Coming Home. Annabel Kantaria

on the dusty street, the sound of my own breathing and the thrum of my pulse in my head. ‘Dad is dead. Dad is dead. Dad is dead.’ I broke into a run to try to make it stop, and, not too soon, there was the beach opening out in front of me: an expanse of moonlit sand, bookended on the left by the Burj Al Arab and contained in front by a low wall. Tonight the hotel had its diamonds on: a twinkling display of lights that shot up and down its spine and belly. I stopped short, realising with a jolt that Dad would now never see this sight; that there were so many things he’d now never see. I watched through one full set of the light show then I climbed over the wall and walked towards the ocean, kicking off my flip-flops and seeking out the cold under-layer of sand with my toes.

      The sight of the sea, as always, calmed me. Sitting on the last edge of warm, dry sand, I stared at the water and breathed in time with the hypnotic oohs and aahs of the waves swishing in and out. The tide was receding and each wave seemed to take the sea farther away from me, a fringe of seashells marking its highest point. I looked up at the sky and wondered what happens when you die. Could Dad see me? Was he up there somewhere now, looking down on me? Had he known he was dying? Did he think about me before he died? When his life flashed before his eyes—did it even really do that?—what did he see? What was his last thought about me?

      Did he even have a last thought about me?

      You should have come to Dubai, I said silently to the heavens. I wanted you to come so badly. My hands formed a steeple as if I was praying and my eyes searched for the constellations Dad had shown me how to find back in the summer evenings when we were still happy: the Plough, the Little Bear and Polaris, Orion. Tonight, as usual, all I could make out above the glow of Dubai’s neon skyline was the Big Dipper and the North Star. I needed Dad there to show me the more subtle connections between the other stars. Where are you? I asked the sky.

      Would Mum be all right?

      She’d sounded all right on the phone but … I shifted as a shiver rippled through me. I hadn’t spoken to Miss Dawson for years now but I still remembered the last conversation we’d had about Mum.

      ‘She’s like an iceberg,’ the counsellor had told me. ‘She lets you see only the top layers, the top ten per cent. If that. There’s an awful lot that goes on beneath and you’ll never see that.’ She’d noticed, then, the sadness I couldn’t hide. ‘It’s not just you, pet,’ Miss Dawson had added. ‘She’s like that with everyone. Since the accident, she won’t let anyone get close.’

      And now what, I wondered. My mother was all I had left, and she was the mistress—the guardian—of The Gap. It was as if she held everyone at a distance; she didn’t want to let anyone get close to her again. We wrote each other a daily email but Mum’s emails were reports of golf scores, of choir practice and of what she was cooking for supper; they could have been written by anyone. They were information bulletins, memorandums that revealed nothing of the woman underneath. They weren’t designed to keep me close. My mum hid emotion. She didn’t reach out. She skated the surface of our relationship with prim and proper etiquette but no depth whatsoever. Mind The Gap.

      In my replies, I echoed Mum’s style. We exchanged huge quantities of useless information in a literary ballet that meant little. I wrote about work achievements and new restaurants, trips to the beach and what my friends were up to. I’d tried in the past to talk about more real things; about how being with James made my blood fizz; how he looked at me like he wanted to devour me. Is this love? I’d asked Mum. Did you feel this way about Dad? How do I know if he’s The One? But the replies came back as dull as the church newsletter. ‘Your friend sounds nice, dear. Did I tell you that I’m playing a new course next week?’

      By the time I was starting to sense trouble with James, I’d learned that, beyond platitudes, I wouldn’t be getting emotional support from my mum: I’d be getting a new lamb recipe and what her choir was singing for the forthcoming summer concert. In our warped relationship, it was I who took care of her.

      Miss Dawson had said it was a defence mechanism. ‘Your mother’s “gap” has become a part of her,’ she’d said. ‘It helps her define who she is. She doesn’t know how to fill it.’ Then she’d smiled sadly at me. ‘You’ll get closeness one day, Evie,’ she’d said. ‘From a partner; a husband; children.’

      I still felt protective of Mum, though. As an adult, I felt it was my job to look after her and the question that bothered me now, sitting on the beach, was of what lay below Mum’s gap. Had she really managed to freeze her emotions, or were they still bubbling beneath? I pushed my toes into the cold sand below the surface and wondered if, as far as Mum was concerned, Dad’s death would be the earthquake that triggered the tsunami.

       CHAPTER 5

      Just over twenty-four hours after I first spoke to Mum, at what was quite likely the highest point of the bleak afternoon, my taxi pulled up outside my parents’ Victorian semi. They lived in Woodside, a functional commuter town that couldn’t decide if it was part of South London or north-west Kent. On a sunny day, there was enough beauty, enough greenery, for you to believe it was Kent; in the drizzle, pavements slick with rain, it looked more like Greater London. It was true, though, that, if you stood at a high point and looked south, all you could see was open countryside.

      Wrapped in the pashmina I’d foolishly imagined would keep me warm, I helped the driver haul my bags out of the boot, paid him and crunched across the gravel driveway to the door. Summer’s roses, which framed the entrance throughout July and August, were completely gone; the house looked bare without the lushness of their petals. I realised I hadn’t been home during winter in six years.

      Before I could ring the bell I heard a bolt being drawn back, then another, then, finally, a key turning in a lock: Mum must have been watching out for me. She appeared behind the outer, glass-panelled door. There was the click of another lock, and another, and then the porch door finally opened.

      ‘Hello, dear; that was quick!’ she said, looking me up and down and then enveloping me in a hug. Despite the thick sweater she was wearing, she looked small, fragile, and hollow around the eyes. In my arms, she felt tiny. I noticed at once that she had a new haircut, which framed her face. She was wearing a different perfume to usual. It was light, floral, upbeat.

      ‘I got on the first flight I could,’ I said, pulling away and blinking in the cold morning light. I felt like I’d been up for twenty-four hours. The shadow of wine drunk on the flight crouched behind my forehead, and my eyes popped with tiredness.

      ‘You’ve grown your hair,’ Mum said, as I lugged my suitcase over the gravel. ‘I always thought it suited you shorter.’

      I tossed my hair back defensively and followed Mum through the front door and into the living room, breathing in the familiar scent of the house in which I’d grown up. Until I stepped into the living room, the reality of being at home without Dad hadn’t hit me; I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the physical space his absence would create. But the emptiness of his armchair was tangible. In the doorway, I stopped and stared.

      ‘Glass of champagne?’ Mum asked. ‘Toast your safe arrival?’

      My head snapped round to look at her. It was barely three o’clock.

      ‘Got one open in the fridge,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Oh, don’t look at me like that! It’s a good one. I don’t want to pour it down the sink.’

      ‘No thanks.’ I flopped down in the armchair next to the shelves, my eyes running over the cluttered surfaces, idly clocking what was new; what Mum’s latest fad had been—she was an obsessive collector. Every spare inch housed a collection of something: thimbles, decanters, mugs, jugs, stuffed toys, dolls with china faces, books, videos, glassware, figurines. The walls, too, were plastered with paintings. The visual stimulation was overwhelming.

      Mum fussed around the room, blowing dust from pieces of glass, holding them up to the shred of daylight and polishing them with a huff of breath and the hem of her skirt.

      ‘Sit