As she stepped down from the chair she spied Holly’s car pulling up, dropping Aiden off.
Finally!
Her son jumped out and retrieved his carry-on bag from the boot. Enya ditched the watering can and grabbed her handbag, car keys and water bottle. She waved, awkwardly, watching theyoung love birds out of the window, wondering when it might be opportune to interrupt them. Entwined was the best way to describe them, thoroughly entwined. She pulled a face. She wasn’t a prude, not at all, but found watching people smash noses together and stick their tongues into each other’s mouths quite revolting. Especially when one of those tongues and mouths belonged to her only child. This too, she was aware, was probably a view that was out of step with more progressive parents, quite unable to imagine carrying on in this way in front of her own mother! It occurred to her then that maybe she wasactuallyinvisible...
She stared at the back of her hands where the skin was a little crepey, the small bulge of prominent veins, a scar around the tip of her finger from a winter’s night eight years ago when she’d slipped while peeling potatoes with a short, sharp knife. Hands that no one held anymore.
With one eye on the clock, she made her way outside and banged the front door shut, loudly. Giving the snogging duo the opportunity to part, should they so desire. They did not desire and so she mumbled a vague commentary on how lovely it was to see them, which was ignored, and jumped into her little Audi, taking her time, setting the sat nav to the airport.
Aiden opened the rear door and shoved his bag inside.
‘Don’t leave me! Don’t go!’ Holly spoke in a mock whine with distinct undertones of moron.
‘Come with me!’ Aiden laughed. ‘Hop in my pocket!’
Enya resisted the temptation to mock-gag, knowing it was both unkind and ungracious. Why did she feel this way? What more could a mother ask for than a partner who looked at her child and saw only starlight?
And that partner was Holly, who right now had her head in the small of Aiden’s back and her arms clamped tightly around his waist, pulling hard as if this might prevent him leaving.
Enya beeped the horn; it was all she could think of and took no pleasure in from the way they both jumped.
‘You’re going to be late!’ she hollered, wanting to get going, wanting to get back, wanting something other than to sit here witnessing their shenanigans.
‘Sure you don’t want me to drive?’ her son asked, yawning.
‘No, I’m good.’
Enya and Aiden shared the car. It made sense.
Finally, they were underway. Holly had waved until she was no more than a dot in the rear-view mirror, and Aiden had nearly cricked his neck making sure he didn’t miss a glimpse.
‘Do you mind if I nap, Mum?’ Without waiting for an answer, he settled back in the seat and folded his arms across his chest as he closed his eyes.
‘Course not. You nap.’
She swallowed her disappointment, having planned the conversation she wanted to have, wanting his advice on so many things, her new business venture with Jenny, the damp patch on the kitchen wall, did he know where she kept the will in case of emergencies? Things like that. Nothing, she realised, that wouldn’t keep.
The sound of her son’s gentle snoring wasn’t nearly as rewarding as the chatter she had envisaged. Their animated discussions in her head were always far more engaging than the reality. In them they reminisced, and he laughed, as they turned the clock back and she felt the warm glow of a memory that could sustain her in the early hours, when she might sit on the edge of her bed and breathe slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth. Woken and alarmed by no more than a text, a noise, a dream, a paper cut of worry...
He woke as she pulled into the car park.
‘Shit! I’m cutting it fine!’ He pulled a face, and she mentally pulled her hair out. ‘See you in three weeks, thanks for dropping me off.’ He leaned over and kissed her roughly on the cheek. ‘Loveyou!’ She could feel the imprint of it on her face and would treasure the contact long after he had gone.
‘Love you, too. So very much,’ she whispered into the ether as, with his bag slung over his shoulder, her boy ran along the covered walkway and into the terminal without looking back. With the confidence of youth, his stride that of someone who was sure of where he was heading and how he was going to get there. In that second, she envied him. Her life, her place in this world, felt watered down, diluted to the point where she sometimes gasped when she caught her reflection in the mirror.
A trick of the light . . .
She didn’t leave immediately, but sat in the car, staring ahead. For someone who felt as if her life was stagnating, it was nice to see people travelling.
It was interesting, watching the bronzed and bedraggled returnees pulling cases on wheels, wearing jumpers loosely draped about their shoulders, shivering to confirm they had come from somewhere much, much hotter, as they clutched souvenirs and duty-free booze in sturdy plastic bags. If these travellers had arrived at the airport hand in hand on an excited high, this felt like the other end of the budget flight conveyor belt.
It was more than a little depressing. She had seen many couples over the years bickering on this very spot, no doubt travel-weary and miffed at the prospect of tackling the sunscreen- and sweat-soaked laundry that hummed in their cases. Plus, the thought of going back to work tomorrow without the joy of a holiday looming was probably enough to knock the gilded edge off their tan.
She was lucky on two counts: her mother’s Irish heritage meant never having a tan to preoccupy her, and she and Jonathan had never stopped laughing, chatting, always looking forward, planning. It wasn’t always roses and wine, of course not, there were days when she could happily have throttled him, and there were athousand small things he did that drove her to distraction, but in the main, they were good.
More than good.
And then, as she did sometimes, her mind wound back to trips she’d taken years ago. The three of them, arriving at the airport, Aiden jumping up and down, so excited to be going on a plane, his little backpack bulging with comics, Top Trumps, sweets and puzzles to keep him occupied, and keen to hold her hand, always so keen to hold her hand.
