Page 59 of Road Trip to the Riviera
‘I don’t think we did, Sarah. I think we felt just as young and unsure as those two are probably feeling right now. Only it was what people did, what people expected. Of course, there were people who lived together first, but it wasn’t as common as it is now. So if you wanted to move your life to the next stage, you had very little choice.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s true.’
‘I remember,’ she says, setting the knife down and gazing out of the window across the grass and the pool to the rising tree-covered hills in the distance, ‘feeling as if I wanted to run away.’
Something in me sinks. ‘Really? Run away? What from, Dad?’
‘Oh no,’ she says, smiling softly. ‘Notfromyour dad.Withhim. Away from all the people who thought we should live a certain way, behave a certain way. Put on a dress and step into a church and do all the conventional things. But it was just nerves.’
‘Yeah?’
She shrugs. ‘Yes. I mean, things turned out OK in the end, didn’t they?’
I nod. Mum and Dad had sometimes had a tumultuous relationship. Her fieriness teamed with his comparative calm had sometimes meant they didn’t see eye to eye. But for the most part, they’d been happy. Still in love.
‘Do you miss him?’ I ask, and her eyes widen.
‘Sarah, what a question! Of course I miss your father! I miss him every single day.’ Her voice chokes.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘How could you think otherwise?’ she adds, wiping her eye with the back of her hand.
I’m chastened. ‘I’m sorry. You just seem so… together.’
She looks down at the chopping board, at the half-cut cucumber. ‘Well, what choice do I have?’ she asks. ‘You just keep on going. And it gets easier. But there’s still… there’s an absence. And it’s like losing a limb. Only worse, because your father did more than hold me up. He…’ She sighs deeply. ‘Sarah, your father understood me like nobody else has in my life, before or since. Oh, I know you think I’m difficult, and I probably am. But your father, he saw through that. He knew how to break through that…’
She’s crying now, cucumber forgotten. I get up, with difficultly, and hop over to her, put my arm around her shoulder. To my surprise, she wraps both of her arms around my back and hugs me, fiercely.
‘I miss him too,’ I say into her hair.
‘I know you do, sweetheart. And I miss…’ She pulls away, holds me at arm’s length, studies my face. ‘And I miss you too, you know.’
‘I’m right here,’ I say.
‘Oh, don’t give me that nonsense! You know what I mean!’
‘Well, come home, then. Come back to England.’
She wipes her eye, gives a little cough. ‘No, it’s not that,’ she says. She gives a big, guttural sigh. ‘Would you know what I meant if I said that your father… I always felt he was the connection between us? Oh, I know I’m your mother and we’re meant to have this mother-daughter bond. And I dare say we do on some level. But Dad was… he was somehow…’
‘Our translator?’
She laughs. ‘Yes. Our mediator. He connected us. Without him… well, these things aren’t so easy for me.’
‘Well, maybe we need to try harder.’
‘Yes. Yes, perhaps we do.’
Moments later she turns back to the board. I hop back to my stool. Mum gives herself a little shake as if resetting herself and continues to cut. ‘Anyway, all this introspection doesn’t do any good,’ she says. ‘This should be a happy time, after all!’
But this is the first time in years I’ve seen through Mum’s veneer and I’m not ready to let go. My eye drifts out of the kitchen over to the pool. Hal’s there, in enormous-looking shorts – a far cry from the red trunks he sported briefly at the campsite. He stretches his arms above his head then attempts a dive. The dive is not graceful, and sends up an enormous splash of water. I smile. ‘You know, Mum, Hal’s a good man.’
Her chopping slows a little, the knife scraping against the board. ‘Yes. Yes, he does seem to have grown up somewhat.’
‘And I think he was always a good person. Sure, he made some mistakes, but…’ I trail off. ‘What?’
‘Well, Sarah, you shouldn’t put too much stock into what I think. The important thing is how you feel about him.’
