A More Beautiful Life

A more beautiful life

I couldn’t do it. There were just too many obstacles in the way, metaphorically blocking it like giant slabs of concrete. It was a ridiculous idea, not at all practical or reasonable. I was too old. Why couldn’t I be more like Jessica? She was living a comfortable life in Exeter, working for the City Council, getting engaged to Michael the fireman, or even like Brody who made his living gigging in working men’s clubs and holiday camps with his indie/folk band – nice, cheerful music they played.

These were a few of the things my Mother said to me when I broached the subject. We were in the conservatory drinking a bottle of Sauvignon from Marks and Spencer’s. It was a Sunday afternoon late in the year, at that point where the Summer has almost blurred in to Autumn but you still get the odd nice day. My Mother’s dogs were lying in a pool of sunlight by the door, a Labrador and a Poodle. The irony of this was lost upon my Mother. The Labrador had once been a guide dog, but he had become too old to fulfil his duties and his owner couldn’t cope with two dogs so my Mother had taken him in. I watched them sleeping, dreaming, wondering what they were dreaming about. Wondering whether dogs dreamt of more than the life they had.

“Are you listening to me, Sophie?” My Mother said.

“Hmm, yes,” I replied absently, taking a gulp of the smooth, cold, yellow liquid. As it happened, it felt like I had been listening to people a lot recently and their topics of conversation were not particularly varied.

“And what about the cat?” My Mother continued.

“Brody will take the cat.”

“Brody will – he can’t take the cat, he’s hardly ever home! It isn’t practical.”

“Well, Lucy’s there. Besides, he’s a cat Mum, he doesn’t need taking for a walk and he only eats dried food.”

She tutted loudly, disapprovingly, in response. This or perhaps the mention of cats – or food - had stirred the lab. He loped slowly over to me and I pushed my fingers in to his soft, warm, honey coloured fur.

My Mother thought I was making a rash decision. As did Jessica, my manager, my next door neighbour Flynn and my closest friend Caroline. But it hadn’t been a rash decision at all. It had started as a seed that was sown over a year ago, on holiday. Jess and I had flown to Brugge for a long weekend, just the two of us. We had been to a spa, eaten a ton of waffles and chocolates, shopped for handbags and stayed up late drinking cherry beer and recounting amusing tales from our childhood – mostly at Brody’s expense. When we landed back in Bristol I suggested we go for a drink before heading our separate ways and back to our real lives but Jessica had declined the offer. She wanted to get home and see Michael – hadn’t seen him for four days. They had a new refrigerator arriving tomorrow and it was his niece’s birthday on Saturday – they would have to choose a present. Plus she had a team meeting the following day, discussing the final arrangements for the Big Office Move. We hugged and I watched her walk away, disappearing in to the crowd of people heading for the train station and at that moment the seed was sown.

A few days later I asked Caroline over cocktails and nachos if she looked forward to returning home after a holiday. She pondered the question, stirring her pina colada round and round with a pink straw.

“I suppose so“, she concluded. “I mean, I love my holidays as you know. But it’s nice to get home isn’t it? Be surrounded by all your own things, not having to live out of a suitcase – oh – being able to drink the tap water! And after a week or two, I guess I like to get back to my routine….get back to normal life if you know what I mean.

I nodded, scooping guacamole on to a tortilla chip. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know what she meant at all.

The poodle had woken up. The day was fading in to evening and the patch of sunlight had consequently disappeared. He sat upright, gazing longingly at a bowl of salted cashew nuts my Mother had produced, licking his chops. My Mother always liked cashew nuts with white wine. When my Father was alive she had to be careful about eating them, because he was allergic, but now she could eat them with abandon.

“And what about work?” she pressed now. “If, as you say, they won’t let you go on secondment then you won’t have a job to come back to. We’re still in a recession. You can’t just walk in to a job anymore like you could when I was your age.”

“What if I don’t come back” I muttered.

“Oh Sophie, now you’re just being ridiculous!”

“I want to see the World Mum!”

“You’re always seeing the World! You have plenty of holidays.”

“It’s not the same! I want….I want a…….”

I tried to find the words. What was it I had said to Flynn that day? A few months after I had returned from Belgium with Jess? We were in his flat, watching trashy horror movies and eating Ben and Jerry’s. He had had a row with his boyfriend and I had gone over with the ice cream to try and cheer him up. The seed had started to grow by then, in to more of a small plant. I had asked my manager about the possibility of a secondment at work, started learning Spanish online, looked in to Visa requirements for South America and registered for a TEFL course in the summer. I had told Flynn about the conversations with Jessica and Caroline, how it seemed such an alien concept to me, wanting to return home from a holiday, because there was nothing I missed about my life, not really. There was nothing I was keen to get back to.

“But Sophie, you have a beautiful life. You have a job, friends, a nice flat. You have Stephen.” (Stephen was the cat).

I shook my head. The beauty he saw was only on paper. “I want a more beautiful life,” I said.

My Mother closed her eyes. When she opened them, they glistened with tears.

“Your Father would have told you to find the most beautiful life.” She said.

*************************

The aeroplane soared in to the sky. Out of the tiny, square window by my seat I saw Bristol and then the South of England become smaller and smaller until it seemed ironic that my life so far had been led on this tiny patch of earth. I checked my bag again for my documents – entry visa for Argentina, address of the language school and my apartment complex, name of the driver who was collecting me, copy of my insurance certificate and a photograph of myself, Jessica, Brody and our parents taken a few weeks before my Dad had been diagnosed with cancer.

An air hostess in a bright red uniform wheeled a drinks trolley along the aisle.

“Any tea, coffee, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks for you madam?”

“Do you have champagne?”

“Of course”

“May I have a glass, please?”

“Certainly. Something to celebrate today?”

“You know, actually there is. I guess today I feel like I could rule the World.”

I smiled, taking the glass she handed to me and leaned back in my seat as the air hostess laughed politely and moved on.


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