A week in the white house

I had a near-perfect view of the street from my perch on the passenger seat next to the bus driver. Sitting there, my knuckles white from the pressure of holding on to the grab bar in front of me, I nervously look out for the street name of the house I was to inspect.

"Oh you know, someone came to look at the room yesterday, and there's a very high chance that she might take it," said the landlady over the phone. I said I understood, but I was leaving Melbourne the next day to go home for the holidays, could I come over to take a look just in case. My voice was laden with desperation. Bags of my belongings were stacked on top of each other, ready to occupy a mover's van in a few hours, thereafter rendering me homeless; in Melbourne at least.

The bus driver spoke with a Mediterranean accent and told me it was the next stop. I climbed down, looking around at the quiet suburb that may well be my next home. It was midday. Save for the odd car cruising past, there was no activity on the streets. Across the street, there were a row of neatly lined houses. Walking over, I hoped that one of them would be the one I was after. None of them were.

Next to them was a large, two-storey house which used to be white. The trees in the front looked like they remembered a good trim as a distant memory. A dilapidated swing set occupied the front yard, the ghost of its occupants clinging to its worn chains and seats. Just as I was about to turn away and call the lady I was meant to meet, a tall, willowy woman came out of the white house and waved.

"Melanie?" My name sounded different through her lips - ME-LA-nie.

"Hi! Josephine?" I replied, turning back to the white house, hoping my disappointment was not apparent to this kind woman.

She smiles and leads me in, welcoming me to take a seat at the dining table for a chat first. She brushes off my offer to remove my shoes. The interior of the white house is clean and orderly, almost to a fault. Everything had a place, even the family cat, which lay curled on the chair I attempted to sit on. "That's Buffy", says Josephine, by way of introduction.

The wood flooring was free any semblance of dirt and glowed. The table where we sat looked over the kitchen, which was gleaming, seemingly pleased with itself. I smiled inside. The white house may not disappoint after all.

We went upstairs to look at the room I may be sleeping in. It was a single bedroom with beige carpet and an impossibly fluffy comforter took centre-stage on the bed. The blinds were drawn, letting in the glorious sunlight. A window seat laden with cushions beckoned invitingly. The red armchair in the corner beamed, believing itself special.

I moved in six weeks later, on a cold and unforgivingly windy winter day. My room soon looked just like the one I had left behind. Monday was my first full day in the white house. I spent it in my room buried under an avalanche of academic reading. I went downstairs at 6.00pm, to make myself dinner. Josephine said I should have come down during the afternoon to take a break. The thought had never crossed my mind. I had always enjoyed and cherished my time alone once I was home. Coming out to chat was a foreign concept. Perhaps one I should now employ.

It was dinner, and I had told Josephine and the other tenant who lived with us that I would rather not join in on groceries with them.

"Student budget, you know," I said sheepishly.

They understood. I had dinner with them two days in a row though because I was not very good at saying no, and they were too polite to allow me to suffer through my meal of tuna and crackers. The meals with them were delightful. Josephine is Italian and her gnocchi and chicken parmigiana won me over with the aroma that wafted up to my room around 6.00pm.

The uneasiness I felt during and after the meals was not worth it. I prepared a speech and delivered it first thing on Wednesday morning, when I had no appetite and was sure that the carnal desires of my stomach would not betray me.

"Oh you know, it's not good to have tuna every day, ME-LA-nie, and I always cook so much that there's left-overs anyway. You can wash the dishes or something to make up for it."

My stomach suddenly took over the thinking that my brain should have been in charge. I pushed it back to where it belonged.

"But it would make me feel much better to make my own dinner and have it with you guys. I like the company," I said.

"Aw alright then."

Thursday night was lentil soup. I had tuna and crackers. The phone rang before dinner.

"Hello," Josephine said, frowning slightly. "Hi Evanna," she continued, brightening slightly.

"Oh we're just sitting down to dinner. Darcy's here, and Melanie's here. Melanie is this beautiful girl from Singapore, and she'll be staying with us for a while. D'you want to speak to her?"

Evanna comes on speaker-phone while I smile, hoping to project friendliness into the phone. I have an urge to impress and live up to the description of 'beautiful' over the phone. We speak for a few minutes. Evanna is a lovely person. She loves to laugh and have fun, she tells me, because "that's what it's all about".

"You speak such good English ME-LA-nie! So good!"

"Oh, thank you!" I say.

We end the conversation with a promise to meet soon in Josephine's home.

I tell Josephine and Darcy that I had a good day, albeit a cold one. I wore a coat up in my room to keep warm.

"Now I feel really bad!" says Josephine. "You're wearing a coat to keep warm?"

I persuade her that it's fine. Singapore experiences temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius regularly. It may take some getting used to the cold. The warmth of my landlady and housemate is unexpected. A surprise. I hadn't yet decided whether it was a good one. I had been used to living on my own, the past three months I had been in Melbourne. Now I was expected to 'join in'. A reschedule of my 'norm' was in order.

On Friday night I stayed downstairs and watched television with Josephine and Darcy. Darcy was Irish and spoke with a welcoming lilt.
"This movie is rubbish," she declared. "Do know what we should watch? Ab Fab!"

I smiled widely. Last night, over dinner, I mentioned that I had been looking for episodes of Absolutely Fabulous, a British sitcom. She had remembered.

On Saturday we all slept in. Darcy was out in the afternoon and Josephine and I were alone in the white house. I came down for a cup of tea, or a cuppa, as Darcy would say. Josephine told me about her grandchildren, and I asked questions. She had three daughters, and the youngest had just gotten married in March.

"That's her photo there, on the big table," she says.

"Laura is absolutely gorgeous in this."

Encouraged, she powers on the Apple computer that I have just noticed, and tells me, "Now I have to show off!"

I am treated to the digital memories of Laura's wedding. I am happy that Josephine is showing me her daughter's wedding photos.

Perhaps it will remind her that she's still a mother and remind me that home can be transitory.

My temporary home in Melbourne is different from my home in Singapore. The streets, the shops, the lingo of the land. They're all different. The white house presents a glaring similarity. One I missed in the throes of homesickness. One I had ignored while adding up the differences. One I had refused to accept until it threw itself at me. My two homes have people. People are the same. We yearn for the same thing; companionship. I had stumbled into the companionship that Jpsephne and Darcy had carefully created for themselves. They had willingly let me in. This is what I had been missing in making my temporary home a worthy semblance of the home I had left.