Page 6 of Fix Them Up
For the past eight months, I had become accustomed to pushing emotions down like pressing a buoyant beach ball below salty waves.
So far, it had only hurtled above the water once.
Don’t think about the funeral.
As if that tactic had got me anywhere.
As I looked at the hallway, the beach ball threatened to come up. I pressed my head against the door frame. What have I got myself into? What was I thinking? Would renovating this house even give me closure?
I took another deep breath and tried not to spiral at the sight of a broken door latch hanging precariously from a rusty nail. I’d need to sort that out today if I wanted to sleep safely tonight. I mentally added it to my ever-growing list, but I knew I’d forget it quickly unless I wrote it down.Your head is like a sieve, my mum used to say,straightin, straight out. I tried not to take it personally.
Anaglypta wallpaper adorned the walls, cemented on in the 1970s, seemingly never to be removed again. Popcorn ceilings and thick swirling green carpet led up the narrow staircase from the hallway. Some of it looked… wet and sticky. Like there had been a leak at some point. I shuddered. A suspicious brown stain marred the ceiling; I didn’t want to know the source. The damp intensified through the hallway.
This wasn’t as I remembered it. Sure, it had been dated when I’d visited as a kid. But it had been warm and homely and looked after.
Some original features, like picture rails and skirting boards, remained. But someone had ripped out the original stairs and replaced them with horizontal bannisters to ‘modernise’ the look of the hallway. But the teak was chipped and flaking off now.
Various mismatching but equally loud shag carpets were on display as I moved through the house. The living room boasted a bold geometric orange carpet, and the dining room showcased a green swirly one. The small kitchen at the back of the house had avocado green units and old-school appliances. I tentatively opened the oven door to see it completely black on the inside.
‘No home-cooked meals for me,’ I muttered.
Upstairs was a matching green bathroom suite, equally grimy and dirty. The house was silent apart from the ticking of the ancient boiler (the villain behind the E energy rating) and the loudness of my brain screaming a never-ending to-do list. Even though it was only a modest three-bedroom semi-detached house, it hadn’t been touched in years.
Hire a skip. Remove the carpets. Steam the wallpaper off. Ditch the electric fireplace and tiled surround. My mind rattled off more and more demands.
Okay, I thought,let’s get started.
*
Time blurred, and I wasn’t sure how much had passed when I heard a loud ‘Hello!’ call from the open front door.
I glanced around, coming back into my body. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and a bead of sweat formed at my neck. I could almost hear my hair curling and growing, like some disturbing cartoon version of myself. I glanced down. I was holding a bleach spray, cleaning the bathroom sink upstairs. I put the bleach down and made my way downstairs, seeing the chaos I had created in the last few hours – so many half-finished jobs. The hallway was littered with partially ripped-off wallpaper; in the bedroom sat a suitcase that had been opened and rummaged through alongside a deflated inflatable mattress. I’d gone to fetch the pump but had got distracted setting up the kitchen, and I knew I’d left the cupboards open downstairs.
‘Fuck.’ My head fell into my palm.
I’m such a fuck up.
I felt like an eleven-year-old child again. It brought back the smell of Mum’s deputy headteacher’s office. Her disappointed expression when I told her I’d forgotten my maths homework, PE kit and food tech basket on the same day.You need to be more organised than this, Katherine. I can’t always be there to hold your hand. My mother shook her head. Post-diagnosis, my mum’s remarks didn’t change much. It shifted fromYou just need to apply yourselftoIt doesn’t mean you have an excuse, Kat. She didn’t understand that my lack of focus wasn’t laziness or for want of trying.
‘Kat?’ The loud voice called from the open front door again, pulling me from my thoughts.
I ran down the stairs to find my cousin Lydia standing in the hallway. She was brandishing two bottles of prosecco like they were awards, and she’d swept the board.
She raised the bottle above her head. ‘Surprise, bitch!’ She accosted me into a bone-crushing hug, her long blonde hairmaking its way into my mouth. Our height difference (me, five foot five and a half, Lydia, five foot eight) was even more apparent when we hugged, which was rarely. We were ‘weddings and funerals’ cousins, mainly due to the distance. Lydia was a born and bred Mancunian, like all the paternal side of my family, while I was raised in Reading.
‘How’s it going?’ Lydia asked, her faint Mancunian accent coming through, the first I’d heard since arriving. Sometimes, it hurt to hear it; that lilt evoked memories of late-night phone calls from my dad after missed milestones – apologies for absences at dance performances, school award ceremonies, and first days at school.
I shrugged. ‘Not too bad.’
Lydia looked around the place, probably seeing the destruction in our wake, but didn’t comment directly. My familiar friend, self-doubt, was waving like Forrest Gump in my head. There was so much to do, and I couldn’t even complete one task without a breakdown.
How did I plan to renovate a whole house if I couldn’t clean one?
Lydia looked around the hallway, picking at the plaster. ‘So, Uncle Jim left this place to you? You had no idea?’
‘I got a call from a solicitor.’
The subtext was obvious.
