I
don’t know who lives there now, although sometimes I’d drive past, stop
the car up the road a little, and sit and look at the old place.
We used to call it ‘The House of Love’. Perhaps it still is.
I
heard it started life as an old watchtower. Some seadog would sit and
watch for any ships making their way into the port below.
On
seeing one, they would blast a horn which would bring the villagers to
the pier. Everyone helped in those days, or at least that’s what Andy
told me.
Andy
and Helen had set up home there in the 1940s. He’d had just come back
from the war and they had got married before the sun had set on their
first day together.
They
tried but they were never blessed with children, so they fostered until
Helen died in the 1970s. Several hundred kids passed through those
doors of the House of Love. Every one of them became a better person for
having been there.
I was one of them. I never knew my father but was brought up by my mother — a woman who worked day and night to keep me.
One
day, on her birthday, I brought her a cup of tea in bed. She lay there,
all peaceful like but her soul had gone elsewhere. I was only ten
years old.
I
moved into the house in 1953; there were two other kids at that time.
Adam, who was soon leaving for college out west and Susan – I guess she
was about my age.
Every
morning at breakfast, Helen and Andy would tell us all how much we were
loved. I guess I was cynical at first but eventually, I got used to
those breakfasts, and I tell you I needed them. Jeez, I needed them.
Every
afternoon when Susan and I got back from school – there they’d be, Andy
and Helen sitting us down and asking how our day had gone. I needed
those talks too.
Once
Adam left the twins showed up. Harry and Julia. They were the two who
brought the music with them. Elvis – he was king in our little house.
Sometimes
we’d go up to that tower, and play his songs at the loudest volume.
Between the music and the family, it was the happiest I’d ever be.
Nothing ever came close. Sometimes, I would talk to my mother, because I
knew she was with me, and I could almost see her smile at my dancing to
Elvis.
That house was packed to the roof with love. It’s something everyone should have. Everyone should be loved.
In
the early 1960s, I moved to New York City. Helen visited a few times,
but Andy got too tired to travel. She was with me that afternoon when we
heard of Kennedy's assassination. The following year Helen and I went
to see The Beatles at Carnegie Hall. What a night that was. What a
night. Every time I get low, I close my eyes and think of that night. We
sang ‘She loves you’ all the way home.
It
was her last visit. She started to get sick and talked strange
sometimes. The doctor said she’d only get worse. My work took me all
over the country and the visits home got less and less. On one visit,
Helen didn’t know who I was anymore. I went to the tower and wept.
But
this is what I have to tell you. That house was love. L.O.V.E. and as I
sit here looking back at the old place, I’m listening to the Beatles
and Elvis.
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She sure did.
bobby stevenson 2020
