“Can we go up those stairs?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Well, if you’re super careful. Last time I went up it was already hazardous, but you’re a light fellow. But test every stair before you put any weight on it and hold on to the wall. You be the canary in the mine and I’ll creep along in your footsteps. You’ll find a mess up there. When they were boarding up the south wall after that porch fire, a lot of junk got stashed upstairs and nobody ever took it to the dump.”
“You mean the porch fire during Hurricane Hazel?”
“Oh right, you’re interested in that family that got swept away. But after the hurricane and the fire, the Barbours sold the cottage and the new owners were going to rebuild it and use it as a vacation home, but then they decided not to and put it back on the market. The next buyers didn’t even pretend they wanted to live in it. They were looking for a quick flip. You know, strip it down, clean it out, and resell at a profit. They got as far as bulldozing and leveling the ground where the burnt porch had been and boarding up the south wall. Then they ran out of money and Pop bought it back as an investment. I had to get all this information from Pop’s files, seeing as I was only two years old when Hazel hit.”
“But didn’t they think it was a cigarette that started the fire?”
“Maybe it was a cigarette, maybe not. Folks can’t tolerate loose ends—they’ve got to tie up a story. Pop said the fire could just as well have started after the hurricane had passed, because who was paying attention? Everybody was busy picking up the pieces of their own properties.”
“It’s too bad those flipping people didn’t do a better job closing off the south side. Those shingles without any windows in them make it look so blind and sad.”
“They ran out of money, like I said. The shingles you see now were a cosmetic afterthought, courtesy of Coggins Realty. I put them up myself. The flipping people, as you call them, had just tacked up sheets of tar paper any old how on the south side of the house before they went belly up. We couldn’t leave it like that, it’d put off any buyer, so I found some weathered cypress shingles that would fit in with the rest of the old houses and nailed them up tastefully. I was still in high school, just learning the business—Hey, hey, hey! Watch that step!”
He had gripped my arm so hard it hurt. “Look at that! The riser has cracked down the middle. A heavier person could have fallen right through. Son, I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“I’m fine. We’ll just be extra careful.” We were halfway up now. I was determined to see the upstairs.
He was right. It was a mess. There was nothing you wanted to waste a photo on. It revived unhappy memories of some of the places Mom and I had looked at when we were apartment-hunting in Jewel. “They haven’t even cleaned up after the last tenant,” Mom would say. “It amazes me how inconsiderate people can be.” Nevertheless, I snapped a few pictures so I could finish off the roll and start on the second camera.
“None of these rooms have doors,” I said.
“Well, they did when the last people slept in them. Doors are very easy to make off with, all you need is a flat-blade screwdriver. There are places that sell old doors and windows exclusively for fancy prices. The whole layout of this cottage has been compromised. It’s more noticeable up here where things went truly awry. Of course I wouldn’t point this out to a potential buyer.”
“How has it been compromised?”
“For a start, the stairs would have made way more sense on the north side.”
“Why didn’t the builders think of that?”
“The original builders had a simple, pure plan. Four rooms on one floor with an oceanside porch. H-shaped chimney in the center of the house. It had to warm all four rooms because the rice planters’ families stayed into November. Kitchen was to the back, separated from the house by a breezeway. The kitchen had its own chimney. Then came the makeovers of the successive owners. ‘Let’s build another porch and add a bedroom. Let’s add two bedrooms. Let’s incorporate the kitchen into the main house. Let’s convert the outhouse with its breezeway into an indoor bathroom at the end of a hall. Let’s put in an upper floor. Oh, dear, the previous owners have used up the north side with those added-on ground floor bedrooms, so we’ll have to break through the roof on the south side and put the staircase there.’ This may be the earliest cottage still standing on the island, but its vernacular lines have been completely compromised.”
He had recounted the compromises so vividly that you could see them piling up, mistake upon mistake, until all that was left was the present ruin we were standing in.
“Are there any cottages left that haven’t been compromised?”
“Oh, yes. One’s even got a National Register marker—it’s been kept up beautifully and added to responsibly. It still serves as a rental house, though the owners are very particular. We are honored to have it on our books. And there’s your neighbor’s house, which has stayed in the same family since it was built. But the late Mr. Upchurch committed an atrocity, hiding those indigenous brick footing columns behind a painted trellis. And then the old lady had that unsightly ramp built—not that it’s her fault she’s in a wheelchair. But it can be ripped out easily enough when the time comes. She’s a real piece of work. You met her yet?”
“We’re friends.”
“Ah. Well, then, give her my best regards.”
He undoubtedly would have said more about Coral Upchurch if I had said less.
“You can take a picture of the oceanfront room, but you’re not going in there. Before the fire, was there a nice dormer window on the south wall, but it was so damaged they sheared it off when they were taking off the burnt porch. Okay, take a photo, but do not step into that room. I want to get you out of here without falling through any floors. As you can see, the other upstairs rooms are so piled with trash they’re not worth a photo. I hadn’t realized how far gone these floors are. Let’s see if we can make it downstairs without any broken limbs and we’ll finish our cottage crawl with a look at the kitchen. Happily, none of the owners covered over its lovely brick floors, from the days when people still cooked in their fireplaces, and so far no thief has come up with the right tools to dig out those bricks. You won’t find any more bricks like those unless you visit the brick collection at the Charleston Museum.”
XXXI.
“What’s a colonoscopy?”
“Something you won’t need for a while. Who’s having one?” Balanced on her right foot, Aunt Charlotte was extracting a container of yogurt from the refrigerator with her left hand, which already had a banana in it.
“Charlie Coggins, the realtor, was using it to explain how time plays tricks on you when you get older. He thought he’d had one five years ago but it turned out it was eleven.”