SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:
An emotional reunion
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A mother and daughter who aren’t very good with emotions
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Two years of not seeing each other
Two
By some kind of miracle of science, I slept on the plane. Maybe my legs could only handle being so squished when unconscious, or maybe it was just my hangover knowing what was best for me. Either way, blissfully, I fell asleep after the in-flight meal of sausages that looked like the poos of constipated toddlers.
When I woke, I felt eight trillion times better. I yawned. I tried to stretch. I rubbed the sore part of my neck.
There was no headache left. No racing nausea. The children on the aeroplane of flight 105HWSF were safe from my vomit. I fiddled with my chair and got out the remote control for in-flight entertainment. I punched at it until the flight progress came up on my screen.
I felt sick again.
An ocean was now between me and virtually everyone I knew and the tiny cartoon aeroplane hovered over the north-west of America’s giant expanse.
According to the real-time estimations, we’d be landing soon.
I stood up without warning, my remote ricocheting into my tall neighbour’s flesh as it pinged back on its cord.
“Excuse me, sorry. I need the loo.”
I practically ran to the tiny toilet cubicle and locked the door behind me. I leaned against it and took a deep breath that stank of chemical blue urine stuff. I took another one, my nose getting used to the stingy smell.
Breathe, Amber, just breathe…it’s just your mum. Like, the woman who birthed you with her own body and who loves you unconditionally…despite the fact she emigrated over five thousand miles away and didn’t think to take you with her.
But it wasn’t her choice to move away – was it? It was stupid Bumface Kevin’s with his stupid American bumchin. He knew Mum was vulnerable, and he just took her with him anyway, brainwashed her into leaving us… Plus, I mean, how unethical is it to HIT ON someone you’re supposed to be treating?
I flushed the loo, and the terrifyingly-loud hissing noise jolted me out of my anger.
I had six weeks. Six weeks to undo all the damage he’d caused and make her mine again. Six weeks to figure out what had happened, what I’d done to make her go.
By the time I’d pulled myself together enough to go back to my seat, it was too late to start a movie. I dug in my bag and pulled out my sketchpad instead. The photograph of my mother and me floated out from the pages onto my lap. I’d been copying it over the last week. I picked it up and really stared at it, the sight of her face making my intestines twist like they were playing cat’s cradle. Dad had taken the photo the last time she’d come to visit me at Dad’s house. We were in the garden; I recognized the rosebush in the background, and remembered the fit Penny had thrown when she’d arrived (“I don’t know why I have to have THAT woman in MY house”). We were both smiling into the lens, but I remembered how miserable I’d been that day. How I’d sobbed uncontrollably when she said “goodbye”. It was the day she’d told me she was flying to California. The day when any hope Bumface Kevin wouldn’t take her away from me died a gasping, desperate death.
But it’s okay, she’d said. I’ll come and visit loads.
And now two years had passed, and it was me visiting her…
… With a suitcase stuffed with factor 50 suncream, summer-camp clothes and unanswered questions.
I got out my favourite 2B pencil and did what I always did to make the thoughts go away – I drew.
The landing was bumpy. I’m usually an okay flier, but as the plane dived and jolted and essentially bellyflopped onto the runway, I found myself grabbing onto pieces of Tall Man and apologizing profusely.
“Are we dying?” I asked him, clutching spare flesh on his arm. “Why is the plane killing us?”
“It’s the fog,” he said, in a calm American drawl. “San Francisco is always covered in the stuff, and airplanes don’t like it.”
When we were safely on the tarmac, I looked out the small porthole. The weather was welcoming at least. Grey greyness was everywhere, with drizzle speckling the glass.
I turned to him. “I thought this was California!! The weather is worse here than it was in England.”
He laughed. In an American accent, if that was possible. Or maybe now it was me who had the accent. That’s the weird thing about flying, in eleven hours it reverses who has the accent.
“Haven’t you heard the phrase: ‘I never spent a worse winter than the summer I spent in San Francisco’?” he asked.
I didn’t really understand what he’d said, but laughed politely and looked back out the window.
“At least my freckles won’t erupt in this,” I muttered.
Gradually the plane emptied. I said goodbye to Tall Man, thanking him for his moral support, and walked the longest way ever to baggage reclaim. Dad had warned me about the scariness of American border security so I popped into one of the hundreds of available “restrooms” to wash off any remaining trace of hangover.
Security – as predicted – was terrifying. The guy had a gun, AN ACTUAL GUN and noticed my shaking fingers as I handed over my passport. He flicked it open aggressively, like the passport had bad-mouthed his mother or something. He studied my photo and I blushed. It was SUCH a bad one. I’d taken it last year during a heatwave and my hair took up most of the frame.
“How long you staying for?” he barked.
“Er…six weeks?”
He looked up at me, his eyes angry. I actually took a step backwards.
“Why so long?”
I was too scared to be sarky and say something like, “Well, I’ve heard you’re a real friendly country. Musta got that wrong.” I looked down at his gun. Scrap that: GUNS plural. “Umm, I’m working in a summer camp?”
He narrowed his dark eyes. “Have you got your work visa?”
“No…” I said, and he went to push a red button. “Wait! I mean yes. Well, no too. I’m not working there officially, because I’m only seventeen anyway. My mum, she’s married to this American guy who owns a summer camp. I’m staying with them, to visit my mum… And I’ll be helping out at the camp, but not officially or anything… I’ve got a ninety-day visa waiver thingy. Here.” I pulled out the photocopy Dad had insisted I needed.
He didn’t reply, just jabbed his keyboard. Had I screwed it up? Were they going to send me back? Did I still smell of sambuca?
“Look here please.” He shoved me in front of this little black thing. It glowed red against my eyeball and made a clicking sound.
Hang on. Had they just taken a retina scan? Was that allowed? Was I in that much trouble? My heart thumped really fast. I looked around to see if everyone else was getting their eyeballs photographed. Apart from an alarming display of bumbags on show, it all seemed normal.
Just as I started freaking out, the security guy burst into a wide grin and handed over my passport.
“Welcome to America,” he beamed. “I hope y’all enjoy your stay.”
I wandered out into the arrivals hall, still dazed. Why did they take a photo of my eyeball? Was that a breach of my civil liberty? What were they going to do with the eyeball photo? Keep it in some database? Lottie would go mental when I told her. She was always going on about our Big Brother society and Orwell and 1984.
“Amber? Amber!”
And then, there was Mum. Running towards me. Her hair, the exact same ginger as mine, streaming behind her. And my heart, it just kind of inflated with all this air I hadn’t had in me for two years.
She reached me.
“Amber,” she whispered and grasped me into a hug. And I started crying. I hugged her back so hard, and smelled her smell, like roses. She still wore the same perfume. My bag was on the floor and we’d created an arrivals bottleneck but I didn’t care.