The Senior Common Room at St Anselm's: XXIII. The Home

Mr Blottisham was examining the walls of the Senior Common Room.

Professor Christopher Quillibrace noticed.

"Have you discovered a structural concern?"

"No."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Thinking."

"About the walls?"

"About houses."

"An unusual subject while looking at one wall."

"Not at all. Walls tell us a great deal."

"In what respect?"

"They tell us what a house is."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Do they?"

"Certainly."

"A house has walls."

"Yes."

"Rooms."

"Yes."

"A roof."

"Yes."

"Foundations."

"Yes."

Blottisham looked pleased.

"Exactly. A house is a structure."

Miss Elowen Stray looked up from her book.

"Is it?"

Blottisham turned.

"You disagree?"

"Not entirely."

"Then what is missing?"

She considered the question.

"Perhaps the difference between a house and a home."

Blottisham smiled.

"Surely a home is simply a good house."

"Is it?"

"What else could it be?"

Quillibrace placed his book on the table.

"That is the interesting question."

Blottisham looked around.

"The walls are the same."

"Often."

"The rooms are the same."

"Yes."

"The materials are the same."

"Yes."

"So why would one be a home and another not?"

Miss Stray smiled.

"Exactly."

Blottisham waited.

"I am not certain whether that was an answer."

"It was the beginning of one."

Quillibrace nodded.

"A house can be measured."

"Yes."

"The rooms can be counted."

"Yes."

"The foundations can be inspected."

"Yes."

"The materials can be analysed."

"Yes."

"And yet none of these measurements explain why one place feels like home."

Blottisham frowned.

"Feels?"

"Yes."

"That sounds rather unreliable."

"Many important things are difficult to measure."

"Such as?"

"Trust."

"Friendship."

"Meaning."

"Perhaps."

"Home."

Blottisham looked thoughtful.

"So a home is not just a physical arrangement."

"Correct."

"What is it, then?"

Miss Stray glanced around the room.

"Something built slowly."

"With bricks?"

"Not primarily."

"Then with what?"

"Time."

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"Time builds homes?"

"Time transforms houses into homes."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Consider ordinary objects."

"Such as?"

"A mark on a doorframe."

"A scratch."

"A chair."

"A cup with a chipped handle."

Blottisham looked unconvinced.

"None of those sounds particularly valuable."

"Financially?"

"No."

"But that is not the only kind of value."

Miss Stray continued.

"An object can become important because of what happened around it."

"The cup because someone always used it?"

"Yes."

"The chair because someone always sat there?"

"Yes."

"The mark on the doorframe because it shows how tall a child was?"

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked at the wall.

"So the object remembers."

"Not literally."

"But the people do."

"And the object helps them remember."

Quillibrace smiled.

"The invisible machine has begun working."

Blottisham nodded slowly.

"A house becomes a home when time leaves traces."

"Precisely."

"That explains why an empty house feels different."

"How?"

"It may be beautiful."

"Yes."

"Comfortable."

"Yes."

"Expensive."

"Possibly."

"And yet..."

"It feels as though it is waiting."

Miss Stray nodded.

"Because nothing has happened there yet."

"Whereas a home feels as though something already has."

"Exactly."

"Conversations."

"Yes."

"Meals."

"Yes."

"Arguments."

"Yes."

"Forgiveness."

"Yes."

"Laughter."

"Especially laughter."

Blottisham smiled.

"Laughter leaves traces?"

"More than you might imagine."

"Even on walls?"

"Especially in memories of walls."

Quillibrace leaned back.

"A house shelters people from the world."

"And a home?"

"Provides a place from which they can enter it."

Blottisham considered this.

"So a home is not simply somewhere we hide."

"No."

"It is somewhere we return from."

"Return to."

"Yes."

Miss Stray nodded.

"A place that says, 'You may come back.'"

Blottisham smiled.

"That explains why people say they are going home."

"Yes."

"They do not mean they are going to a building."

"Not merely."

"They mean they are returning to somewhere they belong."

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked thoughtful.

"That is why a hotel room feels different."

"How so?"

"A hotel room can be comfortable."

"Very."

"It can be warm."

"Yes."

"It can be beautifully furnished."

"Yes."

"But it does not know me."

Quillibrace nodded.

"A hotel room knows that someone is staying."

"And a home?"

"Knows who has returned."

Miss Stray smiled.

"A subtle but important difference."

Blottisham looked towards the window.

"Perhaps that is why we use the word home for things that are not buildings."

"Such as?"

"A familiar song."

"Yes."

"A conversation."

"Yes."

"A friendship."

"Yes."

"We are not really describing locations."

"No."

"We are describing a condition."

"Exactly."

"The condition of not needing to explain yourself."

Quillibrace nodded.

"An excellent description."

Blottisham smiled.

"I occasionally produce one."

"Occasionally."

He continued.

"Although homes are not always perfect."

"No."

"Some houses contain loneliness."

"Yes."

"Some contain conflict."

"Yes."

"Some people find home far away from where they began."

"Indeed."

"So the invisible machine does not depend upon the building."

"No."

"It depends upon relationship."

"Exactly."

Blottisham was quiet for a moment.

"I suppose this explains why leaving home can be so powerful."

"Yes."

"Because one is not merely leaving a building."

"No."

"One is carrying something invisible."

"An architecture of belonging."

Blottisham smiled.

"That is a very Quillibrace phrase."

"I shall accept that."

Miss Stray looked towards the shelves.

"The first home teaches us something important."

"What?"

"What welcome feels like."

"And later homes?"

"Often become attempts to recreate, revise, or reinvent that feeling."

Blottisham nodded.

"So every home carries traces of earlier homes."

"Sometimes."

"Even after we leave them."

"Especially then."

The room became quiet.

Quillibrace looked around the Common Room.

"Perhaps civilisation contains many invisible machines."

"Bridges."

"Yes."

"Tables."

"Yes."

"Libraries."

"Yes."

"Letters."

"Yes."

"Guests."

"Yes."

"And homes."

"Yes."

Blottisham looked thoughtful.

"What does the home do?"

Miss Stray answered.

"It gives identity somewhere to rest."

Blottisham considered this.

"I began by thinking a home was simply a comfortable house."

"And now?"

"I think a home is a house that has learned someone's name."

Quillibrace smiled.

"A surprisingly fine definition."

Miss Stray returned to her book.

"Perhaps that is why the deepest purpose of a home is not to keep the world outside."

"What is it?"

"To create a place from which we can meet the world..."

She paused.

"...and still know where we belong."