Return - After

He stops at the gate and waits, staring at the ornate metal work chosen by his mother to be shaped like a rose. He pushes the gate gently, at first, then much firmer, much harder. It squeals open. The noise reminds him of a coffin lid opening from the black and white Hammer Horror films of his youth.

He walks purposefully up the path; stepping over the weeds pushing up through the gaps in the slabs. It was never like this before. Never. This garden was always neatly weeded, flowers deadheaded, daffodils cuts and tied – the flower beds carefully hoed. The lawn edged neat and dead straight – no blade of grass uneven.

Now the flowerbeds are undistinguishable from the lawn.

The Royal Blue door stands shut in front of him, layers of paint peeling away in finger tip sized circles exposing the colours underneath. Each layer showing the same Royal Blue but each slightly more faded.

He knocks at the door, quietly at first then persistently, knocking again and again. He waits a response. None comes. Nobody answers. Nobody comes. He rings the doorbell, moving closer to the door, placing his ear again the cool paint work to hear it ringing. There is no sound. The doorbell is dead.

He tries the door handle. And stops, his heart beating so loud it echoes in his head. Then he remembers the endless days of rushing through this door; announcing his homecoming and forgetting to shut the door behind him. His mother shouting ‘You make enough noise to wake the dead and put the wood in the hole will you’.

And for that moment he wants to rush through the door and shout, shout his arrival. He pushes the door open and steps inside. ‘I’m home’ he says. His words are spoken quietly, softly to no one there. The words do not reverberate outside of him.

Suddenly he smells a memory. A memory masked by the smell of uninhabited musky dust and damp. Fighting through the years – the smell of floral antiseptic and wax furniture polish; the smell of red hot ironed cotton; the smell of yesterday’s poached fish and boiling beef stew; the smell of stale Embassy No 6 and freshly scrubbed ash trays. The smells of his youth. The smells of his mother.