Goodbye To The Blue Room, A letter From The Countryside

 The Hague, April 2022

My Dearest,

I hope you’re well? It's been so terribly long since we spoke or even written, but I’m missing you very much at this time as I think you probably know, and perhaps you do too... A lot has happened in the last few months, but I shan’t add to your burdens for the moment. I travelled to see Mummy this week and my sisters too, how lovely it is to be together. When I came off the train, Mummy and I jumped into a taxi and made a beeline for our Hotel des Indes. As we walked in, the porter took my suitcase and bag and we had a giggle about the fact that we didn't waste any time to do the most important things first. We sat at our usual table sans Papa, for an aperitif and all the usual staff were there and they were happy to see us. It was very jolly to be there together again and we talked a lot. My sister joined us afterwards too. We had supper on the seaside, how lovely the beach is in the evening. The sun setting near England at the horizon, the sky mauve and pink, I thought of you. 

We then travelled to the countryside, to say goodbye to the house, our house. The house in which I grew up, where I lived happily with my parents and sisters. The house where we have so many happy memories together, the house I left to move to London. The house where my papa died and with him an era. But I must say it was a happy conclusion, the end of a beautiful cycle and subsequently the beginning of a new one. For rebirth follows death like the sun chases the night sky. It’s a funny thing isn’t it? To know you’ll never go back to the place where you grew up where such a large part of your life unfolded or indeed began. In my mind it will always be there, with it’s countless books in the drawing room, the Persian rugs, my Papa’s study and little library upstairs, those heavy curtains in front of every window and most of all my powder blue room.

The Blue Room, I was a bit sad to say goodbye to The Blue Room. My bedroom for so long, it was unbearably cold in Winter, frost on the window and 2 duvets, a heavy woollen blanket orange-pink with a velvet trim, a hot water bottle and I would warm up the bed with a hair dryer before I would jump in and it was swelteringly hot in Summer, unbearable really, I think that’s why I prefer Winter. I looked at the place where my vanity table stood. With its thick cloth and heavy yellow and red fringe. It was my most sacred place, where I kept all my bottles of scent, hair brushes and a silver box. Letters and museum tickets, those were kept in a lacquered box that belonged to my granny. The room where I had played, sewed, laughed and cried, its smell still so familiar. My great aunts telephone chaise with its drawer which smelled of cedar wood in which I kept my notebooks and magazine cuttings from my eldest sister's endless stacks of Vogue and Marie Claire. My 1940's fox scarf which was given to me by one of my dearest friends draped on the arm rest with its head and paws beautifully arranged and the enormous collage that would fill the wall with pictures of Haute Couture, the Opera Garnier, the 1930’s, Imperial Russia and well... All the things that shaped my imagination.

Somehow one always expects these things from the past to stay the same, as they are in ones mind. My Papa reading in his leather armchair near the window, with a heap of newspapers and books next to him or sitting under the awning on a spring day, looking up when I would arrive on my bicycle or from town. But things change and life goes on I suppose, as it should be. But it is strange, I can’t deny that, to sense such a feeling of an ending, but a happy ending. As I walked past all the rooms, I thanked them and closed every single door in the house. I thanked them, for all the good times for all the happy memories for all the things I had learned and for the precious time we lived there together as a family. I walked in the garden, looked at those familiar trees, the tall hedge so dense and green. The large tree at the back of the garden and the place where a we celebrated my birthday in May under the red awning if the weather was fair and I always had a cherry birthday cake or a black forest gateau, my favourite. Or a simple cherry pie with heaps of cream and a candle. How happy those birthdays were now I think of it, surrounded by my doting sisters and my grand parents. My grandfather smoking his cigar and granny with her sherry before supper and Sobranie's and smelling of Madame Rochas. The place where I took a picture with him on my second birthday and where I received my first bicycle on which I couldn’t balance, but he or mummy would hold the seat so I could sit up straight. At the back grew roses for a while and at the front too, extending all the way up to the little balcony.  I observed those tall and swaying trees and the meadow that I looked out on from my bedroom window with its heavy crimson velvet curtains, the lining now completely faded, they made that heavy familiar sound when opened or drawn. I looked at the tree I used to climb in when I was little (yes I climbed trees from time to time, believe it or not) I used to pick endless flowers in that meadow in spring, daffodils and dandelions. Lilacs and Forget-Me-Nots even and especially cuckoo flowers which were my favourite as a child and occasionally cow's parsley, when there were no flowers to be found. I gave them to Mummy to put in a little vase or glass to put on the table for supper or breakfast that always made my proud. I remember having breakfast or lunch in that darkened kitchen in spring and summer, when the awning was lowered and the curtains were half drawn to keep out the Sun, I'd play on the kitchen floor because the tiles were cool on those warm days. 

Those wild rosehips and medlars of which you could make jelly that grew just behind the hedge, just off that little downtrodden path where the meadow met our garden. You reminded me of medlar jelly the other day, I hadn't thought of it in yonks. 'They need to be bletted, dear' you said. How true your words rang and spoken with that usual expression on your face, how endearing, thats how I usually remember you. And how could I have forgotten it?! You can't make jelly from firm medlars. But you can from rosehips and rose petals, those need to be freshly plucked. And that it had to be you who reminded me of medlar jelly. Dearest, it made my heart sing, although I didn't let you notice that.

When they came to collect the furniture I looked at the empty walls, empty of their familiar paintings, drawings and endless photographs that dated from the Edwardians until this year. The bookshelves empty, and no clothes left in those large scented wardrobes, no glistening glasses, no stacks of vinyls and cd's in that cabinet and the pantry left all but empty. But all those things are going to a new place, a lovely place overlooking the sea, where we no doubt will make plenty of new memories and that is just as important. Just over 50 years, now only part of our memories, but when we turned the keys we remembered those good days, yes they were good days, very good and I'm so grateful I've spent them there with them. That's the thing with happy memories, they follow you wherever you go. They are not bound to a certain place. I picked some flowers from the garden as a momento. As I looked back one more time I thought of my Papa and of Frankie for that matter who always said, 'The Best Is Yet To Come'.

Avec toute ma tendresse,

 F.