In the low-beamed cottage I had a cot, large and wooden, with a side that slid down with a clattering snap. Occasionally I'd figure it out for myself, often I’d climb out anyway over the high bars. This cottage of my father’s where we’d come at weekends, invade his quiet space with crash of ten feet, ten hands, five voices and my mother, had a rock garden through which a small river was diverted, the sound of water our lullaby, me in my wooden cot drifting off to the sweetness of the stream, and the tinkling of bells on my father’s Turkish slippers as he moved across the tiles downstairs. I had my soft toys gathered about me like worries, my teddy, an elephant, I don’t remember them all, but I remember the cluster of them. And I remember toddling about, getting out of my cot carrying them. What was I worried about? That cottage was safe, it was warm and snug, there were no interlopers, my father kept a tight ship. There were never unexpected arrivals with suitcases asking for a bed, surprise guests who never left, sharp-nailed nannies giving us baths, strangers on the landing. There was no basement. Perhaps I didn’t want to leave. Perhaps they argued in the night as parents do when all children are asleep, or parents think they are. That cot has come back to me, a forgotten bed that I loved remembered, wide and deep, the wooden slats blonde and smooth, the red plastic catch that could be snapped and trap your fingers, the small rectangular mattress and scratchy green blanket. I, the youngest, was the last to use it, placed in my bedroom between single beds that I would grow into. Curtains floral and large-printed in colours of The Magic Roundabout, red and orange swirls of the seventies, this is how I remember them, but memories can be wrong, I was there yesterday, and they are gone, replaced with something shiny bright and awful, they must have become threadbare, I miss them. A picture on the wall remains, white plastic frame, electric blue the background to a bowl of fruit, fantastical, large and sparkling, the nest of a dove with a diamond eye. A shelf of Beatrix Potter books, a cupboard with a sliding door, this cottage of few rooms has treasures everywhere. We’ve spent so long in the tall, cold house in London but now that it’s gone, we can come here, to the low-beamed cottage in the countryside, where I was worried-happy, where on Friday nights we’d park the Citroën in the garage, leap to close the pull-down door, run in.
Your story caused me to recall my grandmother's house in a small town where I grew up until my school years and then coming back from time to time. Thanks
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