Female.
Born 1959. Singer
I live here. It’s an old building, with rather a large
unkept garden. There’s no heating. It smells of damp and
dust. I have never walked right around it because my house
doesn’t belong to me. There’s an owner, but that person
doesn’t live here. The bay windows make the place colder –
they’re leaky. There are two bathrooms, two kitchens, too
many toilets. The extra rooms I just wander into and wonder
why no-one remembers they’re there. I can’t really use them
– you only need one kitchen, one bathroom. It’s a waste of
space.
There’s a door that’s always ajar. The lock springs open if
you try to close it. It makes me feel vulnerable, like
someone can get into my living space. It makes me angry. It
leads to a landing. Sometimes there are voices. It’s down
some steps. The steps are confusing – like when you return
to a car park and you don’t know what floor you’re on.
Sometimes I go into this other part of the house when the
voices stop. The rooms – sitting rooms, bedrooms, are
large, open-plan, magnificent, designed for comfort. Vast.
Splendidly furnished. Velvet swags, low silk chaises
longues. It’s a sumptuous lounging area. There are books,
the place is used a lot. Nineteenth Century. Everything is
antique – from the escritoire to the hairbrush and mirror.
I go on sometimes, through this part of the house, down
more steps and along a bare corridor. It’s impersonal here
– functional and dirty, like a tube station. The only way
to go is down. You can’t go back up.
It leads down to a stage, highly lit. Really this stage
area is just the end of the line. You can’t go behind it.
Everything ends here. You can’t go back up. It’s moulded
concrete painted a cream colour, just a large, horribly
impersonal space. A high-vaulted square, brightly-lit area
for performing. Nothing behind it. Underground. No way out.
People have been here, but it’s in between performances.
You can smell their sweat, hear the echoes of their bitchy
competitive voices, feel their mutual hatred. There’s no
air conditioning down here. No way back.