There are fourteen stone-laid stairs leading up to the front door. It’s a wooden door, with a brass handle that fits perfectly in the palm of my hand as I twist to open—as if I was always meant to enter.
Flower printed glass obstructs the view beyond whilst giving you something nice to look at as you knock and wait. Unless you are the guardian of the door, wielding a worn key for a worn lock. The door is protected by a security gate—painted a glossy white, muddied by dirty shoes that can’t resist standing on the bottom rim of the conduit as it swings open (as long as there is no beady eyed parent to remind said swinger that “this is not a playground”).
Framing the stairs are two white balustrades, for style rather than function. Big enough to slide down, the inflection point makes for a speedy exit onto the pavement… except for two giant cement flowerpots balancing on the end of each balustrade—like a wall at the end of a slide.
A more creative solution is required.
We skid down, timing our flight to perfection. The jeopardy is real. One day my brother knocks a pot over. It smashes. He blames the cat.
On winter mornings, when life is left to the last millisecond, the stairs are a final obstacle en route to an irate mother in an idling car. I confront the inconvenience two steps at a time, dress flapping in my wake and school bag bruising my back in a thuggish flurry of lateness. Once, my dad chased my mom up the stairs dangling a park town prawn from his fingers and laughing. If she could’ve grown wings, she would have.
When they’re not a bulwark in the face of hurry the stairs make a pretty nifty sunbed. And they’re always ready for a game—when the nextdoors are over we play “school-school”, progressing up or down, one step at a time, depending on whether we guess the correct hand—pick right or left, a secret hidden in either/or. Our futures decided on a whim of whatever.
It’s sitting on these stairs that I watch the world go by and imagine my place in it. They are a portal to my dreams.
They bleed red when Mr Parrot from across the road cut his wrist on glass and came to my dad for help. They’re purple in the spring, when the jacaranda blossoms create a wind-assisted ombré from the bottom up. When the sun blasts its yellow glory in the heat of summer, the stairs glow gold and as night closes in they morph into an inky blue.
A gateway to the world and a cue to come home, they bare the weight of hope and the burden of disappointment, yet they are unyielding, immovable. Ever present.
They are.
Home.
Author & Storyteller: Andrea Zanin
Andrea is a writer, wife, mother and dreamer; also the author of this website. She moved to London in 2006 to earn £s, travel, see bands and buy 24-up Dr Martens—which she did, and then ended up staying. Andrea lives in North London with her husband (also a Saffa) and five children. She loves this grand old city but misses her home and wishes her children could say “lekker” (like a South African) and knew what a “khoki” is.
