Interior Design

Things to Take With You in Your New Townhouse:



1.      500-Title Book Collection (Collection Started: 1993) – Place on the shelves --- painted lavender, of course --- all over the house. No need to differentiate between Graeme’s titles and yours. After all, when you told him all those years ago you wanted to live in a library, his quick response was “Can it be OUR library?”

Copies of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera”, Muriel Barbery’s “The Elegance of a Hedgehog”, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince” --- yes, the same books that your mother called “pedestrian and tacky”--- go to the shelf next to your bed. As do the language learning books and French, Portuguese, and Italian dictionaries. Sure, when your parents caught you repeating words and phrases from these growing up --- a warm, linguistic hug by the world of words your mind created around you, you were always met with an icy “Iris, whatever are you doing? That’s so unbecoming of a daughter of a Lord.” However, that never stopped you, did it? You still enveloped yourself in words, but this time, hidden behind your bedroom.

No need to hide now.

2.      The Chest of Letters (Acquired: 2001) – Ask Mark to restore back its magenta --- certainly better than the original beige your Mum chose --- paint. Once refreshed, put it in the middle of the study, right next to the big wooden desk. It’s important it has a place of honour in the house because, well, you still sometimes dip in and pull out those yellowed stationery papers from friends you’ve made over the years for bit of encouragement, sometimes. Yep, the friends you weren’t even supposed to meet in the first place.

Giggle at the secret still between you and Dennis, the chauffeur, that instead of driving you to those fancy parties of those snooty classmates from your exclusive girls' grammar school, he drove you to the state secondary school’s book club. Of course, sometimes, letters were the only way you could communicate to your mates --- Sarah, Mark, and Priya – especially when your mother was on your case for “sounding like a riff-raff. And so you locked yourself in your room, pored over their contents, and stuffed them in the small chest you managed to smuggle out when you moved away for university.

It is, to this day, the box you use to store all of the written correspondence from soul brothers and sisters you’ve made over the years. Your mother may call it “hoarding like a plebeian”, but hoarding isn’t so bad if what you stock up on is love in inked form.

3.      Two Emerald Green Armoires (Acquired: 2007) – Place on the same wall as the turquoise built-in cabinets. Once it’s all set, you may place the scarves, hats, and jewellery you’ve collected over the years --- all flee market finds from all over the world --- inside it and admire their vibrant colours and patterns. Your parents might have thought them gaudy, but to you, they’re beautiful.

Next, you can look at the armoires themselves and smile knowing Sarah and Mark’s gift to you also graced your first ever London flat --- that rainbow resembling small studio in Fulham that you always found warm and inviting when your beige childhood mansion was stark and sterile. It was just a year since you left that goodbye letter to your parents, to your gilded cage, and boarded a train to the city. Your jaw dropped when the doorbell rang, you opened the door, and two of your best friends’ smiles—as well as these cupboards -- greeted you.

“Keep them always, okay?” Sarah asked of you, and you did. How could you throw away something that looks like new beginnings, anyway?

4.      Ten Framed Newspaper Article Clippings (Collection Started: 2011) – Hang on the wall around your study. It doesn’t matter what position you put the other nine articles as long as the one in the gold frame is by the door.

Once they’re all up, you can maybe read them every now and then. Smile as you see the byline of all of them state that Iris Aldwych is the author. Take a gander, in particular, at the gold-framed one and try not to wince at the beginning of your published writing career. It is, after all, what gave you confidence to eke out a living out of words, what led you to the trophies on one of your shelves. Yes, you heard from a cousin that your father still couldn’t believe you didn’t become a barrister like him, but whatever. The salary from that could not buy being able to tell stories for a living.

…and of course, it could not buy that painting of you that your handsome then-friend in the newsroom gave you at Christmas five years ago, the one that came with a card asking you for coffee the next day.

5.      Graeme’s Painting of You in Your Wedding Dress (Acquired: 2023) – Hang on the wall in the house’s entryway. Smile every single time you see how his strokes captured how your eyes beamed as you gazed at him at the end of the aisle, how ethereal that lavender gown and veil you handpicked for your nuptials are. Be proud that the very first thing guests see when they enter the townhouse is your beloved’s wedding present for you, a masterpiece he meticulously put on canvas “because I still can’t believe the dream I had when you joined the newsroom has turned to reality”.

Reminisce about how the wedding was very Iris and Graeme –hand painted décor, Garcia Marquez in the vows you said to each other, your blue eyes transfixed only on Graeme’s amber ones. It was a culmination of a friends-to-lovers story worthy of the silver screen. Of course, your family was there --- that is, Sarah, Mark, Priya, Dennis, the entire newsroom. No, no Baron and Lady Aldwych; they would have loudly scoffed at Graeme’s cocoa skin anyway because it was a threat to their image of perfection. Thankfully, they kept away, so it was perfection for you.

6.      A contented smile (Acquired: Right now) – Look around at how well you’ve done the interior design. Be sure to sit on the bed, your hand in Graeme’s and huge grins on your faces, and breathe a sigh of contentment. After everything, you’re finally home.