they have to do with the menace of memory.
― Anne Rice
We weren’t sure about the house; admittedly, it was gaudy, but still eerily beautiful.
Fran and I had inherited the Victorian row house in the Kensington district, not far from Bay Street and the Market. When I say Market, I’m not referring to the Kensington Market per se, but the Toronto Stock Exchange where I’m a trader.
Of course, the proximity of the Painted Lady to the aforesaid fruit and vegetable market made Fran very happy, as did the narrow streets shaded with chestnut trees where she could easily set up her easel and paint to her heart’s delight.
The Windfall House as I called it should have comforted me—after all, it was passed down through my family all the way from my great-grandmother Eileen to my mother—and now finally, to me.
A part of my past was continuing in my life—so, I should be happy, and would have been, were it not for reservations about finding the right fit for us. But the truth is, even in this, I’m lying—prevaricating, as Grandma Eileen would say. It wasn’t Fran who had doubts about the house—it was me.
I have an aversion to Victoriana—a leftover from a troubled childhood.
You see, I grew up in an attached house built in the late 1800’s, so I’m intimately acquainted with the sounds, smells and creaks of Prince Albert’s era.
I have no desire to go back to those skinny houses with their narrow windows and peculiar quirks.
Maybe I’m prejudiced against that period of architecture solely because the row house of my childhood was haunted. Fran thinks so, and she’s always right. My childhood home had its ghosts, and I suppose, I do too.
I’m familiar with them all. The wraiths, the specters, the cupboard door slammers, the midnight creepers and backstairs creakers—all the ghoulies and ghosties of my childhood streets, have abandoned their proper dwelling places and crept inside me, and I’ve been haunted ever since.
"C’mon, Blake—you adored Grandma Eileen—Give the house a chance.”
As I said, she was right as usual, and saw right through me, but also must have known I didn’t want the house—or to revisit that part of my past.
My Grandma died at the ripe old age of 95—I was seventeen at the time, and for the past eighteen years my mother, Rosalie, owned the house until she passed away earlier this year, leaving the house to me.
Maybe I was being stubborn and I knew it. I should at least try to honour the memory of generations of the family tree and give the house a chance.
I caved in, drew a deep breath and sighed, “I’ll take another look.”
Fran had been biting her lip, awaiting my verdict, a wisp of brown hair across her eyes, while beneath her dark eyes pleading. Of course, I have no defence against her sex magic.
“We’ll go back this afternoon.”
She was on me—arms crushing, lips laughing, and eyes dancing.
“Just to look,” I sternly reminded, but it was over then, and we both knew it.