Take Back The City - Part One of the 'Life in London Town' series

4 - The Flat of Peter Devereux

   Dearest Carrie.

   Last night may just prove to be the most wonderful I have ever spent on this Earth, and quite possibly the best night I’ll ever have the pleasure of experiencing. My entire family questioned my motives leading up to yesterday; my father thought my decision was hasty, my mother thought it was too much money to spend given the circumstances and my grandparents – who had shown an outward dislike towards you from the first time you made their acquaintance – wondered whether it was worth committing to ‘a lost cause like her’ (actual quote). They had indoctrinated a wild anxiety in my head and my palpitating heart. What if I had decided too quickly? What if there were hidden secrets behind that glorious façade of yours that would have sickened me? What if... she said no?

   Let me tell you, you charming, angelic little darling, fortune favours the bold. As soon as your beautiful scarlet lips whispered the very word I had waited to hear from you for so long, all the fear drained from me. ‘Yes’ may only be a short, simple, monosyllabic little word, but last night it had the power to entwine two young hearts into a beautiful whole, which together have the potential to beat out the divine, overwhelming rhythm of love, one which can be heard upon all the four corners of the world and transform every conflicted heart into one of peace.

  Thank you, Carrie.

  With all my love,

       Peter.

    “You old romantic, Dad,” I whispered.

    As I read my father’s romantic post-engagement musings, a little memory swirled into clarity in my head. Despite not recognising the old place at first, I realised that, in fact, I had been here before on dozens of occasions. Despite the fact that the room had changed almost beyond recognition since I was last here – the wall-to-wall artworks and concert posters had long gone – I began to notice the tiny imperfections that characterised his old Soho crash pad; the broken copper pipe in the corner by the staircase entrance; the smudged white paint on the ceiling covering his first attempt at proper ‘street art’ (it was hilarious, let me tell you); the lightning-shaped crack running almost the entire length of a window pane and the crooked radiator by the bed. I came here often as a young girl, at least until my parents bought a small house in the area around Clapham Common, a move taken in order to give us all a larger base in London due to the fact that the flat here was far too small for the three of us to live in at the same time and due to the fact that Peter couldn’t bear to have to commute from Brighton to Blackfriars. I spent most of my very early life with Mum in the house on the Marine Parade, to be honest, so I didn’t come here overly often – I have a feeling that my Dad wanted me out of his way so he could hold flat parties – but the times I spent up here were some of the most fun I’d ever spent. When I was younger – about four or five - I’d often show them a little painting I’d made at school or a cute little rhyming song I’d learnt whenever he and his mates were sober enough to be attentive and compassionate, which almost always evoked applause or laughter. I was never quite sure whether they were actually showing a genuine interest or not, but either way I enjoyed the attention they gave me. We moved to Clapham when I was seven or eight. It was a shame to have to move but it was a necessary move to make; it meant that, for the very first time, the Devereux family could live under the same roof. Besides, despite the fact that the new house was miles out of town, it was decently sized and beautifully decorated. I loved it there, although I preferred it here. It always felt as if this place had been given brilliant memories and a passionate soul to keep by my father’s presence.

    How things had changed. It felt as if the memory the place had of all the parties, the youthful romance Mum and Dad shared and of my childish, playful former self, had been brutally beaten from the walls of the room, now bare white. The room – and the shop downstairs – had all gone quiet again. The old place had no wish to fight back against the forces that had stripped it of the joyous memories it once had; it was too old to fight on and had taken the undignified option to allow itself to become prisoner to the new world in which I, like so many others, am forced to live.