The house has clearly depreciated in value since I left. The lawn is choked with weeds, a few of them wilting under the relentless summer sun. The yellow paint is flaking off the walls, revealing bare concrete. Several tiles are missing from the slate roof. Still, on today’s market I’ll likely make a killing.

The gravel scrunches under my feet, the keyring jingling as I twirl it round my finger. Where will I head off to once the place is shifted on? Indonesia again? Or the interior of Africa? Someplace far, far from here anyways: where I can be a rootless stranger who is perpetually in transit.

The key clicks as I slide it in the lock. The white PVC door squeaks open. 

Crossing the threshold, my lungs stall. My footsteps slow, deliberate. Like when I was a teenager, creeping back into the house late at night. Dreading the flick of a light switch upstairs, her narrowed eyes regarding me from the landing.

But there’s no one, is there? The breath leaves my lungs and I shut the door behind me. 

First impressions are not good: she has let the house slide into serious disrepair. Yellowing wallpaper peels off the walls like leprotic skin. The carpet on the stairs is frayed, dusty, leached of colour. There’s a pervasive musty smell in the air. Damp, maybe? Mould? 

The living room isn’t too bad at least: there’s the old TV, the fireplace, the battered old leather sofa where she always used to sit. I’d be curled up by the fire with a book in my hand, something by Paul Theroux maybe, my mind wandering far from where I was sitting. You’ll go blind from reading all those books. The crackle of the fire in the grate, a slurp and sigh as she sipped her Merlot, the curtains drawn on the immensity of the night. 

Now, sunlight streams through the window. The table is empty, the grate full of ash, the television screen blank. 

Something glimmers in the corner. Little silver strands on the beige-red fabric… it must be tinsel. She always made an effort for Christmas to be fair to her: she’d cover the tree in baubles, wrap it with fairy lights and every Christmas morning there’d be a few neatly wrapped presents waiting for me. Santy’s come. He’s drank up the milk and ate the biscuits… 

Years later, Christmas decoration duties passed to me. I had to drag the tree down from the attic. Wrap it with tinsel. Set the little electric candles on every windowsill to let anyone passing know that we were still here, still breathing, still celebrating Christmas. 

Running my finger over the coarse carpet, I can’t coax the tinsel loose. Still, it glimmers from the fabric. But why does it matter? Whoever buys the place will probably rip up the floor. The whole room will need to be refurbished really, all the fittings are very antiquated… still, my index finger burns from worrying at that strand of silver. 

The kitchen is a write off altogether: the doors to the laminate wood cabinets are nearly falling off their hinges and the once black hobs on the old gas oven have rusted red-brown. 

It was here I’d find her most evenings: the second she heard me coming she’d be at me to do my homework. No reading till you do your work. Or years later, I’d return late and bleary eyed to one of her interrogations. Where have you been, it’s one in the morning? Mouth set, eyes narrowed, hands folded over her chest. I’d offer some sort of lame excuse, retreat to the room, shut the door.

It was here I first noticed the tremors in her hand. The frequent swearing as she chopped vegetables. Oh for fuck sake, you filthy Arab, you dirty low miserable tramp… Her bleeding fingers held over the sink, blood thumping the basin. 

Goosepimples rise along my forearms: whoever buys this place will have to gut the whole kitchen. 

Down the hallway, the old hot press is on my right. She’d put my freshly washed clothes in there and when I pulled them out they’d be all warm and cosy… I must check if it’s still functional: it’d add a few bob to the sale price. 

Then there’s the downstairs bathroom where I’d brush my teeth every morning and night. Where I practised gelling my hair, learned to shave by myself, discreetly trimmed my pubic hair. Where my tranquil, scalding hot showers would be interrupted by her roaring. What are ye at in there? There better be some hot water left… 

There’s an assisted commode installed now, along with handrails. Mould metastasizes across the ceiling. It’s not in great shape, but at least it’s functional. 

My bedroom: it’s smaller than I remember, but everything is just like I left it. The map of the world on the wall, the shelf piled high with books. A million lives lived and half forgotten: Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Dervla Murphy, Jack Kerouac. You’ll have me out of house and home buying all these feckin books…

Even in the bedside locker, nothing is out of place: old rolling papers, notebooks filled with self-piteous warbling, an Atlas that I’d flick through at night, my fingers running over mountain ranges, skimming seas, dancing across vast deserts. 

So many mornings I’d hear her feet thumping down the stairs, before she’d whack open the door to my room and hassle me out of bed. Get your act together… If I get another call saying you’re late I swear to Christ I’ll… She’d fling the curtains open, daylight bleeding redly through my eyelids. Pulled from whatever pleasant dream I’d been having: frequently I’d be flying, the people and houses and cities passing below me, and she’d drag me from my weightless fantasy to the mundane reality of the school bus, school books, school bullies.

Then as a teenager, I’d come home drunk or stoned or both. Do ye know what time it is? I was sick with worry. I’d lie into bed, stare at the ceiling, imagine the vast night sky just beyond that measly layer of concrete. Big enough to drown in, big enough to lose oneself in, big enough to disappear in entirely. 

Focus… All told, the room’s in good shape. Probably the best nick of any room I’ve seen in the house. Make a nice bedroom for someone’s child.

Back through the hallway. Past the bathroom, hot press, kitchen. Back to the front door. 

The stairs: a stairlift has been installed, gleaming and novel and disconcertingly space age in the shabby surroundings. The banister is wobbly, coated in a thick layer of dust. 

With each step, the stairs creak under my feet: the hairs on my arms stand on end. 

The landing: old versions of myself stare down from the walls. Me in my communion garb, smiling with my hands clasped in front of me. Later in my confirmation suit, scowling at the camera. On the day of my graduation, beaming with the future laid out ahead of me. Then, on the night of the Debs, wearing a crisp new suit and smiling despite the fact I hadn’t managed to get a date. You’re looking dapper, let me take a few photos… Of course, they’ll all have to be binned: I certainly have no need for them.  

The attic is above, a pull string dangling from the ceiling door like a snipped umbilical cord. Full of the assorted miscellanea that accumulates over a life: old school projects and toys and Christmas decorations and all the rest. We’ll have to clean it out someday... Not a chance I’ll sift through it: I’ll get some removals crowd to consign it all to landfill. 

Her bedroom is different. A bed frame to assist with getting up. A Zimmer frame in the corner. The dressing table that once was crowded with cosmetics now covered in various pill bottles, ointments, medicines. 

She’d be laid up here after the diagnosis. The words the doctor told us rattling round our heads: early onset… no cure… I’d be by the bed, steadying her shaking hands. She’d smile up at me with the lip quivering and the eyes wet. I’m not feeling too bad, lets chance a walk… 

Her once straight posture became hunched. Her quick, deliberate movements became slow, tentative, like a toddler learning how to use their limbs. Her keen eyes became glassy, watery, distant. 

School had ended, the world beckoned, but I just stayed put and became a carer overnight. 

After the diagnosis, I’d spend my days and evenings and nights waiting on her. Watching her slow but steady deterioration. Cooking the breakfast and bringing her for a walk and washing her clothes and mopping the floors and disinfecting the surfaces and invariably listening to her criticism. Give that a proper wipe will you? For G-g-g-god’s sake… Your mother may be a cripple but her son isn’t.

The pittance of Carer’s Allowance: food for the week, fuel for the car, a movie down the Multiplex, maybe the odd pint down the town by myself. Where were you? Your poor auld mother was g-g-g-getting lonely… Always wondering how anyone could spend so much of their time caring for someone else, when life is so brief and the world so wide. Especially when every time I looked at her, I was reminded of what was coming down the road for me someday.

The world beyond beckoned: city lights and thumping nightclubs and disposable people. The thrum of a lifting airplane, the whack of heat after exiting into some new, tropical land. Experience. Dislocation. Novelty. 

Just focus on the room… if all the furniture were replaced and the mobility assists disposed of, it’d make a decent bedroom. My stomach churns, a shiver rattling through my body despite the heat.

The upstairs bathroom: there’s a new electric shower she must’ve had installed with the aid of a government grant, along with some handrails and a shiny new sink. 

The home help found her here. About ten hours after she passed, according to the coroner. Exited the shower, slipped and hit her head on the floor. Cause of death: blood loss. There’s nothing to show she died in here, beyond a vague sickly sweet scent of rot that may be imagined by my over eager brain. 

Was it quick or was it slow? In her last moments, were her eyes fixed on the door, waiting for someone to cross the threshold? 

But none of that matters: just focus on the task at hand and don’t get carried away with yourself. The room’s in good nick: it’ll add a few grand to the sale price. And now that I’ve checked every room, it’s time to have a chat with the solicitor. 

The stairs creak under my feet. Even with the obvious decay, the house will make me a serious lump of money. Enough to continue on with my aimless wanderings without having to take on any work. As soon as the place is shifted on, I’ll board a plane and never look back. 

Passing the living room, something sparkles in the corner. I’m drawn to it: still that strand of tinsel glimmers from the beige-red carpet. 

It doesn’t matter though, does it? Sure whoever buys the place will just pull the whole thing up…

All of a sudden I’m on my knees, my nails clawing at the coarse fabric. Still, that strand of tinsel does not loosen. Still, it shines. Even as my fingers burn and tufts of the carpet get caught beneath my nails.

The stairs moan under my feet. Several versions of myself glare at me from the walls on the landing: the good son, the surly teenager, the young man afflicted with wanderlust. I grip the cord to the attic and pull. 

The box is heavy: I’ve to hug it close as I traipse down the stairs. Back in the sitting room, I pull out the skeleton of the Christmas tree and set to work.

By the time I’m finished, there’s a set of electric candles on every windowsill. Multicoloured fairy lights shining from the mantelpiece. The tree in the corner, covered in glimmering tinsel and shiny baubles. Anyone passing would think we were still here, still breathing, still celebrating Christmas.  

But it’s not right, is it? I’m nearly stuck to the sofa with the summer heat. There’s no presents under the tree. And there’s no sign of her, is there? 

My left hand is shaking slightly: I train my eyes on it and will the tremors to subside but they don’t. Grabbing it with my right hand then, I steady it: just like I held her shaking hands on this sofa that last Christmas before I left. I’d told her I was going travelling… I always wanted to but… I suppose I had you instead… She smiled at me: her mouth quivering, her eyes glimmering in the glow of the fairy lights, her shaking hands held steady in my grip. I knew full well that when I left, there’d be no one to hold them steady for her. But I had to go, didn’t I? Don’t worry about your dear auld mother… I’ll be g-g-grand… 

I didn’t want to be tied to her. But really I was: even as I left the house, the country, the continent. I still am. There’s no escaping your own blood.