January 22nd
Three weeks.
Mum is waiting in Rosario’s. I kiss her, both cheeks, and order us both a prosecco without asking her first. She raises her eyebrows and smiles but doesn’t say anything. Perhaps this is the kind of daughter she has always wanted, someone bold with their alcohol choices, bold with everything.
‘I’ve got an idea of something to do,’ I announce as soon as I sit down.
I need to find that spark of fire inside me and fan it while it’s alight.
‘Sounds good, darling.’ She smiles encouragingly. ‘What is it?’
For a moment, I have an inkling of what my relationship with Mum could have been if you hadn’t happened, if I’d grown up as planned: Mum supporting me out into the world, me accepting her encouragement. I’d be like one of the hatchlings on the beach, following her mother’s path. We would swim together.
‘I’m going to buy a fare in the Flash Sale,’ I announce. ‘From the student site. They still have them.’
She stiffens, puts down her glass of prosecco. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘It’s fine! Let me tell you about it.’
It helps that I’ve already planned the trip so many times with clients; I recite my script like one of my sales pitches. I tell her about the turtle orphanage and the volunteer centre; that there’ll be other people my own age around me the whole time; that I’ll be like a gap-year student, finding herself, getting back on track. I can play this part.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said a few weeks ago,’ Icontinue. ‘About trying something new.’
She doesn’t move, but if her ears could twitch, she’d look like a fox. And here I was thinking it was just you and me who were like foxes.
‘And your job? They’re okay with it?’
Of course she would ask about that first. I clench my jaw, angry that she’s not simply happy for me, before I remember that it’s a lie I’m wanting her to be happy about.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘They’re encouraging it, in fact.Research. I’ll be able to sell these trips better if I know them. Anyway, I can still do some work from out there.’
When I tilt my phone and show her my return student ticket to Athens, she gets excited, just like I knew she would, clasping her hands together and almost taking out the waiter arriving with the breadsticks.
‘Perhaps I can visit you?’
I tense. Even my time alone is still, it seems, about her,includesher. Like you, she can never let me go. When I tell her about the bus and ferry and the smaller boat too, she frowns.
‘You can only get there by boat?’ she asks.
‘Itisan island.’
She doesn’t need to know about the other ticket. She doesn’t need to know I haven’t told the company anything. Mum watches me across the breadsticks.
‘And you feel okay about it?’ she says. ‘Going away by yourself?’
That’s a harder question. I snap the end off a breadstick as I consider my response.
‘I need time and space, something new. You said it yourself. I’m sick of being stuck. I need to move forward.’
Mum smiles. It’s exactly what she’s wanted me to say for a long time. Then the questions start.
Shall I fly with you to Athens?
Are you sure you’ll be okay on the plane?
Isn’t there someone you can go with?
Tell me about women travelling alone in Greece.
And I can, because I’ve done it so many times with so many anxious students, and sometimes their parents. Finally, all those years at the job have paid off.
‘It’ll be okay,’ I say. ‘If I don’t do it, I’ll never know if I can. I’ll think of it as a challenge.’
Mum gets up, comes round to my side of the table and hugs me like she means it, like she’s proud of me. Suddenly, I have no breath at all.
‘I’m happy for you, darling,’ she says, ‘For sorting yourself out, for deciding what you need and going to get it, for growing up.’
And I’m a hatchling on the beach, running for the sea. But I’m also waiting to be picked off by gulls.