Chapter Thirty-Two
‘I’ve never seen him so worried,’ I said to Layla later that evening as I got the lasagne out of the oven. ‘David’s just always such a calm presence. Never gets into a flap about anything. But today, this has really rattled him.’
Layla looked up from her phone, her expression listless. ‘Yeah,’ she said, the affirmative response to a question I hadn’t posed.
‘Anyway.’ I crossed to the table bearing the lasagne like a prize marrow at the village fete. ‘Ta-dah!’
She raised a smile and began to dish out a portion onto her plate. ‘Yum. Thanks Mum.’
‘It’s only a once-a-term thing, this,’ I said, gesturing to the cheese encrusted earthenware with my oven gloves. ‘So don’t be getting ideas about how if you stay at home you’ll be feasting on elaborate pasta dishes on a daily basis.’
There was a moment of tension as she realised I was about to open up that conversation. We’d both been skirting around it for the past ten days in an extremely cowardly fashion. I sat down and took a fortifying sip of wine.
‘So, have you decided what you are going to do?’ I said meaningfully. ‘This term? This academic year?’
There was silence as she moved a forkful of pasta around her plate.
‘Because you do need a plan. A comprehensive, fully considered plan that you can present to your father and I as an alternative to the degree course you’ve already embarked upon.’ (I was aware that I sounded like an insurance company commercial as I said this.)
‘I know.’
‘And I’m not trying to be mean. We’ve given you a few weeks to have a think.
We’re trying not to rush you. But on the other hand, you can’t just drift.
Because if you really, really don’t want to go to university, or at least, back to that university, you’re going to have to have a more concrete idea of what you do want. ’
‘That’s the trouble,’ she said miserably. ‘I just don’t know what I want.’
‘Okay,’ I said, feeling like at last we were getting somewhere approaching dialogue.
‘So, is not wanting to carry on with your course more about the course itself, or the university, or just being away from home?’ I loaded up my fork and took a mouthful, more to stop myself from interrupting Layla than anything else.
There was a real danger that we could end up in a few hours with me feeling like we’d had a productive chat, where in reality it had just been me delivering a sermon (#InsightfulParenting).
‘I just didn’t feel very happy,’ she said eventually. ‘Last term. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, as much as my friends were.’
‘Is this about friends on Instagram? Because you know that everyone edits their highlights.’
‘Maybe a bit,’ she conceded.
‘Because university isn’t wall-to-wall lols and japes,’ I said, immediately regretting using the words lols, and regretting japes a little too.
‘It’s often boring and annoying and mundane.
You’re skint, you’re getting all your nutrients from crisps and lager, you’re learning to live with other people, spending time with total strangers, many of whom will be irritating and some frankly horrible.
But you’re going to have to do that wherever you go, student or not. ’
She looked down at her plate and nodded imperceptibly.
‘Look, Layla.’ I reached across the table and held her hand. ‘I don’t know what the right decision is here. You say you weren’t happy last term, but you don’t seem very happy right now.’
‘No.’
‘And now your friends have gone back to their universities and colleges what do you think life is going to be like here at home with just me and your dad, and occasionally your gran for company? Working at the supermarket full time? Is that really what you want?’
She gave a deep sigh. ‘No. I guess not.’
I paused, letting the silence push the point home.
‘You know,’ I said eventually. ‘If today’s experience at the library has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t want you to be in a precarious financial situation in the future.
There will be colleagues of mine who can’t afford to have their hours slashed in the way they’re going to be.
’ (The same is probably true of me, I thought.)
‘The jobs market is tough. Supermarket check-out positions might not even exist in a few years’ time, it might be entirely automated.
Who knows? But what I do know is that education is never wasted.
Increasing your knowledge base, being able to demonstrate that you have an enquiring mind by pursuing further study, it might just improve your chances of finding a career that’s fulfilling and stimulating, as well as paying the bills.
Even if you find the course a bit dull at the moment. ’
‘Actually, it’s quite interesting,’ she said. ‘Compared to some of my friends. A lot of them just don’t bother going to any lectures, they say they’re a waste of time.’
I tried not to leap on the positive comment but wasn’t entirely successful. ‘Well, see! So if the course is okay then…?’
‘Why don’t I want to go back?’
I forced myself to stay quiet, make her answer her own question.
‘That’s basically what Asmaa asked me,’ she said eventually. ‘We’ve been messaging a bit over the past few days. She’s already back. Obviously.’
‘And what did you tell her?’ I said, inwardly rejoicing about the fact that there was some ongoing contact between Layla’s two worlds of home and university.
‘I said it was hard to explain.’
I nodded. ‘Look, love, I do get it. Sometimes it’s hard to articulate why a thing doesn’t feel right.
Sometimes we can’t say why we’re not ecstatic about a certain scenario.
But that doesn’t mean the scenario is wrong either, the fact that you’re not bursting with joy at the thought of returning doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t return.
Sometimes it’s about pushing on through. ’
She considered this. ‘You’re saying I just need to be a bit more resilient?’
‘Not exactly. I’m not asking you to ignore the bad bits of student life, just to maybe accept it as part of the overall picture.
Because, much as it pains me to say it, you will leave home at some point, we all do.
And moving out is always scary. At least with university you can do it in a gradual way, surrounded by other people who are going through the same thing. ’
‘I guess.’
‘And you’ve done the hardest bit already,’ I said.
‘You’ve made it through a whole term. I honestly think you’ve got it in you to do another.
And then maybe we review the situation. Or maybe we wait until summer, by which point you’ve got a whole year of university under your belt.
You can make a more reasoned decision, and you’ll also have a bit more time to explore other options? ’
There was another long gap of silence filled only with the scraping of forks against plates and the weight of my tentative optimism.
‘I might message Asmaa later,’ she said eventually. ‘Football training’s started back up again. She said the others missed me at the session last week.’
‘That sounds like a good idea,’ I said, knowing not to push too hard, no matter how much I wanted to. ‘Now, how about some pudding?’
It was approaching ten by the time Joe came home and I was relaying mine and Layla’s conversation to him in whispered tones as she entered the kitchen.
‘Hi love,’ said Joe, all casual, as if we hadn’t been discussing her future in some detail. ‘Good day? How was your mother’s lasagne? Up to her usual standard?’
‘Uhhh, yeah,’ she said, twisting her hair around her finger. ‘Yeah, it was good. Uhhm, do you think one of you would be able to get me to the station on Saturday?’
‘The station?’ I said, glancing between my husband and my daughter and trying to participate in the charade of us all being totally cool with the huge significance of the moment.
‘I’ll check the calendar, but I don’t think I’ve got anything on…
’ I picked up my phone, knowing that even if I had an appointment with the prime minister I’d shelve it.
‘Great,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d try to get back in time for the first match of the season. And I haven’t missed too many lectures. I can message my tutor. Explain it to him.’
Layla left the kitchen and Joe and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
‘Well,’ he said eventually. ‘What a result. Hattie Harper for the win.’
‘Never in doubt,’ I said, wiping a tear from my eye as I tried to remind myself that persuading my daughter to go back to university should be considered a success.