extraction, the anasthetic has almost worn off and I feel as though I have been kicked in the face by a horse. The chemist is quite busy but my prescription will be ready in ten minutes. I sit on a standing stool and try not to cry.
Dad is tunelessly singing 'Wheels on the Bus' to J who has climbed into the front and is doing the actions without singing. I get in the back.
When we get to Dad's new house I take the Ibuprofen, my mouth filling with blood. I phone A and cry. He's coming to pick me up.
Dad puts me to bed in his room. I don't have a nap. It is curious that Dad is now using the lower half of the old bunk bed and his duvet cover of choice is my old Holly Hobby set.
I have a week off my low grade and mentally unchallenging civil service job. Late the previous week, on the way home from work whilst eating a strawberry shoelace, I cracked a tooth. It was a bottom tooth. At the time, the sound of the tooth breaking reverberated around my skull and bothered me far more than the negligible pain. Since then, though, I had realised the tooth had split into two pieces, top to bottom, and that the outer half wiggled disturbingly.
I try to make an appointment with my dentist and am told that I have been struck off for cancellingtwo appointments with less than 24 hours notice. I attribute this to my line manager and grumble about it to new boyfriend A. A's flatmate's girlfriend, S, tells me that the same dentist did the same thing to her. I feel less targetted but realise I'm going to have to see the emergency dentist.
After making several phone calls they tell me to go for an appointment at a clinic which isn't on a bus route or within walking distance. I call Dad to ask him to drive me and look after J while I have my appointment.
The tooth has to come out. It is completely beyond repair but the extraction is not straightforward and I am in the chair for around 40 minutes. I am white when I go back into the waiting room. J is pushing a toy car around and Dad is reading an out of date women's magazine. I have a prescription for some extra strong Ibuprofen.
Dad does not take me home. I am supposed to be supervised for 24 hours. Instead we go to the new house, stopping at the village chemist to get the prescription filled. Dad sits in the car with J and I go in to the chemist. Due to the length of the extraction, the anasthetic has almost worn off and I feel as though I have been kicked in the face by a horse. The chemist is quite busy but my prescription will be ready in ten minutes. I sit on a standing stool and try not to cry.
Dad is tunelessly singing 'Wheels on the Bus' to J who has climbed into the front and is doing the actions without singing. I get in the back.
When we get to Dad's new house I take the Ibuprofen, my mouth filling with blood. I phone A and cry. He's coming to pick me up.
Dad puts me to bed in his room. I don't have a nap. It is curious that Dad is now using the lower half of the old bunk bed and his duvet cover of choice is my old Holly Hobby set.
Thursday 6 March 2008
Workshop
After helping Dad move every day for a month, I have got fed up and found myself gainful employment. J is with a childminder all day for five days a week, and I do not yet have the maturity to admit that it is probably better for him than being with me all the time.
As such I have not seen Dad's new house for a while. The house has become rapidly messier and dustier, the dogs installed on the sofa and occasionally rambling between boxes and randomly placed furniture. The kitchen unit has been constructed but the sink is not yet plumbed in. Some crockery has been put away haphazardly and anyway is inaccessible due to the large heap in the kitchen. It is a mixture of odds and ends that complete collections or items that are otherwise lost.
The kitchen is an acidic yellow which Dad is unlikely to repaint, but the afternoon sunshine streaming in gives it a faded nuclear zing, almost pretty. The conservatory is really a glazed lean-to, which now houses a combination of lovely and junk items, which don't obscure the view of the garden from the kitchen.
Dad calls me into the garden. He wants to show me the beginnings of his workshop. The supplies for building the workshop have been delivered and are in the driveway, there is obviously no stopping the project at this late stage.
He has dug out the foundations immediately to the right of the back door. I realise that the workshop will take up most of the nearest bit of the garden, leaving room for a small path. It will take up around a third of the garden. The view will be lost and J will be unable to use the swing which Dad has made him on the apple tree but Dad will be able to get to his new workshop within three seconds of leaving the kitchen.
As such I have not seen Dad's new house for a while. The house has become rapidly messier and dustier, the dogs installed on the sofa and occasionally rambling between boxes and randomly placed furniture. The kitchen unit has been constructed but the sink is not yet plumbed in. Some crockery has been put away haphazardly and anyway is inaccessible due to the large heap in the kitchen. It is a mixture of odds and ends that complete collections or items that are otherwise lost.
The kitchen is an acidic yellow which Dad is unlikely to repaint, but the afternoon sunshine streaming in gives it a faded nuclear zing, almost pretty. The conservatory is really a glazed lean-to, which now houses a combination of lovely and junk items, which don't obscure the view of the garden from the kitchen.
Dad calls me into the garden. He wants to show me the beginnings of his workshop. The supplies for building the workshop have been delivered and are in the driveway, there is obviously no stopping the project at this late stage.
He has dug out the foundations immediately to the right of the back door. I realise that the workshop will take up most of the nearest bit of the garden, leaving room for a small path. It will take up around a third of the garden. The view will be lost and J will be unable to use the swing which Dad has made him on the apple tree but Dad will be able to get to his new workshop within three seconds of leaving the kitchen.
Wednesday 5 March 2008
Garden
I can't remember how the estate agents actually did describe Dad's new house, but it may well have been something like this:
"1950s bungalow, 3 double bedrooms, lounge/diner, kitchen and conservatory in need of modernisation. Mature gardens front and back with established trees."
That would, of course, have been the shorter version, probably with a tagline 'viewing highly recommended', with an emphasis on the garden.
Before he actually started moving, Dad had some changes made. He sensibly had double glazing fitted throughout, including front and back doors, and had the long window at the back of the dining room turned into French doors, opening into the conservatory facing the garden. It was a really lovely view.
When the bulk of the moving was more or less complete, Dad fixed a swing up for J on a low branch of the apple tree. In the late spring the grass was starting to need cutting, flowers were blooming and the dogs sniffed enthusiastically while J just ran around.
The garage was just about bursting with Dad's pieces of wood and the neighbour had kindly agreed to let Dad store the hefty 1930s kitchen unit from my grandmother's house in his garage. Dad, quite reasonably, decided he should build himself some sort of workshop in the garden.
"1950s bungalow, 3 double bedrooms, lounge/diner, kitchen and conservatory in need of modernisation. Mature gardens front and back with established trees."
That would, of course, have been the shorter version, probably with a tagline 'viewing highly recommended', with an emphasis on the garden.
Before he actually started moving, Dad had some changes made. He sensibly had double glazing fitted throughout, including front and back doors, and had the long window at the back of the dining room turned into French doors, opening into the conservatory facing the garden. It was a really lovely view.
When the bulk of the moving was more or less complete, Dad fixed a swing up for J on a low branch of the apple tree. In the late spring the grass was starting to need cutting, flowers were blooming and the dogs sniffed enthusiastically while J just ran around.
The garage was just about bursting with Dad's pieces of wood and the neighbour had kindly agreed to let Dad store the hefty 1930s kitchen unit from my grandmother's house in his garage. Dad, quite reasonably, decided he should build himself some sort of workshop in the garden.
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