Open Writing

I remember vividly a house we rented when I was about sixteen. We had come to New Zealand from Melbourne.

The houses we had lived in over there had been strictly working-class homes, although nobody talked about class in Australia, or not officially. On our arrival in New Zealand we moved into similar housing in a flat in Kingsland, when we learned we were to rent a house in Hillsborough, a more affluent suburb. I know the houses I had previously been acquainted with were nothing in comparison to this house at 206 Hillsborough Road, in Auckland.

My father had come to New Zealand two years before my mother, sister and I. The firm he worked for, Korma Mills, was going to subsidise the rent. We went inside, and our eyes bulged. The stark, modern beauty of the décor overawed us all. While the houses I had always accepted as part of my life had been mostly dull, fawn colours inside, this house almost shouted, ’Look at me, let me blind you with my colours.'

'We can't live here, we'd have to be too careful, we might damage something,' my mother said.

My father snarled, 'Don't be stupid, of course we can live here.'

This, as usual, put my mother into a huff, and she got her 'look'.

From the outside the house had nothing attractive about it. It resembled a grey double-storeyed box. The outer cladding looked like grey asbestos. A covered veranda, part of the structure of the house, ran from the front door around a corner to where there were ranch-sliders into the lounge.

It was the inside that left us gasping. The walls were painted, not wall-papered. It was decorated in bright colours in every room. There was built-in furniture, a desk and floor-to-ceiling cupboards and bookshelves in the lounge, made of real wood, a pale honey colour. The walls in the lounge were a bright lime green, and the sofa and chairs were a yellow and black chequered pattern. The windows on the far end overlooked the Manukau Harbour, and Mangere Mountain. The dining table was by huge floor to ceiling windows, facing north, where the sun poured in. The table was the same honey coloured wood. Fortunately it was covered with glass.

Off the huge open-living space was a large kitchen with dark blue shiny linoleum, and the cupboards were all the same honey coloured wood as the living room furniture. Off the kitchen was a toilet and washhouse. Whoever had designed the house had certainly used modern ideas and fittings. It was like something out of Hollywood, at least to us. Upstairs there were more surprises, two double bedrooms, with built-in wardrobes. The one my parents would share was a different green, with matching bedspreads and curtains, picking out the colours of the wall. This shared the view the lounge had, over the harbour. There were two beds in both the double rooms. I guessed my mother would be thankful for that, as she seemed to spend very little time sharing a bed with my father. The bedroom my sister and I would share was yellow, also with matching bedspreads and curtains.

There was a small single bedroom, a bright sky blue, with yellow tones in the curtains and bedspread. I coveted this room for myself, yet I knew that my father would say no. I guessed my mother would spend a lot of nights in here for which I was thankful, at least she wouldn't be coming into my bed or my sister, Joy's.

The landlady, who had the house built, came around and inspected us. We seemed to meet with her approval, which was a mystery to me.

We spent five years in that house and a few things went wrong. We made a mark on the kitchen floor, which wouldn't come out, and broke the glass on the dining table. My mother had a pan of fat catch fire in the kitchen, and part of the cupboards above the stove and the sink caught fire. Another time the house itself caught fire, from an incorrectly installed fireplace with a flue running up through the internal wall. The asbestos sheets popped like cracks of thunder. The Fire Brigade evacuated us, and the whole neighbourhood came and watched. Perhaps my mother was right to have doubts about the house and our ability to look after it.

I always felt this was a house built before its time. The décor was strangely like you see today. Surprising, when you consider this was nearly fifty years ago.

© Shirley Henwood