The Wine widow on house clearing, lost letters and vinegar wine (March/April)
We are clearing out my mother’s house … a desk full of blue Sellotape tins that now hold bent paper clips and desiccated rubber bands. There are photographs of people we can’t identify, ration books, her school certificate, unfinished rolls of tapestry, incomplete sets of playing cards, discoloured bits of tissue paper. That’s just the top drawer. We have filled three skips from the cupboards and when we began we dithered over what to chuck but now, now we’re getting pretty ruthless.
Although I find it incredibly hard to throw anything with human handwriting on it, including pocket diaries from 1983 in which my father itemises every expense (“fuel £10.20, parking 10p”) and their address book which has been by the telephone as long as I can remember. An address book. Imagine.
As we were preparing to throw this leather volume away, a letter fell out. I have no idea who it is from as I can’t read the signature but it is a thank you letter for lunch. On the second page it says “Finally, I am so sorry for what my father did on Sunday.” There is more. “Chuck”. Says my sister. I’ve brought it home. I’m going to try to track the letter writer down.
And then we tackled the larder … and the wine. I took about 11 bottles of white wine home. These have price tickets in francs and lire so I can see they were cheap in the first place. They have not stood the test of time and of the 5 we have opened, 5 have been poured down the sink. Zam says he’ll use the rest for vinegar. My mother would approve. She never threw anything away.
