A sad-grand moment that never came

By Julie Myerson, FT.com site

Published: Jan 05, 2008 

In the two years since we left our old neighbourhood, we've only been back a few times. We've had supper with our good friends around the corner. We've driven through those indelibly familiar streets on our way to somewhere else. And I once parked on our old road for 10 whole minutes - paying because we don't have a permit any more - while I dropped a very overdue book back to the library.

Each time we've found ourselves nearby, we've either gone out of our way not to drive past our old house or gone out of our way to do exactly that. It all depends on how tired or happy or strong or fragile or just plain curious we're feeling. Mostly, for me, curiosity (Is the jasmine I planted surviving? Have they re-painted the front door?) wins out.

"Don't!" Chloë, aged 17, shrieked the other day when, on our way to the dentist, I tried to take a shortcut that would have taken us straight past the house. "Don't make me do it, Mum. I beg you! Please! I really don't wanna see it!" And she covered her eyes with her hands and, even though she was laughing, I knew she was also serious.

Driving through on my own, though, I've done it. I've driven past and slowed. Just so I can lift my head and gaze for a few moments at the dirty brick face of the Victorian terrace where so much of our lives was once played out. Just so I can - what?

I never stop for long. I'm too self-conscious. What if someone sees? What if someone guesses what I'm thinking? Except I don't know quite what I'm thinking. What am I thinking? I don't miss the house. I don't have regrets. I know we did the right thing in moving. Maybe I'm just looking to see whether any trace of us remains, whether even the tiniest fragment of who we were shows up somewhere in that tired old façade.

Tonight, though, we're back in the road legitimately - invited to a party by friends three doors down, people we've seen far too little of since we moved, only because we always took for granted the constant deliciousness of never having to make plans.

It's a cold clear night, a warm and colourful room, lots of people talking and laughing, lots of drink - and the view from the sitting room window still tantalisingly, achingly familiar after all this time.

"That woman over there - " a friend says to me, "do you realise she lives in the Taylors' old house, number 33?"

The Taylors were old university friends of my husband. It was pure, serendipitous coincidence that they moved into their home two streets away the exact same night we moved into ours in 1988. A hot summer's night, our children all as yet unborn, we drank champagne and shared an euphoric Indian takeaway among the packing cases. We saw a lot of the Taylors in the years that followed - our kids all played together - but when they eventually moved our contact dwindled.

Now, though, I look at the woman who's been pointed out to me and a memory bubbles up. "How funny to think that she lives there. Do you know I went into labour with Chloë in the front room of that house?"

My friend laughs. "Come on, I'll introduce you." And we go over and she tells the woman - pretty, dark-haired, sipping a cranberry cocktail - that I know the Taylors. The woman regards me politely.

"Do you know that almost 17 years ago I went into labour in your sitting room?" I tell her.

"Really?" she says without much interest.

"Yes! It was New Year's Eve and we toasted the New Year in and then we all started playing Monopoly. But I was having serious contractions so in the end we had to break off and drive to the hospital ... "

The woman is looking at me. I only intended it as an ice-breaker but something in her eyes tells me this story is a mistake. "And it was really annoying because we had Park Lane and Mayfair and we were winning ... " My voice trails off and I feel stupid. The woman gives me a brief smile then turns to talk to someone else.

On the afternoon we moved out of our house, once the removal men had taken everything and all that was left was fluff and dust and picture marks on the walls and the place was so echoey that even our own voices didn't really sound like ours anymore, on that afternoon my husband and I walked around those empty rooms one last time to say goodbye.

It ought to have been a significant moment, a sad-grand moment, a moment of closure. But it wasn't, not really. Instead what I now most remember is glancing down out of our (already old) bedroom window and seeing our children standing down in the street. And they were chatting and laughing and messing about, our youngest bouncing a basketball and having to chase after it every so often, our eldest telling the middle one something funny or rude or both, all three of them robustly oblivious to the drama of leaving.

And finally Chloë glanced up and saw me standing there and frowned. "When are we going?" she mouthed impatiently. "Now," I told her as I moved away from the old sash window for the last time. "Now."