Cleo
30 October
Salvation Island
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL
‘Top of the morning to you, Cleopatra!’
I’ve called my mum for some chicken soup for the soul, but it’s my brother’s jokey tone I hear when the call connects.
‘Hey, Tom,’ I say, smiling into the fierce wind whipping around the top of Wailing Hill. They’d issue a stay-at-home weather warning for this back in London, here it’s just a regular Friday. ‘What’s new with you, big brother?’
‘Ah, same old same old. Work’s shite, Eve wants to divorce me, the kids have destroyed the house and the dog stinks. I’m hiding at Mum’s for an hour of tea and sympathy. I’d much rather hear about your honeymoon. Is it all romantic dinners for one and long walks on the beach?’
I process his complaints, knowing full well he’s disgustingly happy in his domestic chaos. Eve adores him and his house is straight out of Country Interiors.
‘Something like that, yeah.’
‘Hmm, you don’t sound cock-a-hoop,’ he says, suspicious. ‘I could always come over and stay with you for a week, if you like? I seriously doubt anyone would miss me here. They wouldn’t even realize I’d gone until no one put the bins out.’
‘Yeah, because the only thing odder than a honeymoon for one is a honeymoon with your brother,’ I say, laughing at the idea of it. Dolores would rip her sister’s ring right off my finger.
I hear Mum demanding her mobile in the background as Tom makes gagging noises down the line.
‘Cleo darling!’ she says after a moment, amplified because Tom has switched her on to speakerphone. ‘Happy belated birthday!’
‘Mum.’ I close my eyes and pull her comforting face up in my mind.
‘How was it?’
‘Yeah, it was … honestly, it was kind of profound. Thank you for the watch, it was timely.’
We both laugh a little at my rubbish joke.
‘You okay, love? You don’t sound yourself.’
Ah, mums. They just know, don’t they? I scrunch my nose up and burrow deeper inside my hood, so the cold doesn’t freeze the tears on my lashes.
‘I’m all right,’ I say, trying not to sound as if I’m lying.
She pauses for a moment. ‘Why don’t you come up here for a few days when you get back? It’s been too long since I last saw you. I could do coffee cake. Shall I make your bed up?’
I picture my childhood bedroom, pink fairies on the wallpaper and curtains Mum sewed herself. It’s been redecorated since, but I still feel eight years old again whenever I sleep in there.
‘You do make the best coffee cake in the world,’ I say.
‘Yes, then?’
In my head, I curl up in the armchair by Mum’s fire with a huge slice of cake and a cup of tea, Mum in the other chair with the same. Her book is open on her knees and there’s an afternoon game show on in the background, Countdown or something similarly benign. The pull is powerful.
‘Can we say maybe, for now? I’m not sure when I’m heading back yet, and then there’s work and everything.’ I grimace because I know it sounds as if I’m putting her off.
‘Have I got to come over there to fetch you, young lady?’ she says.
‘Not you as well.’ I smile. ‘Tom’s already booking his ticket.’
‘Road trip,’ Tom shouts loud in the background.
‘We just worry about you, Cleo,’ Mum says, gentle in her reproach.
‘I know. And I appreciate it, but I’m a big girl now. Thirty.’
‘You’ll always be the baby to me,’ she says.
‘The annoying baby,’ Tom calls.
I laugh with them, clinging to their familiarity, wanting to pull them close. My time here has helped me see the parts of my life I need to jettison and the parts I need to hold tight. ‘I better go,’ I say. ‘I’m in danger of freezing solid.’
They hang up in a flurry of goodbyes, and I shove my hands in my pockets to warm them up. The weather up here is extra harsh today, the wind feels as if it could take my skin off.
I get to my feet and jiggle my numb bum, my guts full of pent-up, nowhere-to-go frustration that escapes my body in a long, loud growl. It feels unexpectedly good to let it out. I glance around. There’s no other human for miles so I do it again, a louder and longer animal howl this time, and then again, and then again and again until I’m hoarse and exhausted by the effort but strangely exhilarated too.
Mack