“Doesn’t matter,” she’d answer. “Check if he knows more than he dared to expose.” Every detail in this paranoid world of academic historical design had to be cross-referenced. Footnotes, hidden citations—there was a system for accuracy.
Especially when it came to “class,” the Platonic social blueprint. Separate meetings were called just to assess the echelon of the living rooms. “Is a bohemian starving artist from a family of self-made lawyers but who went to boarding school middle or lower-middle?” I’d thought this categorization would come easily to me, presuming that I was middle class myself (after all, I grew up without limos or government handouts). How wrong I’d been.
“No!” Margaret shrieked, peering at the picture I showed. “The artist titled it ‘tea,’” (a working-class term, she explained), “not supper, nor dinner.”
“That scene depicts a crass tabloid—clearly upper.” She demystified: “Ironically, only aristocrats would read that.”
“That living room,” she said, “shows new carpeting, i.e., lower made good.”
“Old furnishings,” she would whisper cryptically leaning right over my computer. “Tall garden hedges.” My North American concepts of class were vague, abstract at best. Here, every word one said, one’s clothes, car, reading material and even the state of one’s home indicated social rank. Uppers were messy, as they had nothing to prove; fortunately, they had names like Fiona and Gaylord, which set them apart from the lower class, also messy because they also didn’t care (no mobility, so why try?). Those in the middle, from upper-lower to lower-middle to middle-middle, appeared tidier to show their status, which they were insecure about. So, the middle-middles attempted to appear slightly upper, but not too upper because upper upper actually looked lower.
Everything had its codes. And I liked it. I wanted to get my classifications right, to intellectually dazzle with my research expertise, to add to this organized world of domestic historical design bliss. I wanted to be a slick, smart, visual culture vulture, and find the most home-ish representation of home. But in all of it, really, I wanted to answer the question: what is home anyway? My goal was to solve my life.
THE DOYENNE OF DOMESTICITY
London, 2002
“But where would I put my bookshelves?” Evan was scowling, his bushy eyebrows coming together like two mice making love. “I can’t fit my stuff in this living room.”
“Here!” I pointed to a nook in the hallway, proud of my growing design sense.
Double scowl. “Why would I want books in a breezy hallway?”
Why would you want to live in a damp ground floor flat an hour’s bus ride from town with a living room that smelled like stale smoke and a bay window that looked onto a gray road? I wanted to respond. But he was stressed about not having found the perfect apartment. I understood. “The kitchen has counter space,” I tried to cheer him. “You can cultivate your own seasonings.” He had strong feelings about store-bought seasoning. He rolled his eyes.
“Sorry.” If it was my fault, at least I could rectify it. I wanted him to be happy, enjoy himself. That night, I suggested the unusual: that he come to mine. I put on pink velvet pants, my flatmate’s Euro-trance CD, and opened a bottle of wine to breathe, just as he’d taught me. I downed two glasses and breathed myself.
Evan looked good, wearing all black, his belt firm around his waist. He sat on one of my black Ikea chairs, his back sinking into the fabric, his knees high. I poured him a glass, and he nodded at the label. Encouraged, I leapt onto his lap, kissed his ear and flung my other leg over him. “Whoa, what are you doing?” He pushed me off. “You’re drunk.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m in a good mood.” I winked, pulled up his shirt.
“Seriously, stop,” he said. “I thought you were hosting me at your apartment.”
“Oh!” I jumped off. Why was he all of a sudden not approving of me, my body, my home? I burned up, pulled my shirt down as far as it would go. He didn’t know the half of it. “Chocolate?” I offered a specially imported, way-beyond-my-budget bar.
He examined the packaging, chewed thoughtfully. “Peppery,” he said, which I thought meant he liked it, but wasn’t sure.
I sat down on the other black chair, realizing how its strange geometric slump placed a sitter at an odd angle, folded into themselves, feeling as if they were sinking.
“You should get your own place.” He grimaced and gestured to my speaker. Not his acoustic world music. “You don’t even have your own toilet, or a living room.” His voice sounded like it was receding into a distance. I felt him slipping away, myself teetering on a chasm I wanted to not-see. “You pay too much,” he added. “Let’s go back to mine.”
With that, he unfolded himself and headed out. If letting go didn’t work, holding on did. I grabbed a toothbrush, and all my control, and followed.
• • •
AND SO, MERE weeks later, I found myself cutting back and forth across London on a real estate mission. I’d been so tied to my Angel identity, it hadn’t dawned on me that for a similar amount, I could rent my own space. So far, however, I’d seen only dark, secluded flats, miles from transportation, with Toast-R-Ovens for kitchens.
I sighed and walked up to a Whitechapel address—slightly above my budget, and in a working-class religious Muslim neighborhood. (Few whites, I joked, few chapels.) The cement building was a three-story with bright blue doors and shutters, set on a cul-de-sac off the main road that hosted a lively Indian street market selling saris, samosas, and SIM cards. It turned out the property was owned by friendly lesbian artists who had a pottery shop on the ground floor, a Victorian kiln out back, and a vintage car they’d refurbished. My eyes perked up.
We ascended the rickety stairs to the apartment on offer. Sure, the space was both the size (and consistency) of a shoebox, but it was a light and airy shoebox with a large window, brand-new carpeting and blond Ikea furnishings. “You can walk to the museum and the bus outside goes straight to the British Library.” An intellectual shuttle, plugged into culture and multiculture. The place fit!
“Can I come back tomorrow to show my boyfriend?” I asked, looking around for things Evan had taught me to seek: storage space, nonstructural partitions, hidden costs.
The landlord, Liz, raised her eyebrow. She was perhaps right. I convinced a reluctant Evan to come (he was jealous that I’d found something in mere days, I reasoned). His beady eyes darted around, examining burner sizes as he asked about safety. I saw us from Liz’s perspective: insecure girl and difficult daddy figure. His brow furrowed and I couldn’t tell if he liked it, but couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t.
“I’ll take it,” I said, hoping I’d done the right thing.
• • •
TWO WEEKS LATER, there I was, hoping it again, sitting next to Dad as he drove his beige Camry from Trudeau airport to Kildare (via Carlton, of course). Dad always picked me up from my flights, excited when I returned to his turf, but this time he was frenetic, repeating what I’d deduced from recent desperate phone calls: Mom was “going bonkers” with Bubbie’s estate—two properties that Mom had been renting out to tenants for decades—spending full days with accountants, obsessed around the clock.
As he spoke, I focused on the feeling of Evan’s keys pressing into my pocket. Two worlds colliding in my pants. Evan had gone to visit his family for a full month and had given me extremely rigorous instructions for maintaining his flat: the exact amount of water to be fed to each plant, the precise location where the mail should be left. I’d obeyed, nervous but flattered that he’d trusted me with his prized domestos.
We arrived at Kildare and I was overwhelmed by both nostalgia for the fresh Northern air and panic about what might be lurking inside the yellowing bricks. I saw the house was now hidden by overgrown trees and vines, like long hair pulled over a shy face. None of our keys worked. Mom had apparently hired a locksmith
to install several bolts on the front door. My stomach tingled as Dad pressed on the rusting doorbell five, six, seven times, nearly pounding it with his fist. “She locks me out of my own house,” he hissed. Finally we heard slow footsteps and Mom peeked through the broken plastic blinds. She saw it was me, and I heard latches being unchained. She’s becoming one with the house, I thought as she opened the door. I lowered my gaze to avoid witnessing her decline.
“Judy!” She hugged me. Her body—larger, grayer, more frantic—smelled sweaty. The house looked horrible. The hallways were clogged arteries. Thick heaps of clothes were draped over railings.
I followed her to the kitchen, passing our front room, our drawing room. We’d never used it as a living room—it had always been the repository of furniture—but now it was completely obstructed, an impenetrable block filled with liquidation laundry bins, blankets, striped plastic shopping bags, ancient crates of Diet Coke, factory-second lime green place settings bought in the 1970s. Somewhere still tucked inside had to be our light blue L-shaped sofa which, even as a child, I’d never sat on once. In my friends’ houses people weren’t allowed to enter living rooms because they were pristine, like museums; mine was the opposite, holy only in its pathology. This room that was meant to host guests, to connect public and private, to forge links, dress up and impress, was utterly inaccessible. Here, there was no room for living.
In the kitchen, I brushed crumbs off the seat before sitting down.
“They’re after me,” Mom said. “They’re going to take the houses, everything.”
I assumed that by “they” she meant lawyers and accountants, people she thought were intent on stealing her modest inheritance. But I didn’t understand why.
“They’re managing the portfolio.” I tried to calm her, but was already tired of repeating the comfort phrases from our phone calls. “I understand you’re stressed, but Dad will take care of you. Why are you letting this rule your life? It’s not worth it. As Viktor Frankl said, ‘Man can only control his own emotions.’”
“What do you know from Viktor Frankl?” Mom rolled bits of paper towel into tiny cylinders all around her place setting. “You don’t understand anything. You don’t listen when I try to explain.”
She was right. I didn’t quite listen. I didn’t go through all the bank statements with her. I didn’t follow the logic. “OK, so explain it to me.”
“You don’t really care.”
“I do.” I wasn’t sure I did. I just wanted all this to recede.
“It all began in 1998.” Her eyes turned inward, her focus on the paper towel bits.
“I know,” I sighed. “I know the story.” Bubbie died. There was no will. Mom’s brother wanted his half. Mom had been managing the properties alone for years. She didn’t want to buy him out, but also didn’t want to sell. The finances were complicated. Their dispute escalated to the realm of bailiffs and lawyers. But legally, she had no ground. “Do you have any new information?” It came out whiny.
“You don’t understand me,” she shrieked. “You’re against me like everyone else.”
I sighed, tried not to raise my voice. “Why would people be after you?”
“Because they see I’m naive. I’m an easy target.”
“You? You’re not easy. Lawyers are aggressive; it’s their job.”
“Are they? How do you know? Did you speak to someone?”
“No . . . Dad will take care of you.”
“You think they won’t come after Dad too?” I was starting to smoke at the ears. Every conversation felt like a clogged artery, conclusions already drawn.
“Why do you ask me if you don’t listen to my answers?” I looked at crumbs, cottage cheese hardened on a plate. I was making her worse. Mom was beet red, fevered, getting up, shifting notes from one pile to the other. “Just give me a lift to a lawyer,” she asked quietly, changing tones.
“Now?” I wanted to take a shower, call a friend.
“Yes, now,” she said. “Or take me to the bank.”
She didn’t drive. She was old. She was my mother. I didn’t understand what she was going through; what was wrong with me? Why did I not want to help? Why couldn’t I just be nicer? Of course I would take her. I went to change in my old bedroom, where I found at least a half dozen obsolete fax machines covering my desk and bed, an appliance heap that reminded me of photos I’d seen of an electronic-waste village in China. The floor was littered with school supplies and cheap office materials, binders and colored pencils, more ironic attempts at organization. I felt a tear wander down my dry cheek, but wiped it away quickly.
Outside the bank, Mom insisted I come in with her. I didn’t even know why we were there.
“For what?” I knew the meeting would result in embarrassing fights. I worried Mom’s tape recorder would sit in the middle of the room, shaming me.
“To be a witness. It’s important for the case.”
A witness? The case? I trudged in; she brought two heavy suitcases with her. “Whatever you do,” she whispered, “do not use our real names.”
In the manager’s office, Mom asked probing questions about investments and mortgage fees. I kept my eyes down on my fluttering stomach, feeling like I was involved in some heist but didn’t know what it was, or which side I was on.
• • •
I DIDN’T SLEEP well that night—the bed, dust, jet lag, Mom’s frantic middle-of-the-night pacing and slamming doors—but I decided to try another tactic in the morning. “Why don’t we go out for lunch?” I asked her. A change of context. I still dreamed of a shopping partner, a gallerygoer. I was an adult now, with a boyfriend, and I wanted to be that with her.
She looked at me. “For lunch?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I’m here from London for a week. It would be nice to just, well, do something nice.”
“I don’t have time for lunch,” she said, gesturing to her piles. “I have to work.”
I shook my head, got my gym clothes together, tucked my feelings into my pocket.
But the day before I was due to fly back she approached me. “I found a Greek place that has a lunch special. Is that good enough for you?”
“Of course!” It wasn’t exactly the enthusiastic attitude I’d hoped for, but it was our first lunch date. Mom brought several bags that she refused to leave in the car. I tried to ignore them, perched by her seat, obstacles for the waiters.
“I’ll have the Greek salad,” I said.
“That’s not on the special.” She was particularly unchatty.
“I know, but it’s the same price.”
“But we came here for the special.”
I reluctantly ordered the special, which was more food that I didn’t want to eat.
Mom fidgeted in her seat. “I have so much work to do,” she said, reminding me of what I always said, making me wonder if my own academic work—which was so grounding, so all-important—had always been as overblown.
“What are you reading?” she interjected as she parsed fat off her fish. Literature would bind us.
“Some books for my PhD on feminist art and home,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling guilty about my endeavor.
“Huh,” she said, feeling for her bags, distracted, anxious. The small talk was shallow, distancing us more than distance. I looked around at other lunching mothers. Designer bags. Manicures. Smiles. I was judging her, I knew, and it was wrong of me—she was so horribly insecure, depressed. But I also felt anger fester all over me: why was she wasting her time and energy with things that were so unimportant?
My stomach was full, but I brought a forkful of fish to my lips.
We ate without speaking.
When we got back to Kildare, I checked my voice mail one final time. Evan had not called all week. I packed for my return to London, not really knowing what I should be calling home, and what, away.
“WHERE’S EVAN?” I actually asked out loud. It was eight fifty-five and the mover—whom he’d found advertised on a college bulletin board—was due to come around nine. This was it, the Saturday of my transition from roommates to solo-hood. I’d managed to pack up all my belongings but couldn’t believe how many boxes it had taken. From traveling with a backpack to needing a mover—damn. But this was my stuff, I reminded myself, all stuff I’d acquired and bought with my museum money for good reasons.
“’Bye.” Micki, DJ flatmate, waved as she headed out to work.
I forced myself to play it cool, to not-text Evan. Since our trips, he’d been more distant, busy at work, but we’d still been spending weekends together. Certainly, he knew today was the big day. He was supposed to arrive with the special reinforcing tape he couldn’t stop talking about. I needed him to help carry my black chairs. I busied myself marking up boxes, as if my new apartment was so massive that they required labels. Finally Evan arrived, unshaven.
“Where’s the tape?” I asked.
“Oh.”
Fortunately, the mover came supplied, and I sat between their sweaty bodies on the front bench seat as I gave directions to my new home. Christian homilies emanated from the radio, and Evan asked the driver about his Nigerian background as we drove farther and farther east—away from Montreal, I thought.
Evan seemed more excited by our trip to the grocery to buy hummus and salad for lunch, and the various cuts of beetroot, and the fact that I had a little blond-wood Ikea table to eat at, than he did by the fact that I was now a woman with a home.
“I have to meet Honor and her kids this afternoon,” he said as he wiped his face.
“Oh.” Since when did he hang out with Honor and her kids? “Where are you going?” I asked, instead of: I thought you’d keep me company on this mega-enormous day of my life.
“Just taking a walk on the South Bank. Call me if there’s anything urgent.” He pecked me on the cheek.
White Walls Page 13
