Gonubie

My husband is driving and my kids are in the back seats. I am in Gonubie for the first time in over twenty years. The last time I was here I was still a teenager, and my grandparents were still alive, living in the house they built. I am about to drive past that house now, just to look. Someone else lives there now; I know that. I just want to see it, and to show my family the picnic spot at the river at the bottom of the road. I want to see the black mud pitted with mud-prawn holes. I want to see the river that holds so many memories in its murky brown water, and look across to the other side. There used to be monkeys there, in the bush on the slopes of the opposite bank. 

I find I know the way, even though I have never driven here myself before. I direct my husband as we make our way down the winding hill. We are almost there.

We turn the corner and there it is. And something wells up in me, something heavy and buried deep. I cover my face and cry. Sorry, I say to my startled family. I didn't expect this. This pile of bricks and mortar, or rather the memory of what it once contained, has undone me. The tears flow, my husband stops the car, and I lift my face to look again.

This house was a constant throughout my childhood. We moved houses and cities but this house remained the same. A thousand kilometres from home, it was another landing for us. Every year we made the journey, squashed together in a hot car for ten hours, eating sausages and egg sandwiches at quaint concrete tables on the side of the N2. My younger brother would fall asleep between me and my other brother, and we would shove his lolling blonde head back and forth between us. The dog, patiently sitting at Mom's feet in the front, would pant loudly, her tongue dripping. The scenery would change and eventually we would be driving through the sub-tropical bush. When we spotted the enormous Humpty Dumpty outside the farm stall we knew we were almost there.

Then we would be there, stretching our legs at last on the green lawn, running to hug Granny and Grandpa. The dogs would greet each other, rolling around on the grass. I can trace the path we ran even now, up the stairs, past the London lamp, through the front door onto the cool, dark floor.  Past the drinks cabinet with its crystal decanters, through the sun room, out of the huge doors to the verhanda. I can see it all: the cane furniture, the jars of shells on the windowsill. The cigarette boxes with Granny's shopping lists written on the back, the ashtrays on every surface. Granny's knitting beside her chair, her cross-stitch framed on the wall behind it. Her funny-shaped Rubik's cube. The old radio.

And the verhanda, with its magnificent view of the garden, the neat beds, the steep steps, the perfect grass and of course the river at the end, far enough away that the jetty was hidden behind the trees. My granny has a river at the bottom of her garden, I used to tell my friends. Wasn't I lucky.

I stare at the house from our car, knowing my kids are tired and probably hungry and just want to go to the beach. But I am walking through every room in my mind. Even if I could, I wouldn't want to go inside now. I will remember it as it was. I will remember the pink carpet in the guest bathroom and the china dish with strong-smelling pot-pourri inside. I will remember Grandpa's blue chair with the holes in it from where he dropped his pipe and nearly set himself on fire. I will remember the china chicken on the dining room table and the little woolen pompom chicks inside. If it's all been renovated inside, if there are stainless steel appliances and granite counters, if it's open-plan now and there are someone else's books on the shelves and pictures on the wall, I don't want to know. It probably doesn't even smell of cigarette and pipe smoke any more.

I wipe my eyes and try to pull myself together. There is no more gold Mercedes in the garage. The couch Granny sat on to watch the news is in my house now, recovered and broken from where my brother sat on the arm. The oil painting done by a distant relative is in my mom's house and the straight-backed dining room chairs are at my aunt's. The bits and pieces of the life they built, the life they shared with us, the treasures they collected, are scattered now, like their ashes. I wonder what happened to the blue canoe, to the funny phone number index that popped open at the letter you wanted, to Grandpa's bowls that he polished in old stockings, sliding them back and forth while we watched from the steps. Where is the map of Malta? Where is Michael Monkey, who lived in Grandpa's cupboard? It's grief that is hurting my throat now, making me want to sit down on the pavement and spend an afternoon right here, alone, remembering.

It's all gone. We drive away and I show my kids the river from the picnic spot. There are thorns and my son is crying; I need to get his shoes from the car and stop the others from getting black mud all over their feet. But all the time I am fighting back tears. Being here is a reminder of a heavy truth: they built a life, it was rich and full, and now it is gone. I can walk through every inch of that house in my memory, but its substance has dispersed. Like dandelion seeds. Only an empty husk remains, minus everything important.

Later, we drive five minutes down the road to the beach. There are more memories, of Grandpa coming for a morning swim in the tidal pool, of the lucky packets and pink sweets he would buy for us on his pre-breakfast shopping trips. I swim in the waves with my children, still feeling blindsided by the intensity of my nostalgia. This is the best beach ever, they tell me, their eyes bright. Can we come here again?

I put it aside, the weight of the loss I feel today. I buy groceries at the shops that weren't here in the Gonubie of my childhood, and make lunch for my family. I will make new memories with the precious family I only dreamed of when I was last here, when I was an awkward teenager wondering what kind of life waited for me on the other side of adulthood. One day the life I am building now will be as scattered and lost as what I mourn today.

My son needs a towel, I find it and help him get the sand off his feet. We get back into the car. I am tired, and sad, and grateful. My husband drives, his hand affectionately on my knee. I close my eyes as we leave, and in my imagination I am walking down the steps, through the garden towards the jetty. I pass the rosebushes and the tree with the blobs of gum, the wrought iron bench and the boggy patch. I walk along the snake path and I can see the upturned boat, the grass growing long against its sides. I walk to the edge of the jetty and sit down, my bare feet in the water, not minding the sliminess on the dark boards. The water laps against the shore and the poles of the jetty, the birds call, something rustles in the bushes, and I remember. So much has been lost, but I am still here. I am still here, and I remember.