The heart's voice

1305 miles. That’s the distance between Streatham Hill, London, UK and Fàtima, Santarem, Portugal. A 20h 53 min drive, according to Matt’s new Opel Karl GPS. ‘Road works ahead’ the suave female voice announces. Sure enough, yellow dots punctuate the blue line we have to cruise on from start to finish. ‘We’ll never get there’ says Ricky flatly. After 15 years, his optimism is part of the fun. 

And so it begins, me and Matt on the front, Rick and Elly in the back. This is the bast arrangement. For Elly, because she’ll be asleep in about 30 minutes; for everyone, because Rick’s backseat-driving syndrome gets milder when he’s not in the front. 

Mine is the seat I prefer for one single reason: I get to choose the music. As we turn right onto the A205 I press play on my phone and Queen’s “Don’t stop me now” piano-and-voice intro blasts through the speakers. The only one who’s allowed to complain is Matt, but he smiles and accelerates slightly along the almost empty street. The sky blazons some of its best orange hues as the sun rapidly raises. 

‘I can’t believe we’re finally doing this’ the thrill in Elly’s voice makes me smile. She’s my best friend, my acquired sister, my life companion and I’m as excited as she is. 

‘Yeah, all I say is: we could have gone for a fresher month. April…June…not the middle of August’ says Rick, but I almost expected the remark. My answer is ready: ‘It’s already a miracle that we’re here now. We really could not afford to be fussy about the weather. Just be happy to get a real summer for a change’ 

‘And after all that’s happened, we really deserve a holiday like this’ Elly adds. And she’s right of course. 

When we were kids spending time together wasn’t an issue. We’d gather at our designated corner and bike around the neighbourhood until one of our mothers would shuffle onto the street in her slippers and shout that it was time to get back. Later we’d catch the subway and roam around the city centre patrolling our favourite shops and looking for cute tourists. Then uni changed everything. Matt moved to Edinburgh, Ricky to Wales, me and Elly stayed in London. Still we reunited as much as we could during the holidays. Being separate meant we didn’t share the subway trips, the Sundays brunches, the gossip of our broader circle of friends, but also that we had much to recount when we got together. 

It was during one of our meetings during a Christmas holiday that, gathered around my kitchen table, we chatted about our courses sipping hot chocolate, and, as if to fill a moment of silence with a passing thought, I said: ‘Guys, we’ve been friends since forever, how come we haven’t done something really fun together like…a holiday’ 

Ricky: ’We went camping once…’ 

‘Yes, please don’t remind me of that’ I chuckle and so do the other three. 

Matt: ‘Where would you like to go?’ 

Matt had always travelled way more than us three, with is family and on his own and it’s something I’ll admit I was always a bit jealous of: being able to travel has always been my dream.  

‘Somewhere none of us has ever been to, somewhere different…’ I can feel my neurones struggling for specificity 

‘What about Portugal !?’ Elly exclaims hitting her palms on the table as she always does when she thinks she’s had a bright idea. It’s rare that she hasn’t.  

‘Yes! I’m in!’ I’m already enthusiast and a part of me already regrets it. 

Matt: ‘That’s actually feasible’ With Matt’s approval I allow myself full heart-fluttering anticipation. 

Rick: ‘I suppose it could be done’ 

That’s enough. Me and Elly look at each other with a complicity that means just one thing: we’ve been set off and there’s no stopping us. 

The next day we take possession of Elly’s living room floor. Three laptops, two travel guides and a giant road map we don’t even understand spread out like a carpet. We check everything: itinerary, hotels, activities, transportations…no getting over budget of course. After dinner the guys come over to be shown our layouts. Their faces betray the enthusiasm they know they can’t hide from us girls anyway. The icing on the cake: Elly’s dad had somehow agreed to lend us his car. 

I had never particularly looked forward to the summer months, if not as a break from uni and thus a little bit of extra freedom, but then I really couldn’t wait. Nothing could go wrong. 

Boy, I was wrong. 

The next morning we receive a text from Ricky: “ Guys…I’m so sorry. They called me just now, I got the place, I don’t know how, but I did. I know we had our plan, but I have to accept it, hope you understand…You can still go without me’  

‘Of course we can’t!’ I say to him a little louder than I intended to. The last thing I want is making him sense in my voice the grain of reproach I shouldn’t even feel in the first place. We’re sat again around my kitchen table, all gazing at the content of our mugs. Ricky had hopelessly applied for that summer internship at the stem cell lab almost expecting a big fat laugh as a reply, not even having enough credits to make him eligible for an opportunity like that. And yet, almost two months after the expected time he’d got a call from someone who’d made sure he fully realised the enormity of his luck. Any one of us would have said yes. 

The silence was not uncomfortable but very resigned. Elly broke it with her customary bright tone: ‘We’ll just have to postpone it. Next year then! No excuses, no last minute job offers’ she casted a jokingly severe sideway look at the newly employed. We shook off the melancholy with a laugh and the promise to keep our schedules free. 

I was the first to break it when the muscle weakness my dad had been experiencing for a few months turned into something more serious, so I spent the summer driving him back and forth from the hospital, from which he definitely returned home in September with a walking stick and a peace of paper that listed a bunch of medications to alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. I, a psychology student with a particular interest in social behaviour, could find no way to make even the smallest crack in the walls of silent forbearance my dad put up to fence off himself and his ‘condition’, as he called it, from the rest of the family. Finally, I gave up, long after my brother had, to abandon my old useless efforts and pick up some brand new guilt. Needless to say, we four gathered in one of our houses and renewed our promises for the following summer as if we’d just made up our minds. 

Then it was Elly’s turn. When Elly does something, she goes all in. Go big or nothing, she says. This held true also when it came to her first climbing injury. Maybe other people would have been content with one broken limb, but not her. She had to have more, precisely one broken arm, one broken leg and a dislocated shoulder. Of course I’m joking about it now, but we all got a huge fright when Elly’s mum phoned us. To be fair though, it didn’t last long. As Matt, Ricky and me run through the hospital corridor unkept as hell and pale as ghosts, we could only think of how we’d restrain the tears when we’d have her in front of us. And then we opened the door to find Elly laying on her bed with one of those can-holder caps on her head, playing scrabble against his sister using her good arm. I think the entire ward heard our laughs. We spent the rest of the night eating sour sweets and drawing obscenities on her casts. It was June, we were meant to leave for Portugal on July 2.

The first note of ‘Love of my life’ come through and I let them fill the silence of the car.

‘Jesus, isn’t there something a bit more cheerful? We’re going on a bloody holiday!’ 

I let out a grunt, but just this time I decide to please him and change to ‘You’re my best friend’.

The following autumn, in our last year of uni, was when the round shiny sphere of events was set in motion on a sleek wooden slope. And I am sort of responsible for it.  

I presented Sarah to Matt on a chaotic Friday night at the White Dove. The scene I witnessed made me reconsider my more than cynical opinion on love at first sight. The fact that Matt had to finish his degree in Edinburgh and she hers in London didn’t stop them from being extremely together. He flew down to visit her far more often than she did. Somehow they made it work. That summer they went to Germany, where her parents are from. Nine weeks of smoochy instagram pictures I promptly liked, not grudgingly, I was happy for them, but I also missed my friend. And the fact that everyone seemed to have forgotten about our trip was quite stingy. 

Meanwhile all four of us had graduated. Ricky and I embarked on a two years master within our universities, Elly got at a job at a law firm. Matt moved back to London, as a young bright engineer his skills were in high demand in the city. Fact he benefited from only for six months. When Sarah found a position somewhere around Newcastle he dropped everything to join her. But something went not quite as expected. His messages to us got shorter and shorter, his voice duller on the phone. After more or less one year he came back to his parents’ looking, in his mum’s words, like he’d just had a ride inside a washing machine. There was no need to ask any question between us four and I egoistically tried to focus on the fact that at least we’d see more of each other, a poorly knitted blanket considering how sorry I was for Matt, and how, underneath the pretended cheerfulness, he was too.

I turn around on my seat to find both Elly and Ricky sound asleep with their heads propped by the window. I turn the volume down and enjoy a subdued ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

When they got back together I felt that mix of relief and apprehension I reserve for special occasions, like when my dad announces he’s going to crutch his way out of the house to grab a beer at the pub. Not that the thought of meddling ever even crossed my mind, but I felt I couldn’t bestow my secret approval on their relationship until genuine smiles would light up again my friend’s face, and eventually they did. The bomb was dropped more or less six months after. 

‘Sarah wants to go back to Germany and she wants me to go with her’ Matt confessed over his morning coffee. It was just me and him at the table. The explosion was too loud in my head, so I said nothing

‘She’s going to do some freelance work and she thinks I could do that too’ 

‘You don’t speak a word of German!’ I blurted out because I’m not too keen on sensible balanced considerations, fortunately he didn’t seem to mind

‘I know…and there’s this awesome project I’ve been assigned to at work…It’s just…a lot’  

I took a sip as I scraped hard inside me for some selflessness. ‘It’s a huge decision, you probably need time to decide what’s best’ was the best I could come up with.  

He must have reckoned mine was some really good advice as he told Sarah the exact same thing later that day. The problem was her answer was neither considerate nor selfless. 

Still caught up in his whirlpool of depression, Matt knocked at my door to ask me for a cup of my famous hot chocolate and tell me it was over. So he totally caught me by surprise when one night, some weeks after, he wrote on our group chat ‘Guys, have you forgotten about our trip to Portugal?’. I couldn’t help but smile big and reply: ‘Certainly not!’ 

So here we are, all four of us on a reasonably trafficked motorway under a clear summer sky. I hum along the melody of ‘I want to break free’. 

Matt’s phone is inside the cup holder in-between our seats. It rings once and the screen lights up. 

‘You’ve got a message’ I somehow feel the need to announce 

‘It’s probably my mum asking if everything’s alright. Could you read it out?’ 

‘Sure’ I pick the phone up and my body temperature drops several degrees.  

‘It’s not your mum, it’s…Sarah’ 

His grip on the steering wheel tightens slightly. I sense the shift in his countenance without looking. 

‘What does she say’ he tries to sound like himself, and fails. 

‘I’m leaving tomorrow’ 

The sound of his deep breathing in stops mine. 

‘You didn’t know’ 

‘No, I…’ 

I find the courage to look at him. Now I know what’s best. I firmly place my hand on his shoulder. 

‘Matt’ 

He keeps his eyes on the road. 

I just have to say it. As cheesy as it sounds, I have to be his heart’s voice. 

His resistance lasts five minutes, just in tame to take the next exit. 

Right at that moment, Elly lifts her forehead from the window. Her eyes half closed, she yawns and looks around: ‘What’s happening? Aren’t we on the motorway till the channel?’ 

‘No, we’re… getting back’ I say calmly.

‘What?!’ 

Matt intervenes: ‘I’m so sorry…Sarah…She’s leaving. I need to…’ he pauses 

‘We’ll sort things out’ I fill in. ‘For now, please, don’t ask questions. And, for God’s sake, don’t wake Ricky up’.