When the second Mrs de Winter was whisked to Manderely by the debonair Max, she was subsumed by the suffocating memory of Rebecca to the point that the reader never even knew her name. For me, Highgate was the opposite. It was the place where it was all about me. I was forged in the crucible of my much vaunted NW1 flat. A dash of actress, a splash of writer stirred in with a ton of temping. As I lay awake in deepest Hampshire, sheep coughing in the field, I wound my mind back to that cosy pocket of my life. No teas to cook, no rugby kit to wash, no dog to walk.
Take me there!
Staring into the dark, I furrowed my own Google maps and was shocked to realise I could barely remember the high street, the shops: all my old haunts. At three in the morning it became imperative I remembered its every detail – otherwise part of me would be lost forever.
Has 17 years of motherhood erased that bright, shiny me? Have I suffocated, burrowing inside a king size duvet? Drowned in a vat of bolognese? Choked on quadratic equations? Am I a mere conduit for everyone else’s lives, wishes and destinations? Distilled into Uber Mum?
Laying the next strata of generation has meant that Jurassic Me has silted towards the beach - smothered over by the demands and desires of others. Does tomorrow no longer belong to me?
But I’m not ready to be subsumed into basalt! “What”, I scream above the roar of the hoover “about ME?” The me when all I had to worry about was if anyone would come to my party. Did I look good in plaits? Could I find the perfect card in Paperchase?
I need to huck. To excavate. To trawl. Back to her - luxuriating like some North London Cleopatra in her avocado bath of solipsism. Back down those Google paths I go. To Highgate, to reclaim the whipsmart mini-skirted me and administer CPR. She is there, only sleeping, like the Mud Maid in the Lost Gardens of Heligan.
Back I go, to scoop a cup of aqua vitae and anoint the grizzled me with the vim and vigour of my 30 something self. Does she still fit? Not the jeans but the spirit?
To remind myself what I once was before I became saggy mum who doesn’t think about what she wears each day. Who doesn’t wear flea market finds to pick up from hockey - fourteen year olds don’t want arty mum standing on the touchline. They’d rather they were in the car. I need to check I didn’t make her up.
Ah now I see her, in the little galley kitchen - so convenient - so less further to travel than our nightly circumnavigation of our small country islands. She’s not chopping, she’s standing, eating cheese on toast - one plate, no pans.
Now she’s swimming through the reeds in the Ladies’ Pond on Hampstead Heath, her only concern - will she make it to the bank it’s colder than you think; hopping on a 38 bus racing to the top deck; popping to the theatre on a whim. Saunter puss.
But why Highgate? Why not one of my other landmarks? On the leylines of my perfectly positioned basement flat - equidistant from Highgate Village and Hampstead Heath I was at the stilled centre point of the compass. Ne’er Do Well Boyfriend to the east, Newly Hatched Boyfriend to the west. The place of possibility. The tilting acorn cup of what was to be.
There were a lot of initiations. Writing classes, Race for Life, my first full-length play on my darling Mac Classic. And the backdrop to the finely honed dumping of Ne’er Do Well - executed with clinical precision. The car (the driver’s door didn’t open so you had to climb in through the window - always a worry when driving near lakes) pre-packed for a quick getaway back to my childhood bedroom down the M4. A seemingly innocent walk on Hampstead Heath and there on a bench dedicated to Fred and Margery who so loved this place I did the deed. Ne’er Do Well and I weren’t going to get to the inscription phase, thank God.
Glory days. I had the flat to myself. I ventured out to the cinema to watch Les Parapluies de Cherbourg - so avant garde - if you’re going to the cinema on your own it has to be French. I wore sunglasses. A wide-brimmed hat. A raincoat - Mum’s Dannimac not Burberry. More supply teacher than Girl About Town. I remember being a tiny bit bored but it was Catherine Deneuve and I wanted to feel French and depressed. Dirty Dancing was playing next door.
Things done on one’s own need to be improving - art galleries, piano recitals, quirky museums, I was an artist and single and needed to signal this to the world. Of course no one was looking. Alone on a bench in the National Gallery mesmerised by the Canaletto’s. No one sidled up to me to point out the Doge with his golden parasol. But I’d watched enough Nora Ephron to be ok with this state. For a while. Until I felt a bit lost. A bit sad. Until I needed a flatmate. There was Helen, Helen number one – Scottish architect and then Helen number two Swedish receptionist. And little by little I was emerging from my chrysalis and allowing my wings to unfurl and dry in the air. Then along came Newly Hatched who unbeknownst to me would become Fully Fledged.
And then my darling flat became the most expensive wardrobe ever. But I couldn’t let it go. It was my Room of My Own encased in even better Flat of My Own.
Now I have a house, husband, children, dog, shed - grown up things. And stuff, stuff, stuff pouring out of every room – I’m not waving but drowning. I am lost. Lying at the bottom of the laundry basket. And the chopping. Hello chopping board my old friend, I touch you more than I touch my husband. Not a day passes without a board, a knife and a vegetable. Who knew that family life mainly consists of chopping onions? A couple of years into being a mum as I shovelled pesto pasta into my son’s mouth, I stood spoon mid air and with a Damascene startling clarity such terrifying clarity that I had to ring Nic –“Do you realise we are going to be making tea EVERY day for the next fifteen years?” “Dolmio darling” she said.
We all need a Highgate flat. Albeit metaphorical. The fabled Room of our Own. A place where you can shut the door. Give me an hour, let me be. I don’t know where anything is. No I don’t know what’s for tea. What is a mouth guard? I am in another country and we do things differently here. I’ve lost the car keys.
“Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
After my brief sojourn I will be back - renewed, refreshed and I will chop maybe not with joy but at least not bitterness. Because I could not live without the demands - even as I am sniffing a hoodie and thinking that will do another day I am fine with it all. I wouldn’t change a thing. Just let me have a room without a sink.
Hence the bulwark I have constructed around my room. I am Ratty in his cosy waterside retreat. Yes there are interlopers of gaffer tape and screwdriver pots on my shelves, a corner dedicated to wrapping paper, but for the most part I have cleared a patch that is my own. A computer ( MacBook these days) to write on and a desk to sprawl my notes. And a room in my head that I can go to wherever I please.
And a Magimix.
Amuse Bouche
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the voice of the Ukrainian Paddington. Do you hear that Mr Putin - your taking on Paddington? I don’t think so!
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Great fun. A quick and satisfying read for every mother!
Love this. A fun and very relatable read. Bravo!