She crossed the cool stones, the air perfumed with the fragrance of opening flowers. She set the tray on the low wall, peering over the edge at the sheer drop that plummeted towards fists of rock. Dizzying to be so high.
She poured the coffee, dragged a chair towards the wall, then lowered herself into it and opened her book. Her heart sped up in anticipation of this moment. This – coffee and a book – was her morning ritual, and God help anyone who interrupted it.
She’d started it years ago, when Luca was six months old and she’d felt her life spinning wildly out of control. She’d find herself dragged from sleep, groggy and exhausted, Luca’s needs blaring and urgent: Feed me! Change me! Hold me! She’d stagger through the flat, eyes barely open, and by the time he was fed and changed, she was already spent. When you’re a single mother, and exhausted by seven in the morning, well, a long day lies ahead. So she began getting up before the baby. Her mother told her she was crazy – ‘Grab every damn second of sleep!’ – yet that slice of time, just for herself, was even more precious than sleep, because when Luca did wake, she was alert, rested, ready and eager to feel his warm little body against her skin.
She had kept the routine, even though Luca was a teenager now and didn’t wake until mid-morning （unless she physically yanked off his covers, pulled the blinds, and flung open the window）。
She checked her watch. He’d still be crashed out on her sister’s sofa bed, while Leonora prepared pancake batter for when he woke, caramelising bananas to serve on top with sweet, warmed syrup. Luca’s favourite since he was small.
How had that pudgy-faced little boy of hers, who used to beam and shout, ‘Mama’s home!’ hurling himself at her legs the moment she entered the flat, become the same boy who’d fail to drag his eyes from his phone screen when she returned?
Yesterday, the school had rung to inform her that Luca and three friends had been caught smoking marijuana on school grounds and been suspended for ten days. The blood had drained from her head as she’d listened, standing outside a Greek supermarket, the phoneline crackling and distorting. ‘There must be some mistake,’ she’d said, but the words didn’t even ring true to her. She knew the boys he’d started hanging around with this past year. She’d tried to gently steer Luca away, but what say did she have? If she pushed in one direction, he’d pull in the other.
She’d called Luca immediately after. His voice was gruff, unapologetic. Angry. That’s what scared her: his anger. He’d always been such a gentle boy, sensitive and caring. He loved books, loved painting, loved spending his weekends at the Natural History Museum – and then, somewhere along the way, he’d grown up, grown apart, and she’d lost him. She wondered if she’d been working too hard, putting her concentration in the wrong place, missed the signs.
She asked Leonora not to tell their parents he’d been suspended: they’d only blame Ana. That boy needs a father, her mother was fond of clucking, eyes downcast, head shaking.
Her parents were immigrants from Uganda. When they’d arrived in Brixton in the eighties, they’d done everything they could to fit. They bought British clothes, cooked British food, adopted British accents. Ana and her sister were taught not to complain, not to challenge, not to be different.
So that’s what they did. Never complained, never kicked back. If they got knocked down, they simply got back up. But Ana wanted something different for Luca. She wanted him to make his presence known. To never apologise for who he was or the space he took up. She wanted him to have the same opportunities as everyone else. To fight for them.
Yet somehow, here he was, fifteen years old, angry, suspended from school, something simmering beneath his skin. She felt a lurch of homesickness – for Luca, for her sister, for her flat with the little kitchen window that faced the laundrette opposite, the smell of soap suds drifting in on a summer’s night.
I shouldn’t be here, she thought, the sea view mocking her with its sheer, clean beauty. She was on a hen weekend with a group of women she barely knew, spending money that would be better saved, while she’d left Luca to unravel. She was selfish, wanting too much.
She caught herself. No, that wasn’t her voice: it was her mother’s. The condemnation; the judgement disguised as self-sacrifice. Ana worked hard. She was scrupulous with saving. She was a good mother. She deserved a break, a holiday, something for herself.
She glanced over her shoulder towards the pristine villa.