The Gin Bath

A Sunday essay about being a stranger in your own home, or at least feeling stranger in your own home

I’ve had some good times here at the house on the hill. I never lived here — technically. But there’s always been a room for me. My parents moved in when I was in my early 20s, already out of home and in a different city. Of course I came back to help with the move. Of course I was told to choose a room to make my own, although I never decorated it, and just used it to sleep on visits. Still do.

We’ve had some parties. Including the housewarming. My band played — either badly or well. But there was more than enough alcohol to change your opinion either way.

We hosted a few intersecting groups of family and friends for the big New Year’s Eve when we all thought the planes might fall out of the sky, the petrol pumps wouldn’t work, and the computers would die. (I’m aware that sounds like I’m forecasting to this year’s end — potentially. But this of course was the pre-millennium tension. Very tricky indeed).

It’s always been a welcoming home. And continues to be. We are here for Easter.

And as usual, I’m up early, and have made my sneak-move to the end room. I put on a CD I’ve brought with me, hopefully triggers some memories, and I’ll get some writing done. I find it very hard to write in Hawke’s Bay. It isn’t the place. And I’m not sure why. It’s probably more about the idea that I should be on holiday, and not thinking about such things, but to break completely could be to break forever. To not scratch down a thing each day is my own Y2K meltdown. Forever hovering.

But the pattern is hilarious. I can’t write. I sneak down to the room no one else uses. I sit and listen to music, get writing. Then one or both of my parents arrives and starts talking. It’s always something about how they should sit down here more often. And they never do.

The memory that resurfaces every time I’m here, and only when I’m here, is the time I arrived unannounced to an empty home and spent five days here drinking gin in the bath, and watching movies. I also got a bunch of writing done, for once. Of course I can still remember every movie I watched — it was An Angel At My Table and 1984 and Battle Creek Brawl and Ghosts of the Civil Dead and Crumb. Also All That Jazz. I was working in a video store, I took a few tapes and called off my shifts and went and slept in my parents’ room — couldn’t get the TV working downstairs. With the ensuite, it was like I had a hotel room. And so I guess I treated it accordingly.

A shock on the last day when I realised I had to be the maid to make up the room.

They were away for my father’s 50th. I don’t think I even quite knew that.

This year it’ll be my turn to make that milestone.