and I’d practically given myself a coronary in my rush to get to the airport and onto a flight immediately after getting Josh’s phone call.
I hadn’t stopped to think. I’d just reacted.
And I suppose that’s exactly what I did this time last year too.
My instinct to run has by fate and circumstance brought me right back here.
And now the gruelling flight is over, and the awful panic dispersed and the weight lifted from my shoulders, I feel like I’ve just woken up from a nightmare and with a terrible hangover.
Maybe I’m suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress?
‘Come on, let’s get you out of here before you freeze to death,’ said Josh, rattling car keys.
We walked briskly outside of the terminal and crossed a dark wet and busy road filled with the noise of screeching taxis and the roar of busses and the clatter of people dragging enormous suitcases or pushing precarious piles of luggage on stiff wheeled trollies. Josh fed a parking ticket machine with notes and coins. When I saw how much it had cost him to park the car, I searched for my purse, before realising I didn’t have any money in Sterling to offer him.
‘Oh, can we stop at an ATM? I had meant to go and swap my dollars for pounds.’
‘No problem. I’ve got it. We can sort that out later, mum.’
I slid into the back seat of the car and soon we were driving away from the airport. It was the morning rush-hour and I peered out of the window at the foreboding sight of shiny slate grey streets and a background of darkness. It’s as if I’ve been transported from a world of technicolour into a one of monochrome. It was raining hard. I watched Josh’s head move from side to side in sync with the windscreen wipers as he negotiated the heavy traffic, checked the rear-view mirror, changed lanes and twiddled with the air con all at the same time.
‘We’ll soon have you warm, Mum,’ he said, setting the dial to red and the blower to full.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself by staring down at the goose bumps standing to attention on my bare knees and wondered if I’d ever feel warm again.
It had been thirty-six degrees C when I’d left Grand Cayman.
It was, of course, the middle of winter in the UK, so what could I expect?
But had it always been this awfully dark and dreary looking?
‘We’ll go straight over to Gran’s.’ Josh said. ‘She’s got the spare bedroom ready for you. She’s looking forward to having you stay with her until you get yourself sorted.’
I bit down on my lower lip and realised I was a homeless burden until I ‘get myself sorted’.
Sorted with what? My own place? I suppose that all depended on how long I stay.
And then I realise that I’m already contemplating leaving when I’ve only just arrived.
In the same front room of the small terraced house where I’d been born forty-eight years ago, my mum was sitting in her armchair with a cup of tea and a shortbread biscuit when we arrived. The house was warm, the TV was blaring, and she was watching Good Morning.
Her face broke into an immediate expression of joy when she saw me, and she leapt to her slipper-shod feet without any hesitation. ‘Lorraine! You’ve come home!’
‘How are you, Mum? You gave us all quite a scare.’ I said, hugging her tightly.
She ignored my comment and insisted on pouring me a cup of tea to warm me up.
Then she fussed over us and force fed us cakes and biscuits. When I asked how she was feeling, she replied that she was ‘feeling much better now’ but wouldn’t look me in the eye.
Then my younger son, Lucas, arrived and it felt so wonderful to be in the same room as both my sons again. I’d missed them so much that I didn’t want to stop hugging them. I found myself stroking their shirt sleeves and touching their faces and ruffling their hair. Checking they were real. And of course, it was lovely to meet and chat to Zoey, and admire the engagement ring she was wearing. Even though it made me emotional and tearful on two counts. I was full of joy for them both, but I couldn’t help but to be reminded of Ethan and the ring he’d offered me.
I wiped my tears and blew my nose and pulled myself together.
Zoey is a lovely girl and, although we’ve only just met, I immediately approved of her.
I see the way Josh looks at her and it’s clear that he loves her and that she loves him.
That’s good enough for me.
Oh goodness—my boy has become a grown man in my absence.
After an hour or so, Lucas and Josh and Zoey, said they had to get on as they had previously made plans for the day. It was a Saturday, so Mum insisted that they all come back again tomorrow, for Sunday lunch. Just knowing that I’d be seeing them the next day to catch up more on their lives made seeing them all leave a little easier. Then, once they’d gone, Mum insisted that she and I go upstairs to sort through her wardrobe to find me something warm to wear. I was incredibly tired. I just wanted to take a bath and have a good long sleep. But I knew that if I gave in to the jet-lag now, then I was likely to be wide awake in the middle of the night.
I followed my mum up her narrow and carpeted staircase, thinking that despite the generous gesture, I really didn’t want to wear any of her clothes. But I was hardly in a position to refuse.
She emptied the content of her entire wardrobe onto her bed and made me try things on.
Her trousers were all two inches too short on me. Her dresses were too wide. At least we were the same size in shoes. In the end, I chose a matching brown wool sweater and skirt ensemble and some one hundred denier tights and a pair of sturdy tan brogues. Teamed with Zoey’s jacket, I felt like a twenty-years-older version of myself, trying too hard to look trendy.
Once suitably clothed, Mum said we needed to ‘pop out to the shops’ to buy some more teabags and enough food for tomorrow’s family lunch. I stifled another yawn and checked my phone, wondering if I had any messages, only to find the battery was totally flat.
I put it on charge while we went out to the shops in mum’s old car.
Mum drove us and it was a terrifying experience. I’d felt safer in a tuk-tuk on the streets of Bangkok or hacking my way through the jungles of Borneo or fleeing pirates in the South China Sea than being in the passenger seat of my mother’s little car. Had she always been this bad a driver or had this only happened over the past year? She seemed to have lost all her road sense and also her sense of direction. The route to town was incredibly busy and the traffic was stopping and starting at every roundabout and set of traffic lights. It was now early-afternoon, but it was quite dark – twilight at best – and it was still raining heavily. The roads were so wet that they reflected every passing car’s headlights and my tired eyes felt dazzled. Mum chatted non-stop the whole time that it took us to get to the shopping mall, animating her laughter and conversation by waving her arms around her head, instead of holding onto the steering wheel and focussing on the road.
I sat rigid with fear in the passenger seat as we ran a set of red traffic lights and narrowly missed being hit by a lorry. The irate lorry driver had the nerve to stick his fingers up at me, while mum seemed oblivious to any other traffic on the road and drove around the roundabout twice because she’d missed the turn off onto the by-pass.
Eventually, after battling with an automatic ticket machine and a barrier at the entrance to the underground car park, we arrived at the shopping mall and found a space to park. I wearily followed mum’s hurried steps inside, where thanks to a blast of hot air from a blower over the entrance door, it was warmer and more comfortable.
There were already Christmas garlands decking the shopping aisles and a huge Christmas tree, fully decorated with lots of twinkly lights, stood in the main square. It looked quite wonderous. I stood staring