Singular life
Cracking up
Petronella Wyatt
My house is falling down. If only this was the start of a nursery rhyme. But it isn't. My house is falling down. It started with the reading of my father's will two years ago. It is not that the will itself physi- cally caused the house to collapse (although it elicited collapse in certain members of the family).
My father had left the house to mother and me. There was only one catch in this act of generosity. He didn't own it.
It was a question of nuance, I suppose. The house is actually the property of one of those huge London real-estate compa- nies. We just paid them rent. So it was a bit like being left an overdue gas bill. One began to understand how the inhabitants of entailed stately homes feel. It can't be sold and the upkeep is pernicious. You can't even buy a flat somewhere because you don't have the money. (Two years later, my father's estate is not yet wound up.) In the meantime the house is subsiding. This is what happened to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Only the state isn't going to pay for our house to be propped up again. In one respect the crisis was caused by a government agency in the first place. In the garden there is a large oak tree. Its spread- ing roots are what began to disturb the foundations of the house. The house is Grade II listed. One would think that because of this the council would cut back the tree. But it turned out that the tree was listed. I'm not kidding. A very fine tree, madam, with unique filigree interiors and most distinguished woodwork. The council refused therefore to cut it down. Which is more important I asked them, the house or the tree? That foxed them. They thought about that for a long time. Then they came back and said they didn't know.
So they left the tree and the house to battle it out between themselves. The tree is winning. The first crack in the walls appeared in the dining-room. It was during dinner. Something went thwack and sud- denly there was a fault line in the middle of the ceiling running the length of the house. Now it has reached all the way down to the floor, so it resembles a gargantuan cobweb. The second one appeared in the sitting- room. I didn't think much of the walls any- way — too yellowy, as dear Oscar would have said — so when this huge, grey, gap- ing gap appeared in them, one could say it was a bit of a bas-relief. The third mani-
fested itself in the upstairs bathroom. Pieces of plaster began to fall into the bath, though fortunately not while anyone was in it. It made quite a pretty if chaotic effect, like a mosaic done by an inebriated Roman stonemason. The damage to the ceiling is quite compelling, too. From one angle it resembles a big dipper. Then if you look at it when lying on the floor it seems to be a wedding cake or an arboretum.
The one crack that worries me is the one above the bed. It makes sinister noises dur- ing the night. It sounds as if someone is try- ing to break through the wall. Perhaps they are. Perhaps some poor sod was walled up in the last century and is still trying to get out. But I don't wish to cop it during the night, thank you.
I mentioned this to the council but they still said the tree is too important to remove. I have begun to hate that tree. It's like that poem by William Blake. I stare at it all day imagining its malice as its roots push further into the foundations. Another three feet and that's the kitchen gone, or just six more inches and it's goodbye to the Regency cornicing. I never liked trees much anyway. The Earl of March once complained of the River Thames that all it did was 'flow, flow, flow, always the same'. All that trees ever do is grow, grow, grow, always the same.
Throughout history tree-lovers have invariably been sinister. The Hitler lot loved them. Goring was one of the first tree conservationists. All those Nazi youth squads used to sit under trees around campfires for days on end communing with the branches. There are far too many trees in Germany; that is why the Romans were unable to civilise it properly through con- quest. Trees are nasty and destructive. They choke and kill; they cover the land in darkness and doom. Oh, come gentle hurri- canes and fell the wretched things. Then maybe my house will remain standing.
'If it's sex I'd better stay up to watch it. The girls at school say I'm incredibly naive.'
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