The House That Made Us


 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Acknowledgements
 About the Author
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Start of Content
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Copyright
 
 
 
 
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 Alice Cavanagh
 The House That Made Us
 A life well-lived is a life well-loved…
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is for Matthew, for the last time.
 Goodbye, my love.
 1970–2021
 
 
 CHAPTER ONE
 
 Tuesday again.
 He drives across the flyover and out of the city, onto wider roads. Parking up on the tarmac, scooping the flowers in their cellophane from the back seat, he passes through the wide double doors. Fighting, all the while, the droop of his shoulders.
 He finds her in her usual spot, among the high-backed chairs in the pastel rec room. He searches her face for clues to today’s mood before she sees him.
 ‘All right?’ He bends to kiss her cheek, as usual. He puts the flowers down.
 ‘Look!’ She is alight today. Her eyes shine. Years fall away from her gentle, lined face. ‘I found this.’
 He takes it, turns it over in his hands. ‘A photo album.’ It is the old-fashioned variety, stiff dark pages, the photographs held down by sticky white corners. It’s shoddily bound in dated brown and orange wallpaper. ‘Who does it belong to?’
 ‘I’ve asked around and nobody seems to know. That care assistant I like, Blondie, said I can keep it unless somebody turns up and objects.’
 He reads the handwritten label on the front. ‘Sunnyside – a love story’.
 ‘But whose love story, eh?’ She blazes with curiosity.
 This is unusual. She has been fading, like a dropped flower, for the past few weeks. ‘Shall we find out?’
 ‘I hoped you’d say that.’
 ‘First,’ he says. ‘The all-important cuppa.’
 He knows just how she likes it, and he knows better than to bring it with anything other than a modest Stonehenge of Custard Creams. He sets them down within her reach, and begins, awkwardly, ‘Actually, there’s something I have to tell you.’ He has rehearsed. He didn’t expect to be derailed by a photograph album. ‘You may not like it, but just hear me out and—’
 ‘It’s like a biography,’ she says, caressing the album. ‘Of ordinary people.’
 He gives up. He’ll tell her next time. ‘No such thing’, he says, ‘as ordinary people.’
 ‘How about we look at one photo each time you visit?’ She frowns, seized by a dark thought. ‘You will come again, won’t you?’
 ‘Yes.’ He is accustomed to this question. ‘Every week, regular as clockwork. Promise. Come on, let’s see the first snap.’
 She holds the album open. Above a small, blurred black-and-white photograph, in the same expressive hand, someone has inscribed, ‘29 July 1970 – Happiest day of our lives!!!’
 ‘Almost fifty years ago,’ he murmurs, aware that she lives in a permanent now.
 ‘A right pair of giddy goats, they are. Is that a wedding dress? It’s so short. Not sure she has the legs for it. That must be their house. Just a plain little box, really. The chap looks proud as punch, though. Of her, do you think? Or of the house?’
 ‘Both?’ He hasn’t seen her so engaged for weeks. ‘Looks as if he hasn’t a clue what to do with either of them.’
 ‘He’s making a right hash of carrying the poor girl over the threshold. Oh, look, there’s a nameplate by the door.