Half gone.

Half gone.(Ellie) I remember what it looks like. The book. Vaguely. A graveyard background with a skeleton wearing a top hat waving on the front, somehow grinning. I can't remember the name though. Ghosts, ghouls and…? Sounds similar but it isn’t quite right. I remember when I got it. I was with Lozzie in the big water stones in Glasgow. The kids floor was near the top, and after several escalator rides we reached a floor just for books for kids. I could spend hours, even as a child, browsing, trying to choose the right book. It was lucky that I found it, as it had been round the corner near the back, and if I remember correctly, we were supposed to leave soon. I even remember the first story, one about a boy who became friends with a ghost and made soup from his bones. Scary doesn’t really describe the stories, as they all carried a certain charm that enchanted rather than scared.

I hadn’t even remembered it until I was asked what my favorite story was, several popped into my head but only after I had made my choice did the one from the book decide to make an appearance. I was a story about a man who sees a woman walk out of a lake, and bakes her bread, but she says that it is either too soft or too hard. I couldn’t remember the name, so decided to try and find the book so I could re-acquaint myself.

Only, I couldn’t find the book. Memory led me to the sitting room, and after searching the drawers of the coffee table, which had always had a distinctive smell, I found nothing. I then searched my brother’s room, which, despite being re-decorated, still contained the bookshelf that houses many childhood favorites. But none of them were the book. Sudden inspiration hit me and I proceeded to the kitchen and over to the dresses by the side of the dinning table. Only, this wasn’t the dinning table. This was the table that used to sit in the room beside the sitting room, only really used for Christmas. For some reason, this had been swapped for the dark, art deco kitchen table, which was used slightly more frequently.

I searched through the small cupboards that had recently housed board games like “Tomb of Doom”, boxes of colouring pens and pencils, two old-fashioned dolls given to me by dad’s girlfriend and, if my memory isn’t deceiving me, the book. But they were all empty. Dad asked what I was looking for, and I described the book, and he suggested my brother’s room and the sitting room. I looked again, but didn’t find the book.

I then went to the playroom, where most of my childhood had been lived out, and went to the tiny room to the left of the stairs. This room had held our toys, but now was filled with ski jackets and bags. Since when had this become storage for our bags and gloves? Why were bulky coats and boots pilled on top of old mementoes like the clock that used to hang in our room? I saw the two dolls that used to be in the cupboard, and one of the board games. But the book wasn’t there.

Why were the dolls there? Why had they not been lost? I looked around the room that used to be full of wonder and fun, and remembered how it would get too hot in summer, and we would open the window, letting in the scent of grass and sunshine. But now it was just storage for things that didn’t matter. The feeling that I felt was familiar. Why had some things been lost and others remained? Where had the books and toys gone? Whenever I ask dad he either says “In the playroom” or “In my memory box in the study”. But they are both so empty, that not everything can be there. Some of it has gone. I suspect it was sold or thrown away. After all, when we had had a car boot sale I had said that Mum’s music box from Lapland shouldn’t be sold. But it was still put on the table. It was still sold.

I told him that I couldn’t find the book. He said that he didn’t understand it. He said it as if he hadn’t been the one to move it. Like he had hired someone else to clear out the house or got someone who never even knew us to decide what was important and what was not.

I tried in vain to find it by going once more into the playroom. But as I looked around, it just made me sad. The house wasn’t full anymore. Bits and pieces are there but others aren’t. It was redecorated, removing almost all traces of the golds, the yellows, the greens. The chairs that went with the dining table were re-covered in grey. As were the walls and carpets. Objects were moved just for the sake of moving them. Just to make things different.

I picked up a blanket that I had had since I was a baby and sat on the rocking horse in the playroom. I cried. I wrote this, while trying to remember where the other blanket is, if it's here at all.