THE HOUSE OF MY GRANDFATHER
By Krishan Coupland

My grandfather built his house himself. Every brick, every floorboard touched by his hands. His signature inside stud walls, behind wallpaper, on the underside of the mantelpiece. Times were different back then, I’m told. In those days everyone built their house themselves.

We go to visit, my fiancée and I. Her name is Charlotte and I worry that Grandad will not approve. She puts on earrings, and swaps her nose stud for a clear plastic spacer. Smiles. There’s nothing I can say to her about me and my grandfather that she doesn’t know already. It’s a long drive to his house, which stands out in the middle of patchwork countryside, tall and gothic. The fields around are still dusted with snow, the furrows white capped. Few other cars to be seen on the road.

“We should have brought something,” says Charlotte as we pull up on the gravel outside.

“He wouldn’t have liked it,” I say.

We ring the bell and wait, but it’s cold outside and the door is, as ever, unlocked. The entrance hall is dark, the bulb in the ceiling blackened and dead. I walk along opening the heavy velvet curtains to let in white winter light. We hang our coats on the rack, shuck our boots. A fire is burning in the front room grate. A ledger sits open on the table beside a tray set with glasses and wine.

“He’ll be back soon,” I say, but he’s not. We go looking. Tip-toeing our way from room to room. All high-ceilinged, all dressed in walnut and green felt. Tall bookcases stacked with folio editions. My grandfather is a rich man with little to spend his fortune on. Our feet, clad only in socks, slide on parquet flooring. The study is empty, and the dining room. The kitchen an echoing emptiness of terracotta tiles and shining pans. We wander through a library thick with the smell of leather, through storerooms stacked with dusty tins and jars. We crack doors cautiously, giggles brimming in our stomachs like trespassing children.

There are rooms here that I’ve never seen before. Quiet rooms, layered with dust. At the back of the house we find a second staircase that winds upwards in a tight spiral. We wander through bedrooms, endless bedrooms and bathrooms and offices. All are imperiously neat, echoingly empty. We think about calling his name, but then think again, not wanting to hear how little impact our voices might have on the tombstone silence of the house.

Another set of steps, another floor. And here we find the accumulated detritus of a life. Paintings and plaster statues and pieces of furniture. Rolled carpets stacked in piles. Panes of glass and dusty boxes containing ancient board games, tattered suitcases stuffed with clothes, boxes overflowing with tins and bottles and yellowed newspapers. Bedframes and mattresses and filing cabinets full of typewritten papers. My grandfather’s memories stored up here in cardboard boxes, gnawed away at by rats.

At the far end of the attic a door opens into a narrow, bright room. Pigeons coo in hutches stacked along each wall, preening and brooding in their little piles of straw. They are beautiful, chests like oil spills, horny beaks and glass marble eyes. They smell of lime and musty straw. When he was my age my grandfather used to breed homing pigeons in the garden shed. Beautiful creatures, he told me. Beautiful. He won trophies for them. I open one of the hutches and a bird struts out, hard sharp claws grasping my thumb. It takes flight when I try to stroke it, disappearing through an open window and wheeling away over distant fields.

We climb again. The next floor is a schoolroom, the desks in immaculate array. The blackboard is clean and beyond the window the playground is busy with running boys in short trousers. We sit and wait a while here, but no teacher arrives. We ascend to a smoky post office that looks out at a village green. The ink that sits in pads by each station smells like old books do. A giant, red, iron set of scales stands by the doorway.

“He owned all this,” I tell Charlotte, and her eyes are wide and she does not speak.

The next floor is dark and confusing. It smells of gunpowder here and we wander through many bare and stonewalled rooms. Rusted bedsteads and broken furniture. Rubble is heaped in the corners and in the final room we come across a rifle propped against the wall. I reach out for it but Charlotte grabs my hand.

“It’s not ours,” she says. And she’s right. I leave it be. As we head for the stairs we hear the heavy drone of plane engines in the distance.

Another floor. There are no rooms here, just one giant hall, where a wedding is taking place. The couple have yet to arrive. Everyone sits hushed in the pews, dressed in fine clothes. Scents of musk and rich, flowery perfume. There are two empty seats in the front row, but we cannot linger. If we stop here I’m sure we’ll end up staying forever.

We pass through a train station. Through a smoky office with a view of the city. My legs ache from the climbing and beside me Charlotte’s face is drawn. She looks frightened. We do not let go one another’s hands. I recognise a room filled with beige leather armchairs from sometime in my childhood, but I don’t remember when. There are no people. We climb up and up through darkness.

The next floor is dark as well, and big. In the distance I can see a yellow cone of light, hanging in space as though cast by a streetlamp. We walk towards it, but it hardly seems to get any closer. We rest, then walk, then rest, then walk. The cone of light grows slowly until I see that it’s a lamp suspended over a desk. My grandfather sits at the desk, writing lines in a ledger. He looks older and frailer than I have ever seen him.

“Grandad,” I say. “I’m sorry we’re late. We got lost.”

He finishes his sentence and looks up. There is a small tray balanced on the corner of the desk, on which sit three wine glasses and an unlabelled bottle. He gestures to the seats before the desk, and Charlotte and I sit.

“This is Charlotte,” I say. My voice is so small here, and I’m tired from all the stairs. “She’s my fiancée. I thought you’d like to meet her.”

My grandfather looks at her with fading eyes and nods his approval. He pours us all a glass of wine, and there we sit and drink.