When I wanted to live in a fairy tale I never thought of Bluebeard
The boyfriend: “If I grew a goatee I could cosplay Jafar!” Me: pulling my hair into a high ponytail and gazing at him seductively. Him: “Yes, you can be Iago.”
During my first weeks in Melbourne I reached out to my most mature girlfriend, from back home, with an inner struggle: how does one live with someone else’s family? As an indefinite guest, I wasn’t sure if I would have to be autonomous in the house or if the boyfriend’s family would assimilate me as one of the kids.
Spoiler: I quickly became one of the kids, and the favourite human of one of the Pomeranians quickly surpassing the family that raised him.
My friend happened to have what I liked to call ‘a real family’. She grew up with siblings and foster siblings, a dog, and two whole parents. I had none of that. The best my mother could do was a chatty Furby toy which she also promptly lost as soon as I went away for Summer. I needed my friend’s help.
I’ve never lived with a man in the house before.
My dad left when I was young so I don’t remember what having a dad meant. Sure, in my various life journeys, I have lived with male students but they hardly qualified as real people. All this to say: when I am lounging home, makeup-less, bra-less… What happens if there’s a dad around? Does he dictate the rules? Do I call him sir? Do I need to bow? Will I turn into Cinderella, all housework and no ball?
My friend told me not to stress as I was settling in. All I had to do was be polite and adjust. She didn’t address my bra query specifically but implied I should look at least decent when people were around. Some may say: modest and demure. Not bringing my old Marilyn Manson t-shirt was probably a good choice. She said that, once I understood how the family routine worked, it would be easier for me to feel more at home and lend a hand with housework.
She was right. Of course, she was. That’s why I went to her in the first place.
The boyfriend’s family immediately treated me like one of their own. Going from mountain only-child living with a single mother, to being part of a real family was a big adjustment. I was too busy settling in to notice the door at the end of the hallway.
In the chaos of my landing in the middle of the night I never really got a complete house tour. The boyfriend never said it explicitly but I could sense he didn’t necessarily share his family’s view on interior decoration or lack thereof. Coming from a Tuscany-inspired home my mother curated with the love and dedication of a Taurus rising, this house seemed a bit messier. Mind you, my bedroom was messy too but I am a self-proclaimed Millennial maximalist. I liked it when objects told a story, preferably on bookshelves or walls, not piled on the floor. However, I was starting to get the vibe that some migrant people, especially elder generations, tended to hoard things.
Not hoard: store. Just in case.
People say that ‘everything has its place’. Well, for this family, it was more that every place had its things. I don’t want you to imagine those extreme hoarder situations, where the floor is stuff. Their floor was a floor, but every horizontal surface had mountain ranges.
One day I noticed my suitcase left its corner spot. The boyfriend’s mum reassured me she put it next to the armchair in the cupboard under the stairs. When I opened the door I stood looking at a wall of things and none of them was an armchair or a suitcase. Sure enough, after some digging that caused a structural collapse, there they were.
Yes, I made many jokes about British wizards called Harry living in there.
The forbidden door at the end of the hallway
Later, the boyfriend explained that the stairs were part of an expansion, years prior, to add the upper floor where his bedroom was and to build an en suite bathroom to his parents’ room. I assumed the door at the end of the hallway was his parents’ bedroom, but I didn’t know of a second bathroom. Us kids had all been sharing the one bathroom that whole time. Did this mean I could have used the second bathroom? Do others get to use someone’s en suite bathroom? Is it weird to walk through someone else’s bedroom when they are not in there?
That’s when I realised I was never officially taken to his parents’ bedroom. He didn’t offer to show it to me so I didn’t ask. I wasn’t curious to see their bedding colour per se, but I was left with a strange feeling of unease. One would expect to have seen all the rooms in the house they lived in, right? And I knew for sure it wasn’t just my curiosity. I know my fairytale lore.
Do you remember the fairy tale of Bluebeard?
Once upon a time, Bluebeard took a girl as a wife and gave her all the keys to his castle but warned her never to open one specific door. One day, he had to leave the castle to go to work or whatever. She was too curious to resist and opened every door, even the forbidden one. Because that’s what people do in their house. Inside there were the dead bodies of all the previous wives that opened the door. One can only imagine what the first one found. Perhaps a newly renovated bathroom? The key got permanently stained with blood, and maybe her hands too, the story is vague. When Bluebeard returned home he instantly knew what had happened and he killed her. He lived happily ever after with one more corpse in the forbidden room and, possibly, a new wife.
The end.
Learning nothing from this cautionary tale, I thought I could have done the same: I’d just wait to be alone and take a quick peek inside. No big deal. Right?
Those of you with a real family would be smirking, by now. I can feel it.
As an only child with one working mother and a missing Furby, I didn’t consider that, not only I had to live with a father, but there was always someone in the house. Everyday. At any time. I would never be alone. Ever again.
Moving there, my biggest worries were spiders and how to add my washing to the washing pile. My friend didn’t prepare me for this unforeseen (by me) scenario. What if I needed to get out of the bathroom after a shower and only had a towel? Do people not walk around in their underwear? Is this how people lived? With men around all the time? Was I destined to live a year of bras and people?
Let’s do a little foreshadowing: it took 3 years before I was left alone for an hour. And to this day, I’ve been in the mystery bedroom only once, for a toilet paper emergency. No dead girls.
Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence:
ok, the first time I visited my mother in law for the summer and I saw her folding my underwear I was mortified. Like how on earth do you live with other families? And ones that actually do chores?
Funny story, as usual, and I loved the connection you made with Bluebeard. Very fitting, but unexpected!
But I have to say what struck me the most was the "background" info about your own childhood, opposed from your boyfriend's family life. That must have been very tough. It made me think that many comedians use humor to talk about painful truths. Sending hugs!