Chapter 31
SARAH
‘Mum, you’ll be seeing us in a week!’ Louis breaks away from my hold with a grin. ‘Try not to crush me to death.’
‘Sorry,’ I say.
But there’s something oddly final about waving the pair of them off to their honeymoon. Mum’s booked them five days in Saint-Tropez and stumped up for a taxi too. Hal and I both tried to pay for the trip, but Mum was characteristically stubborn and stuck to her guns.
Instead, I’ve slipped Louis some spending money and I’m pretty sure Hal has done the same.
I can’t help but feel a little jealous of their five-day break from reality but remind myself that real adulthood is coming at them soon enough.
Louis’s graduate training programme starts in September, and Summer’s starting a master’s degree around the same time.
And there’s the small matter of having a tiny human to care for.
They’ll need to charge their batteries in readiness for all that.
I rang Peter this morning and talked through a couple of client files.
I’m heading back tomorrow, but have managed to book train tickets.
Apparently, it’ll be a ten-hour trip, and although there will be a couple of train changes along the way, I’m getting more adept at using my crutch.
I’m going to ask Hal to bring the bulk of my luggage home for me.
It’s mostly dirty laundry and stuff I brought for the wedding, so I won’t need it any time soon.
Hal is going to wend his way home, taking the scenic route as always. He talked about his itinerary on the way here – it’s going to be a fourteen-day tour of lesser-known campsites, stopping in Paris en route for a little bit of culture.
If I’m honest, I have new admiration for Hal after this trip. I thought I’d easily take to working from home, or on the road, but if I’m honest, I haven’t done half as much work as I thought I would on this trip. Even before the infection, I was slacking off.
But Hal’s been on the phone here and there, opened his laptop and fired a few emails.
I’ve caught him late at night, sitting up to get this or the other task done.
Somehow, he’s managing to keep a successful business afloat in his spare time.
I always imagined him doing the absolute minimum, but actually the guy works pretty hard.
And it takes more discipline to be your own boss when you’re surrounded by holidaymakers than I gave him credit for.
The sun is still beating down and Mum’s garden looks glorious, somehow defying the weather to remain relatively green and lush.
But even so, the place is a lot duller without Louis and Summer there.
I watch a burgundy ribbon missed by the event organisers blow lightly across the grass and think about how quickly what had been a fixed date in my future has now become something in my past.
Then, when I’ve had enough of my own inner voice, I wander into the kitchen where Mum is brewing a pot of coffee. ‘Thought you might like one of these,’ she says.
‘Yes please.’
I slip onto a bar-stool and wait, feeling a little like a customer in a café. Everything seems muted, still. The only sounds are the little squeals and hisses of the machine as it boils water and forces it through coffee granules.
‘Where’s Hal?’ Mum asks. ‘Do you think he’ll want one?’
‘Oh, he popped into town. He wants to get someone to check Betty over.’
Mum’s eyes catch mine. ‘Betty?’ she says, raising an eyebrow. ‘We’re on first name terms with her now, too, are we?’
‘Yeah, I suppose it’s catching,’ I admit.
‘I thought you said naming a camper-van was ridiculous.’
‘Yep. Guilty as charged.’ I take the steaming cup of black coffee from Mum’s hand and blow across the top, sending steam forward. The delicious aroma floods my senses. ‘I think it’s spending so many days with her that’s changed my mind.’
‘Or with him?’ Mum questions, adding milk and sugar to her own cup.
‘No! Not like that.’
‘OK,’ she says, looking at me slightly askance but electing not to say anything.
The silence returns and I try to think of something to say. ‘I’ve booked the train,’ I tell her. ‘For tomorrow. If you could maybe give me a lift to the station?’
‘Oh, so soon?’
‘Yeah,’ I grimace. ‘Work’s stacking up a bit. I haven’t really stayed on top of it.’
‘Of course.’
‘I think Hal’s going tomorrow too – all being well with Bett—the camper.’
‘Right. So back to business as usual!’ she says, her upbeat tone sounding painfully forced.
Outside, I can hear the throaty sound of an older car trying to tackle the steep hill, then, when it’s either passed or given up, the smaller sounds of Mum’s rural idyll are audible again: the chirp of birds, the noise of the odd passing car or motorbike.
I picture the hill, how it slopes down to the azure sea and imagine what it would be like to live here.
Days on the beach, long evenings on the terrace.
Always being in paradise. ‘It’s lovely here, Mum,’ I say. ‘You’re so lucky.’
‘Yes, well,’ she says. ‘You get used to it after a time.’
I open my mouth to say that I can’t imagine ever getting used to living somewhere so beautiful, then I think of my own home town, Cambridge.
How people come from all over the world to see its historic buildings, the weathered stone of its colleges with their gargoyles and stained-glass windows; the river with its endless stream of students and tourists on punts.
It’s easy to stop seeing the beauty where you live, to become complacent.
‘And you have your friends,’ I remind her. ‘You seem to make friends much more easily than I ever have.’
‘Oh,’ she flaps her hand dismissively. ‘You find when you move somewhere with limited language, it’s much easier to find like-minded people. English-speakers sort of congregate together.’
‘I can understand that.’
Mum’s original intention when moving to France four years ago had been to learn French. I told her at the time she might find it harder than she expected. ‘Good grief, Sarah!’ she’d told me. ‘How hard can it be? They teach it to five-year-olds!’
I know that she signed up for classes when she first arrived, but she hasn’t mentioned them for a while. I decide not to ask.
The silence returns. It’s the sort of silence that would be pleasant when sitting with a friend, or maybe if I was taking a moment with Louis.
But with Mum it prickles; demands to be filled.
It’s not a comfortable silence between two people who know each other well enough to be quiet together, but the kind of silence that occurs between people who don’t quite know what to say.
I sip my coffee, racking my brain. ‘There are about four changes,’ I say at last.
‘What?’
‘On the train. Four changes.’
‘Oh, right. Will you manage, do you think? With your crutch?’
‘Yeah, I think I’ll be fine. Hal’s taking most of my luggage.’
The silence returns. It’s clear we’re both aware of it. It strikes me as bizarre that the only living person who’s known me my whole life feels like a stranger sometimes.
‘Lovely wedding,’ I say desperately.
‘Yes. Yes, it was.’
‘Must have been nice for you. To have everyone around.’
‘Yes. Yes, it was.’
‘Well!’ I say at last, draining my coffee. It’s probably the fastest I’ve ever chugged back a cup. ‘I suppose I’d better get packing.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ Mum takes my cup from its coaster and moves it over to the sink, running water in it immediately, her back to me.
I head for the door. But as my hand reaches the handle, I hear Mum say my name.
‘Yes?’ I ask.
‘You know, you don’t have to leave. If you don’t want to.’
‘Thanks, Mum. But you know… work.’
She sighs, shoulders slumping dramatically.
‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ She puts the cup on the draining-board and starts washing her own.
‘No, what? What’s wrong?’ I’m angry rather than concerned. Over the years, I’ve become accustomed to Mum’s sighs. They have a language of their own and this one suggested deep disappointment in me for some reason.
‘It’s just…’ She sets her cup on the drainer next to mine. Both bleed bubbles onto the draining-board from being over-soaped. ‘Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to spend a bit of time with your mother once in a while!’
‘Mum! I have been spending time with you!’
‘Yes, but… of your own volition.’
‘What?’
‘Come on, Sarah. The only reason you’re here is Louis’s wedding. When would you have visited otherwise? Christmas, if I’m lucky?’
‘You could always visit me! I’ve got a job, Mum. It’s not as easy as all that.’
‘Yet you spend ten days meandering across France with that man of yours.’
‘First of all, he’s not a man of mine. And second of all, I didn’t have much of a choice. I broke my leg, remember? The doctor was worried about clotting! And if you must know, I spent three of those days in hospital!’
She turns, her brow furrowed. ‘Hospital?’
‘Yes, Mum. I got an infection. Collapsed. Spent two nights hooked up to a drip.’ It’s not her fault, she hadn’t known. But I can hear my own tone, hear the note of accusation.
Her hands fly up. ‘Well, how was I supposed to know? I’m not psychic, Sarah. If you don’t talk to me, what do you expect?’
‘Yes, OK. I just wanted you to know that this has hardly been an easy trip for me. And I’ve had to juggle work, and being ill.
I’d love to spend more time on the French Riviera.
Hell, who wouldn’t? But I can’t, Mum, because I live in the real world with real responsibilities and it just doesn’t work like that. ’
Mum eyes me silently. She picks up a tea towel and begins drying one of the mugs. Conversation over.
But I can’t leave it like that. ‘Listen, I get that you’re lonely.
But honestly Mum, what did you expect? The minute Dad was out of the picture, you left.
It didn’t matter to you that I was grieving, that Louis was grieving.
It didn’t seem to matter to you that you simply disappeared from our lives.
If you wanted us to be with you, why did you move a thousand miles away?
If you’re feeling lonely, it’s because of what you’ve done to yourself. It’s nothing to do with me!’
My eyes are stinging with tears and somewhere deep inside me a voice is telling me that it’s enough. To stop now. But I can’t. ‘Dad would never have left us like that,’ I tell her.
The cup slips from her hands in what seems like slow motion and hits the tile, shattering into a thousand pieces which scatter across the hard surface, under cabinets, onto one of her precious rugs; the handle skids across and hits the side of the breakfast bar.
‘Oh,’ she says, but it’s more of a sob than a word. ‘Oh.’
But I can’t stay. Feeling my ears burn, I turn from the room and make my way to my bedroom. There, I open a case and begin to stuff everything in as quickly as possible, crushing everything down before sitting on the case and zipping it closed. It bulges but the zip holds.
Then, when there’s nothing more to do, I sit down on the bed.
And I cry. I cry because what I said to Mum was cruel.
I cry because I don’t know where the words came from.
And I cry because there’s no one here to comfort me or tell me everything is OK.
Then I cry for my dad. My wonderful, jocular, kind, idiotic dad who was always the one to comfort me and formed a bridge between Mum and me that, without him, has become a chasm.