What are you doing here?

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked as the mysterious figure in the distance assumed the form of my mother. She was standing on the pavement outside my house, a hundred miles from home. I was on my way back from the Chinese restaurant, clutching a white takeaway bag. Heat rose from the freshly prepared tupperware containers, thawing my fingertips which had gone numb minutes earlier.

It was a Friday evening, nine days before Christmas. I’d had my last lectures of the semester that day, and was eager to spend the festive weeks in familiar territory, free from deadlines, dissertations and degree-related drama. Being away from home I didn’t see my family as often as I’d have liked, but we always made sure we were together for special occasions. Christmas was made of magic in our household; my childlike excitement prevailed every year as winter approached. My siblings were younger than me, so the charm of it all was still very much alive. December smelled like pine needles, torn wrapping paper and crisp white snow. Nothing I knew matched the pure, unbridled glee that reflected off the Christmas baubles.

I kicked a solitary glove abandoned in the pile of leaves by next door’s garden fence. With every step I took I grew no wiser as to what I was walking towards. My mother is something of an eccentric. She is the woman who once took my pet hamster to the theatre. I wouldn’t put it past her to turn up unannounced for a ten minute visit, and then drive the two hours home again. Perhaps my phone hadn’t been ringing through and she had become concerned. Maybe she’d watched a film that had made her think of me and she’d come for an impromptu cuddle. Or she and Dad had argued and she needed to get away. You couldn’t rule anything out with her.

She came further into focus as I approached. I watched as she pulled the collar of her cardigan tighter around herself, her nervous hands meeting at the base of her throat. I tried to read her body language. She looked solemn, the peppered greys in her hair more pronounced and flashing silver in the street light. I searched her countenance for some hint of an explanation for her unannounced arrival. Her lips were bottle-cap tight, downturned at the corners, her jaw clenched like a raised fist.

The wind lashed at my ankles, bare between the hem of my leggings and the cuffs of my socks. It hadn’t been an overly stormy winter, but even a slight breeze will jolt you awake when the temperature is hovering around two degrees above freezing. I was just thankful it wasn’t raining. It was only a couple of minutes’ walk to the parade of shops, but I would probably have just shoved something in the oven if it hadn’t been clear out. Our student house was dilapidated, the windows didn’t close to and the central heating rattled the pipes with an irregular periodicity that was enough to induce a psychotic break.

Looking at her standing alone in the dark, I started to question everything. I was sure I had told my parents of my plan to return home sometime over the impending weekend, so was confused as to why she was here now. I tried to plot out possible explanations. Had she come to drive me back to Hertfordshire for Christmas? Had we agreed something I’d since forgotten about? It didn’t seem plausible, besides, Dad usually drove when the journey was more than a five mile round trip.

Generally I’m a pessimist. Particularly in the everyday occurrences that don’t really matter. I predict terrible exam results for myself and envision that the train will pull out just as I reach the platform. Negativity courses, blood red, through my veins, polluting every organ. But in that moment, I had no reason to suspect that anything had gone horribly wrong. Tragedy was something that happened to other people, not to us. My life had been full of softened edges and cushioned blows; it had been candy-striped. Family members had departed, of course, but only when I was young enough not to remember the fallout. My upbringing was privileged, and I’d been lucky in many situations that could have gone either way. I was inclined to judge situations based on my experiences, and there had been no warning here, nothing to plant a seed of suspicion in my mind. I was unversed in heartache. I was innocent then.

She waited until I was within a foot or two to deliver the words that would shift my existence irreversibly. I drew parallel with her and as I came to a stop, so did life as I knew it.

‘I’ve got some bad news, Tig.’

The words tumbled from her lips, like rocks over a precipice during a landfall. They were heavy as lead and although I didn’t yet know the nature of the bad news, I knew it was serious. My mother is the sunniest soul I know, and the apparent requirement for this news to be delivered in person meant we were dealing with something life-altering. In the split second before she elaborated, I wondered whether it was death or divorce.

It was deafening, the shatter of my world imploding around me.

I didn’t cry. I rummaged in the pocket of my coat, fishing out my keys and walked calmly up the driveway. I closed the front door behind me. It couldn’t be real if I shut it all out. In the kitchen I lit a cigarette and paused in the half reality between learning of an event and accepting it as truth.

My father’s death was the beginning of a string of unfortunate events that life had spared me from for my nineteen years. My string of luck ended that day, and it changed my perspective. I think often of the car ride back to Hertfordshire that evening. It was uncomfortably silent as we both grappled with the initial blow of grief. I recall trying to breathe through the shock on the M25, only to inhale the steamy bouquet of satay chicken and egg fried rice.

I’m always waiting for the next bad thing to happen. I’m always waiting for my mother to appear on my doorstep again.