Spaces

My childhood bedroom was a cold sad room in an old house. The wallpaper was a faded yellow, bland and boring. The bed had an iron frame with a spring base under a lumpy mattress. It had a pink candle-wick covering which was nice to stroke. Near the window stood a small wooden table and chair where I did my homework. My mother hated wall posters so I didn’t have any. There was a framed picture of the Blessed Virgin with a Mona Lisa expression over my bed.

The sash window was small, and the light was poor. I had a view of the old rookery. The cawing and croaking of ravens and rooks, jackdaws and jays— the gathers of acorns and small shiny things— resonated from the massive ancient trees. Raucous and rough, never silent.

I saw again the rays of winter sunlight reflected off the grey slate roof into the window of my childhood bedroom. I saw again my pre-pubescent self; my tear-stained face, belly hungry, echoes of shouts and doors slammed. I heard the raised voices of my elderly parents.

*

Abe and I rattled around the empty apartment in The Hague. The walls whispered it was time to create my writing space, so I did

The spare room was cleaned out. The wallpaper was ivy-green, the colour of forest ferns. I found a deeper green tapestry—at a garage sale—to soundproof the boundary wall with my neighbours’ apartment. They had a new baby and it cried a lot.

The tapestry showed a forest scene with green trees shooting long and lush. Abe presented me with a restored oak writing desk and we bought a comfortable chair. Here was my dream space.

“Since the day I met you, you’ve talked in stories, write them down. Now’s the time,” Abe said.

My space contained a bookshelf, photos, a clock, a dictionary, my computer and a foot-tall plaster figurine of a goose-girl, given to me by a district judge in Limerick Ireland, years ago as a gift. I nursed his dying wife. I had holiday postcards tacked on a notice board on the wall; echoes of our children’s voices from another time, long ago, by the sea.

Some mornings the words flowed from my pen and I felt like Chekov; imagine that! Some mornings I sat and stared out the window into my neighbours’ back gardens. I listened to the sounds of birdsong and insects buzzing. Further down the street fresh bread and cinnamon rolls wafted towards me from the bakery. I thought of me and Meneer van der Meer, —the baker —as we created our daily bread.