The Rash
Feeling itchy. And lost.
I was back in London for about 58 hours, and I got a rash.
Like, a maddeningly itchy rash from my neck to my knees.
Now, I know that I’m not actually allergic to London. I know that it isn’t possible to become allergic to a metropolis, and that - even if it were - it would take longer than the 12 months and 9 days that I have been renting the Barn to develop such an allergy.
But I also know that every time I have been to London over the last several weeks (months?) I have come back with an ailment.
Now, again, this is perhaps not the fault of the city itself. More likely it is because the reason I go to London is to see my family and friends many of whom have nursery-aged children. But the pattern is now undeniable.
As I sit here trying not to scratch my tummy I can’t help but wonder: is my immune system trying to tell me something? Something like ‘this is no longer the right place for you’?
I was born and raised in Wandsworth, not far from where I now live. When I went to university I joked that Edinburgh was my mistress, but that I would always return to my one true love: London.
And I have. When we lived in Oxford after Dad died, I looked for any opportunity to go back. Like a lost homing pigeon. I would sit on the train or the Oxford Tube, and as we neared the final destination, I would have butterflies in my stomach.
I always felt that London and I were in a passionate love affair. I knew it intimately, and it knew me. The whole story of my life was written across the pages of the A-Z.
Perhaps because it was one of the few constants in my life, I have always felt completely wedded to my birthplace. I have lived all over, from the East End to the north, and always said I would never move back to Wandsworth. But when my brothers both moved south west (and I shook off my husband who refused to commute for longer than 30 mins) the decision was made.
But I have this rash.
Sometimes I still get butterflies. There is a particular smell, for example, of London on a summer’s night. I guess it is the smell of the city and all of its people and plants cooling down after a hot day. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who can smell it, and when I do it fills my body with a vivid electricity that makes me feel - for a moment - like anything is possible. It has been the same ever since I was a child.
But, I suppose like in any long marriage (she said with know personal knowledge of the condition), I hardly recognise London anymore. My feels have changed. I suppose we have both changed. We have grown older and, perhaps, grown apart.
I notice how close and claustrophobic it is. How, even on a seemingly peaceful morning, in my garden there is a constant cacophony. The drone of aeroplanes like a rolling timponi, dogs barking like a sharp, loud cymbal. Drills and shouting and children playing, and cars and sirens and helicopters creating a choral dissonance
I have only been back at the Barn for a few hours, having left London at dawn. I have been around the garden twice, and have walked from room to room. I have tried to keep from itching.
I don’t think a rash can be psychosomatic. It must have been a reaction to something - perhaps that very hot sunshine on Wednesday? But it does mirror physically how I am feeling emotionally. I feel unbearably unsettled. I can’t bear to be here in this lovely Barn, and I can’t bear to be at home in London. The Barn needs to be taken apart, and my home in London needs to be put back together.
A large part of me wants to pack the car up with another load of stuff and drive back immediately.
London feels so ungenerous to me now. Not like out here where everyone is so generous, and nature, too. Neighbours drop off venison and a tractor-scoop-ful of wood chip (albeit in that instance, he did want something in return, but I don’t think his long-term, live-in partner would have been too thrilled to learn of the trade), or jars of honey from the hive 20 feet from my back door.
In London, it is too much to ask even for a moment of someone’s time - enough time to let someone in to traffic, or to hold a door open. People shout if you try to pick a daffodil, there isn’t enough nature to go around. Yesterday my neighbour put a jumper over her font gate for a moment, came back and it was gone. Packages left on doorsteps disappear into the ether.
The dahlia tubers that were left in plain view by the back door of the Barn two days ago had not moved an inch.
I can’t sit still. I am so itchy. Historically I would have just sat and written out a to-do list but now I fear the list. The list can’t give me the answers I want.
Last week I saw my therapist for the first time in a year. I wanted her to give me permission not to go back to work in law, not to move back to London. I could see in her face she was thinking ‘this woman is almost 40 years old, why on EARTH does she need permission’ but said out loud something much more diplomatic.
This isn’t my Barn anymore. I have loved it, and treasured it, and I should be making the most of our last 21 days together. But like living with someone you have already broken up with it feels deeply uncomfortable. We both need to move on. We have no future together. I should just pack up my stuff now and go.
But I can’t stop itching.
This made me teary. I remember years ago hearing about Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria—in other words: stress hives. If you’re “allergic” to a person, a place, an emotion, it can come on. I believe we can get hives from grief and sorrow just as easily as we can get them from stinging nettle.
When we lived in London I used to feel as if I was experiencing all the misery in the houses and flats around me, like a fog.