Under the stuff I can't throw out is the stuff my parents couldn't throw out': novelist Anne Enright on the agony of clearing her family home

"I had discovered some tins of black and white gloss paint left on the floor and a narrow house-painting brush and I still remember, once the first dab lengthened into a line, how quickly I was lost in the pleasure of making another line and then another. I drew a woman in a long dress, maybe a kimono, with a wide belt or obi, and her hair dressed high."

"In the early days of his marriage, he had furnished the house, pretty much, from the workbench. He made three chests of drawers from solid, pale oak, an entire living-room suite, a hall table with parquetry inlay. Five children later, he was cobbling a wardrobe together in MDF; his interest in fine craftsmanship had clearly waned. He could also afford a car which filled the garage when the weather was cold,"

I returned to the house where I was raised to stand in the garage and look at marks made on the wall toward the end of childhood. I found tins of black-and-white gloss paint and a narrow brush and remember becoming absorbed in making lines that became a painted woman in a long dress, perhaps a kimono. The garage was my father’s domain, filled with tools, shelves, and later a car in cold weather. My father once made fine furniture but later worked in cheaper materials. The painting resurfaced in memory during my mother’s final illness.

Read at www.theguardian.com