Toni’s Blog

"It's just a house, Carole," Robbie had said.  Yet to me it was so much more...

Standing in the hallway of the empty house, I shivered.

It was dark and lonely without all the old-fashioned furniture Aunt Emmy had kept so clean and shining.  The bright curtains and carpets had gone, too, leaving behind dull floorboards and grimy windows.

A spider scuttled passed me as I walked into the kitchen.

Aunt Emmy didn't believe in 'new-fangled gadgets' like washing machines and cookers.  Until her illness forced her to become bedridden she'd cooked on an old coal range, and washed in the big copper.

I sighed heavily as I looked around the dreary stone floored room.  When I was a child I used to love sitting at the wooden table with Aunt Emmy, shelling home grown peas and listening to her soft country brogue telling me about days gone by when she'd been a child in that very house.

Three generations of our family had lived here.  All of them leaving behind memories both happy and sad.  And now it would have to be sold...

I walked out into the garden, overgrown now with no one to tend it since Aunt Emmy had died almost a year ago.  The last time I'd visited the house Robbie had been with me.  It was strange but for some reason I'd been reluctant about bringing him.

"Let's go on Sunday," he'd said.  "I'm looking forward to seeing it, you've talked about it so much, Carole."

Yes, I'd talked about the house, but he didn't understand how I felt about it.  He'd listened to my words, but hadn't gone any deeper into my feelings.  Perhaps it was because I wouldn't let him though.

You see, the house was special.  It was mine!  And Robbie thought it was a huge joke that little innocent me should actually own property.  That was something Robbie didn't believe in.  Although it wasn't through lack of money.

"Sell the house and marry me, Carole.  I'll give you the world," he'd promised.  "We'll travel, live wherever you like, and you can shop in Paris, Rome, wherever the mood takes you."

He wasn't just day-dreaming either.  Since I'd known Robbie we'd spent several weekends in Paris.  On top of his salary his father had given him a more than generous allowance.  Robbie had never wanted for a thing in his life, and money meant nothing more than having a good time and fulfilling dreams...

Back in the house I wandered upstairs to the bedrooms.  Tiny windows set into the sloping roof looked out at the blue sky, and from the big bedroom I could see the oak tree where Uncle Ralph had hung a swing for me.

If only Robbie could have shared my memories of holidays spent there.  Lovely, long sunny days with nothing to do but laze in the garden, or help Uncle Ralph with his vegetable plot.

But Robbie had laughed...

He wasn't interested in things that had been, only the things still to come - and making more money.

So when the will was read, and I heard I was the only relative still living, I didn't know what to do.  Should I marry Robbie and roam the world with him?  Or forget the kind of life he wanted to give me and live here, in my family's home?

I loved Robbie very much, but I loved the house, too.  Consequently, I'd put off making the final decision until now.  I'd auctioned all the furniture and cleared the house of Aunt Emmy's belongings, keeping only the small things with sentimental memories of my childhood.

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