Chapter 15
MEGAN
Ishouldn’t have said anything about the book.
Mum’s face. She was so shocked. She could not believe it.
And I can’t blame her. I didn’t tell her anything about it at the time and there was no point in telling her afterwards.
She might have offered to help and that would have been worse than her pitying me over the number of rejections.
The whole episode was an embarrassing one that I’d like to forget, so I don’t know why I blurted it out like that in front of a load of strangers.
It was the campfire setting. It threw me.
Later, when I left the circle to go to the toilet, I saw Mum standing with one of the guides and she was vaping. She didn’t notice me behind her.
‘Melon flavour, you say,’ she was musing in wonder, exhaling a long plume.
She hasn’t smoked in years. The book thing must have thrown her, too.
When it’s time for bed and I climb into the tent after everything is cleaned up and packed away, Mum is sitting up blasting her mini electric fan at her face, the torch light of her phone shining upwards.
I can’t believe Dad is making us share. She looked about as happy as I felt when we were given that information by an apprehensive Nico.
I swear mums know the exact thing to say to hit a sore spot.
Her attitude when I was putting up the tent – all by myself, I might add – pissed me off.
She didn’t need to be so surprised that I showed some practicality.
I know I’m not Bear Grylls, but I am much more active and outgoing than Mum is.
She likes to make it out as though I’m like her, someone who can’t put in the work when it’s needed, probably to make her feel better about herself so she’s not embarrassed about being so useless, but that’s not true.
I always felt comfortable in the outdoors.
I wanted to muck out at the stables in the holidays; I really enjoyed those adventure weeks the school would organise for us, ‘Parents Get Lost’, we used to call them. I haven’t thought about PGL in ages.
But . . . I don’t know, I guess my career in London has consumed me to the point where I only ever do city things.
I see myself as a city person. ‘A city wanker’, Dominic used to jokingly call me.
Despite the fact he lived and worked in the city and his idea of a trip to the countryside was a weekend at The Pig hotel in the Cotswolds, he considered himself a ‘country bumpkin’ at heart because he grew up in Surrey in a house surrounded by green because it was next door to a golf course.
Sometimes I wonder why I dated him and then I remember things like the time we went to a café the morning after a wedding in Berkshire and I said I could never live in the countryside because of the standard of coffee beans and he burst into raucous laughter which made my day brighter.
Funny how you can lose yourself without even noticing or caring.
‘It’s hot in here,’ Mum remarks, her fan pointed at her forehead.
‘It’s the south of France in August.’
‘I want to sleep with the tent door open in the hope of a breeze but then I’m scared a bear will climb in,’ she says.
I make myself comfortable on the sleeping mat on my side of the tent.
‘A bear won’t climb in.’
‘There are bears around here. Brown bears.’
‘You’ll be fine, Mum,’ I say with a sigh.
She doesn’t say anything. As I lie down, pulling a thin blanket over my legs, I can feel her watching me.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about the book?’ she asks quietly.
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Mum. It was nothing.’
‘Writing a book isn’t nothing.’
Lifting an arm over my head and staring at the roof of the tent, I press my lips together. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I’m glad you did.’ She hesitates. ‘I would have helped if you’d asked.’
‘That’s why I didn’t ask.’
‘Well, if ever you feel the urge to write again, I would be very happy to—’
‘I’m not going to write again. I was nineteen, it was a whim, it was nothing.’ I roll onto my side, turning my back on her. ‘We should get some sleep.’
‘Yes. Night, Megan.’
‘Night, Mum.’
The light goes out and I hear the rustle and commotion of her moving from a sitting position to a horizontal one on her mat, all the ‘oomphs’ and ‘ughs’ and ‘oh gods’.
I lie still, remembering how excited and hopeful I’d felt pressing ‘send’ on the numerous emails to literary agents with my manuscript attached, the author name a pseudonym that I’d come up with to disguise that I was the daughter of a literary icon.
As I waited for responses, I pictured getting my first publishing deal and telling my mum.
She would be amazed that I’d done it with no help from her or anyone, that it was being published all from my own merit.
It would be a way of saying, ‘Fuck you’ to her without ever having to say it.
‘Here I am without you, winning anyway.’
I got twenty-three rejections from those that took the time to reply, and a host of no responses.
The industry told me what I’d feared: I wasn’t a writer.
I was glad at least that I’d used a different name.
My humiliation wouldn’t extend to my mum or taint her reputation.
This heartbreaking failure of mine could go unnoticed.
I got over it. I accepted that writing wasn’t for me, or rather that I wasn’t right for it, and I moved on and focused on a career that I could do well in.
I’d stupidly told Dad that I was working on a book.
I didn’t tell him I’d finished it or sent it off or that it had been turned down by so many people that there was no question it was terrible.
That I was terrible. Every now and then he would ask about it, and I’d shrug it off.
Eventually, I casually told him I’d given up on it.
‘That’s a shame,’ he’d said, crestfallen. ‘I wanted to read it.’
I couldn’t bear the idea of telling him the truth and knowing that he’d be thinking exactly what I thought and what all those literary agents would have thought if they’d known who I was: ‘She will never live up to Dawn Dixon. Pitiful of her to try.’
***
Trying to get to sleep next to Mum in a tent is a bit like trying to sleep with a mongoose trapped in the duvet next to you.
Constant rustling, tossing and turning, squeaks and grunts of irritation that fill the air with a sense of impending chaos that could erupt at any moment. I try to be as patient as possible.
‘Mum! What is wrong with you?’ I hiss at one point, unable to ignore it any longer.
‘I can’t get comfortable! This tent is absurdly small. It was made for infants.’
‘It’s an adult-size tent. Maybe if you didn’t insist on putting the boxes between our mats, we’d have more room,’ I suggest bitterly.
‘It’s got nothing to do with your father’s ashes, Megan, they are two tiny boxes, I haven’t noticed them at all. It’s this mat! It’s so thin. What’s the point of it? They might as well have provided me with a sheet of sandpaper to recline on.’
‘It’s not that bad.’
‘It is that bad.’
I sigh grumpily. ‘Just . . . see it as a good thing for your back. A more supportive surface is better for your spine and can help with back pain.’
‘That’s funny because my back has no pain on a memory foam mattress but is screaming with pain on this piece of plank masquerading as a suitable sleeping mat.’
I smile to myself at her use of ‘masquerading’.
She huffs, rolling over once again.
‘Mum, try to clear your mind.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’re too focused on your comfort level.’
‘My comfort level is minus zero,’ she snaps.
‘That’s my point, that’s all you’re thinking about,’ I explain wearily. ‘Why don’t you try some breathing exercises? That way, you’ll be able to relax your body.’
‘I don’t know any breathing exercises,’ she says impatiently.
I turn my head to look at her even though it’s dark. I can just make out her silhouette.
‘Really?’ I say in surprise. ‘You don’t use any meditation techniques? How do you calm yourself when you get into a panic?’
‘I ask for a large.’
I snort with laughter. My reaction makes her relax and chortle along.
‘All right, I can teach you,’ I offer. ‘Lie on your back and close your eyes.’
‘If you think I haven’t already tried that . . .’
‘Come on, trust me,’ I say through a smile, as I follow my own instructions.
I wait until she’s still and then I begin.
‘Okay, a few deep breaths to start. So, inhale through your nose, big breath, and then out through your mouth. And again, that’s it.
Deep breath in. And out. Good. So, this time, breathe in for four seconds, hold it for seven and then exhale to eight counts. That make sense?’
‘All right.’
‘So, in for four, hold for seven and out for eight.’
I go through the process along with her, encouraging her to repeat it a couple of times, before we continue together without having to say anything. After she’s done it a few times, I open my eyes and whisper, ‘Do you feel better?’
‘If I say “yes”, will you spend the rest of the trip going on about the benefits of meditation and mindfulness ultimately causing me to stab myself in the eye to get out of holidaying with you?’
I fight a laugh. ‘No. I promise I won’t do that.’
‘Okay, then, yes, I do feel better,’ she admits, her voice softer now.
‘Good.’
There’s a beat of silence and then: ‘Thank you, Megan.’
I close my eyes. ‘You’re welcome, Mum.’
***
I’m woken up by Mum prodding my arm. ‘Megan. Megan.’
‘What? What time is it?’
‘I have no idea. Late slash early.’
‘It’s still dark, what are you doing?’ I say, irritated and turning away from her.
‘I think I heard a bear.’
‘Mum,’ I groan.
‘I’m serious!’ she says in a hushed but panicked voice, reaching over to grab my arm. ‘I can hear something roaming outside.’
‘You can probably hear the horses. Go to sleep,’ I order.
‘What if it’s a brown bear?’
‘Then, it will go for the people wearing perfume first.’