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A New Home
by
Stan Howes
I do not know where to begin. The time, not long ago, has now the quality of distant, elusive dream and yet it did exist and the happiness was real as this moment. Slowly, however, in the process of remembering, colours, sounds, voices and scenes take on new life. Blurred memory becomes focused recollection.
My aunt and uncle – Lala and Bob – were not in their prime when they moved into their traditional Irish farmhouse home, on a twist in the road to Newcastle with the Mountains of Mourne a comforting horizon. I guess they were in their mid-fifties, but a new home imbued them with youthful hope and optimism. I well recall my first visit when my motorbike juddered to a halt at their gate one sunshiney morning. The living room of their house was like a builder’s yard, stepladders here, paints and rolls of wallpaper there, and my aunt and uncle working with the same gusto as newlyweds to bring order to the chaos. But as usual with them when a visitor called work stopped and the talk began.
The house lay several feet below the main road where traffic hurtled by wafting the hardy flowers in the rockery and scattering dust. Nonetheless, it was a little island of calm. The back garden overlooked drumlin country where only grazing cows and whitewashed stone farmsteads interrupted the rolling fields.
It was a good place to lounge on a summer’s day in the company of my aunt and uncle, who since the death of my parents had taken on a mentorial role. Many an afternoon we would sit with the big, green canvas of County Down before us, talking about anything or anyone that came into our minds and maybe sipping at my uncle’s heady, home-made wine. ‘Try a drop of this,’ he would say with a conspiratorial wink. ‘Good stuff!’ It was not only me who got up feeling more that a bit woozy. The postman, the baker and anyone else who called were plied with his latest vintage and no doubt pronounced approval before stumbling to the gate.
My uncle was always ready for a chat; ready to befriend anyone who came to the door with a cordial smile and encouraging words. You felt he had found his little bit of paradise and wanted to share it.
He had certainly his ups and downs and lived wildly and recklessly when a young man. He would often relax into his warm bath of memories recalling his days in Germany and Austria just after the war: the black market (in which I suspected he took more than a passive interest), his boisterous drinking companions and their binges, a romantic episode one night with a woman in a Viennese wood…… I never tired of hearing the same stories, honed and polished by years of repetition. My reactions of surprise, amusement or whatever were equally perfected.
Much of his time now was spent in his own words: ‘just arsing about’, frequently in his garage, where he kept and cosseted his prized motor car. In addition all kinds of obsolete gadgetry and downright rubbish crammed the shelves and floor, the accumulation of years. He appeared to be equipped for every conceivable eventuality or crisis.
Now all that wonderful, chaotic life was distilled into that kindly, knowing smile. You felt you couldn’t teach this man anything. He already knew it.
My aunt’s sedate lifestyle belied a more flamboyant youth when she was the singer in one of the dance bands of her era and enjoyed the pleasures of the moment in spite of post-war shortages and chronic lack of money. Listening to her made you question the benefits of our more affluent age.
She seemed possessed of immense womanly wisdom, which she handed out liberally and sometimes with earthy candour. While she would despise hypocrisy and small-mindedness, her opinions were always tempered by a compassion and understanding for human frailty. Her strength of character grew out of a great tenderness. ‘You pass this way just once’, she would say and I guess that summed up her outlook on life.
She had never shown any marked predilection for animals until her move to the country. However, while there she adopted a string of stray cats, which were housed, fed and indulged until they went the way of many felines: either a mysterious disappearance or a lifeless heap at the side of a busy road.
Living in such an isolated spot snow was a yearly hazard when the fields would be blanketed in white to the far-off Mournes. Despite his angina my uncle would manfully dig himself a path to the gate and the outer world. And on nights when gales blew and brought down power lines my aunt would produce an elegant oil lamp to push back the winter dark and throw friendly ghosts on the walls.
The house seemed to weave a magic spell around others besides myself becoming a magnet for friends and relations who would drop in to enjoy the customary hospitality. My aunt would say: ‘A giving hand never wants’ and she was the epitome of that. She and her husband were the perfect hosts: kind, welcoming and unjudgemental.
There was also my annual pilgrimage to see them on Boxing Day; a quite unmissable event. I remember the quiet chatter over the festive meal; the gentle bonhomie. Then the late night farewells. The simple words of hope and endearment exchanged under a cold, starry sky and the final waves and the closing of the door. The silence before riding into the darkness.
The passage of time has imparted to this period the glow of a golden age. If we are lucky to have a golden age in our lives it is usually brief and inevitably tinged with sadness.
My aunt and uncle stayed in their rustic retreat almost two decades until failing health overtook my uncle and they moved back to the city. A few years later he died. I have occasionally passed their former home while speeding along the road to Newcastle, but it will never be the same again. It seems dark and neglected. The spirit has vanished. That unique circle of people and relationships has come and gone. Now it lies in the embrace of memory.
Still, there are nights when I call on my aunt and we sit, usually with well-filled glasses, reminiscing about that house and the good times we had: the talking, the drinking and the ‘just arsing about’. And sometimes I feel the spirit with us.
------
Stan Howes
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