‘Are you sure this trip is a good idea?’
‘Oh, psh,’ was the only reply from Toni’s mother. It was probably what the question deserved. Her flight was the following morning and travel insurance didn’t cover her changing her mind about leaving the country without her son.
‘It will be nice when you come and join me,’ she continued, rummaging for a pair of thick socks to add to her suitcase, which her mum Daphne eyed critically.
‘It will be nice to have a week at the beach to yourself,’ Daphne corrected.
‘Mum, Grandpa says we’ll eat at the pub one day!’
Toni glanced up to find her nine-year-old son Cillian bouncing in the doorway, her father grinning sheepishly at her over his head. The small house she’d managed to buy five years ago felt cramped when her parents were over – which was often – but it was a small price to pay for the support with childcare, now they’d retired to Weymouth.
‘My only worry is that you’ll spend the whole week thinking about work!’ Daphne said emphatically, folding a floral kaftanand adding it to Toni’s already bulging suitcase. ‘You’ll need a proper break after all this stress.’
Toni snatched it back. ‘Life is busy, but it’s life. A week away wouldn’t make much difference, even if I were as stressed as you think I am. And what is this?’
‘Don’t worry, love,’ her mother said, clucking her tongue in a way that pounded in Toni’s head, with all the spinning thoughts. ‘I bought you a few beach things.’
Inspecting it critically, Toni had to admit the kaftan was pretty and not too young – or too old. At thirty-nine, she was no longer certain what kind of clothes she was supposed to wear so she didn’t look out of place. The fog was beginning to lift now Cillian was nine and she had help, but she still couldn’t see the new picture of her life that was slowly coming into focus.
In the years since Miro’s death, she’d managed little more than surviving: financially, with her low-paying receptionist job at Great Heart, and emotionally, under the weight of grief and responsibility.
‘Work is the reason I’m able to go at all,’ Toni reminded Daphne. In the year since her employer had merged with I Do Destinations, her work had expanded and transformed. Not only was she booking huts and camping grounds for adventure tours; now she also organised fancy hotel rooms for weddings – and elaborate floral arrangements, like the ones Gabri created.
Daphne continued sternly, ‘If you don’t enjoy yourself, I’ll start to thinkIshould have been the one to spend a week on an island in the Mediterranean with a girlfriend.’
She sent Toni’s dad Art a cheeky smile. It had taken most of the nine years since her husband’s death for Toni to stop feeling a twingeeverytime her parents reminded her of how much in love they still were. But right then, it socked her in the gut.
One of the reasons she hadn’t taken a holiday in so long was that she had no one to go with except Cilli, and hechose Center Parcs and Legoland over the Tuscan Archipelago. She’d spent years booking travel for others, watching them gain confidence on the climbing wall at the gym and gushing about their adventures afterwards. Her friends were all climbers and mountain guides and travel junkies, but she had been preciselynowheresince Miro died.
Then Gabri had invited her to stay for a week, to see her sun-soaked island off the coast of Italy, and Toni had dared to picture something just for herself.
Checking her phone, she saw she had another message:
Oh, and don’t forget sturdy shoes. Trainers won’t do if you want to go foraging and explore some of the remote beaches.
She was well aware of the seriousness of footwear choices for outdoor activities. She’d been married to a mountaineer – for all of eighteen months before he’d lost his life in the death zone in the Himalayas.
But she’d never told Gabri any of that and now she was glad of it. Her friend probably thought she was only planning to bring heels and flip-flops. Toni had probably given the impression that she was a little more carefree than she actually was.
‘Right, we’ll be here first thing in the morning so Dad can take you to the airport and I’ll make pancakes for the little prince before school,’ Daphne said when she couldn’t find anything further to help with. She ruffled Cillian’s hair, but he wriggled out from under her hand. ‘And in just over a week, when term is over, we’ll join you in Italy!’
‘His passport and a letter from me with permission to take him out of the country are in an envelope on the sideboard downstairs,’ Toni reminded her. ‘He has his swimming lesson on Thursday – and don’t forget his inhaler.’
‘Ican remember my inhaler, Mum,’ Cillian pointed out, sounding much too old for nine. She’d had to teach him to be independent. During those pressurised early years, every task he completed on his own had been a relief, but now he wouldn’t need her for a whole week, she wanted to hold on.
That was life: wants and needs rarely aligned at the right time and change was never easy.
She noticed belatedly that Daphne was sending Art an odd wink and then her portly father shepherded Cillian out of the room with zero subtlety. Toni braced herself for whatever her mum was about to say.
But she didn’t even open her mouth. With one final, furtive glance at the doorway, she just thrust a pouch into Toni’s hands, blushing furiously.
‘What’s—?’
‘Open it when you’re away,’ Daphne said firmly. ‘We don’t need to talk about it.’
With a sliver of misgiving, Toni guessed what might be inside the pouch. The telltale crinkle when she pressed her fingers around it seemed to confirm the embarrassing suspicion.
‘Mum! What do you think I need these?—?’
