“You know, December really is a legitimately busy month,” Eli was saying. Bea was, to be honest, more than halfway to sleep, the combination of the steady rush of the windscreen wipers and the drum of the rain against the roof of the car far too lulling. She hated driving in the rain. She hated driving full stop. She’d done the done thing and gotten her license at 17 like the rest of her peers, but years of living equidistant between two tube stops had spoiled her, and she hadn’t owned a car or gotten behind the wheel of one for about a decade. She wasn’t even 100% sure which was the clutch pedal anymore.
Luckily Eli had kept his driving skills up. He’d been the first of them to pass his test, actually, which was understandable seeing as his older brother was a driving instructor. He’d worked whatever shifts he could get at the Woolworths on the high street all through college and had gone off to university the proud owner of an early nineties Volkswagen Polo that was more rust than paint and with one buckled rear door that wouldn’t open. Bea missed that old banger, for all she used to complain mercilessly about having to clamber across the back seat from the other side.
He’d remained brand loyal when he’d eventually upgraded to his brand new, part-financed Golf. Bea watched sleepily as Eli craned forward against the wheel in order to better read the overhanging motorway signs through the curtain of rain. The car had all the usual modern bells and whistles, including a built-in Sat-Nav that glided smoothly from inside the dashboard, but Eli refused to use it.
“Well, aside from the wedding, my dance card is pretty empty,” Bea admitted. “They even held my work Christmas party in November, in order to save money.”
“Cheap bastards.”
“Yeah. I definitely felt cheap anyway. Something very wrong about wearing a paper hat and eating sprouts with your colleagues at the best of times, let alone when it’s really closer to Bonfire Night. How much longer?”
“Not sure. We’re still a few junctions away. I’ve never driven to this airport before. Nobody has.”
“Well some people must, or I can’t imagine the airport would have stayed in business very long,” Bea pointed out reasonably. “You know if we’d put it on the Sat-Nav then there’d be a really useful estimated time of arrival thing…” she teased.
Eli rolled his eyes. “Look it up on your phone if you’re that bothered.”
Bea didn’t. She wasn’t particularly worried about arriving at the airport at any actual speed.
“Use the wedding. You’re going to be so busy being at Nora’s beck and call. Isn’t that a Maid of Honour’s job description?” Bea decided not to point out that, technically, she wasn’t the Maid of Honour. “Or maybe, you know, if it all gets way too much, text me and I’ll throw an impromptu party,” Eli continued, grinning.
Bea buried her face in the crook of her elbows. “Don’t joke. She’d probably try to come, and think she might get to pull one of your mates. Oh god. If you were really my friend, you’d let her stay with you!” She was only sort of joking.
Eli shook his head empathically as he remained focused on the slick road ahead. “Hey, you know I love you, girl, and much like Meatloaf, I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”
Bea sighed dramatically as she repositioned herself against the slippery leather seat. “Three weeks,” she moaned. “I don’t think I’ve ever spent three straight weeks in my mother’s company…”
“I think biology dictates you spent at least nine straight months in her company…” Eli pointed out; Bea waved her hand impatiently.
“You know what I mean. Three weeks. She’s just going to be there. In my flat. And the week after next Kirsty will be sodding off back up North for the Christmas break and it’s just going to be me and her. Me and her.”
“Maybe it will be nice,” Eli reasoned. “You can reconnect.”
“Reconnect?” Bea echoed. “The only thing I wish my mother was ‘connecting’ to is an onward flight,” she grumbled.
“You’d better work on that,” Eli laughed, as he smoothly changed lanes to avoid the wheel-spray from the HGV in front. “Two more junctions to go.”
“And she couldn’t even fly into Heathrow, or Gatwick,” Bea continued to complain. “Instead she demands to get picked up from Luton. Bloody Luton. I didn’t even realise there was an airport in Luton!” She gave Eli a sideways glance. “Thanks again, by the way…”
Eli was focused on overtaking again so he didn’t look over, but his jaw squared as he smiled. “No problem.”
Hannah Milton still had a heart, or at least an understanding of what was socially expected of a woman whose goddaughter was getting married. She’d RSVP’d promptly. Nora had called Bea up immediately upon receipt.
“So, apparently, your mother is coming to the wedding” she’d announced without preamble, the second Bea had answered the phone.
“Really?” Bea had been utterly unconvinced. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
“No, no, she’s actually sent the little RSVP card back and everything. Filled out her meal choices. Put in a DJ request for us to play bloody Eternal, Power of a Woman.”
Bea had burst out laughing. “Amazing. Looks like you’ll have two embarrassing mothers at your wedding then, Mel.”
“Three if you count Harry’s mum,” Nora had groaned. “Do you know she asked me the other day if I thought that she should be getting one of those huge, ridiculous hats commissioned, you know, like those chavvy slapper types wear to the races on Ladies Day? Gah!”
“I hope you told her yes,” Bea had replied, mock-serious.
“I told her that it wasn’t going to be a “fancy hat” type of occasion…”
“I’ll cancel my order,” Bea had told her, solemnly. “But in the meantime, don’t worry about Hannah. She probably thinks she’s coming now. But I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Part way through November Bea had received an email. This was her mother’s favourite method of communication. While reasonably infrequent, Hannah’s emails were usually long and rambling, full of gossip and complaints about the ex-pat community of retirees that she lived amongst and inappropriate levels of detail concerning her sex life (depressingly far more active than Bea’s own). She also insisted on always emailing through to Bea’s work email, no matter how many times Bea had reminded her of her personal email address and warned her mother that her ‘colourful language’ was likely to be setting off alarms in the IT department.
Nestled amongst the usual fare of moaning about who hadn’t paid their fair share of the service charge lately and a long diatribe about finding out that her latest boyfriend had a pregnant significant other when she’d bumped into them in a local shop, Hannah had mentioned the wedding, almost in passing. She’d booked her tickets, she’d confirmed, and as the wedding was on New Year’s Eve she might as well make a Christmas of it. Bea could pick her up from Luton Airport on December 17th. Not for the first time in her life Bea wished with all of her heart that she’d had siblings, not just for the familial love and companionship, but people with which she could share the load that was their mother.
“It’s this junction,” Eli announced, as he turned the indicator on and moved towards the slip road. “Your nerves are rubbing off on me. I was looking forward to seeing Hannah again. She used to buy us our booze.”
Bea rolled her eyes. “Yes but, a note for the future, that’s not a quality you should be looking for in the future mother of your children.”
Eli bit back a laugh as they left the motorway. “I’ll keep that in mind.”