Page 9 of Deep Blue Lies
“I don’t mean to buy, I’m talking about renting.”
“I’mtalking about renting. And the wages you can expect to get without a degree, without any qualifications…what kind of job?”
“I don’t know. I’ll do some temping I suppose.”
“Stacking shelves in the local supermarket?” She shakes her head. “Oh, Ava, what have you done?”
Not as much as you, I want to shout at her.At least I didn’t get myself pregnant.
“My tutor talked about reapplying,” I tell her instead, after a moment. “He suggested I go to Thailand. Find myself. That maybe in a year or two I could apply again. He said maybe they’d let me back in.” I didn’t really believe him, but I figure I’ll offer Mum some hope to cling onto. She doesn’t go for it.
“Thailand,” she repeats. “The Buddhism hippy trail. Get stoned and rack up an enormous debt for no good purpose. That sounds aterrificidea, Ava.”
I’m quiet a moment.
Fuck it.
“Well actually I did have one other idea,” I say. I don’t look at her. I can’t while I say this.
“I thought I might go to Greece. To Alythos.”
Mum’s face is frozen. It’s not the reaction I’d hoped for, but then I don’t know what I expected. Very carefully she shakes her head.
“I think that’s a very bad idea, Ava. An extremely bad?—”
“Why?” I challenge her. “It’s where I come from, but I don’t knowanythingabout it. I was born there, but you’ve never told me how, isn’t that weird?”
“I told you, Ava. I associate that place with a difficult period of my life. A dark period.”
“Having me was dark?”
“No.Goodness, no.” She sinks down into her chair, and finally I’ve broken through to something motherly. “No, I don’t mean that. Ava, I really don’t. You were the light at the end of the tunnel, the candleinthe darkness. What I suppose I’m saying is, I don’t want to face up to whoIwas, when I was there. And I never have. And I’m so sorry.”
But I don’t understand. I’ve never understood this. She looks so happy in that photo.
“Well, you don’t have to come with me. I looked at it online. There’s jobs there. I could work in a bar, isn’t that what you did?” I’ve pieced together a few snippets over the years, times when Mum’s let slip tiny details.
“I just want to see the place. Find out about where I come from.”
Mum frowns, then shakes her head again. “No. That’s a very bad idea, Ava.” She holds a hand to her forehead, like she’s getting one of her migraines. “This is very hard. You come home unannounced, telling me how you’ve wrecked your future, and now suddenly this? No.” She takes a sip from her wine, then a second. Finally a third.
“Look, I don’t know very much about Thailand, but if travel is what you want to do, then fine. I’ll help you, financially. But not Greece. Do you understand me? That’s off the table. Not going to happen. Is that clear?”
I stare at Mum for a long time, trying to read her, trying to understand. Then I drop my head and study the floor. There’s a chip in one of the tiles, it happened when John – that’s the one who drank – threw a wrench down on the floor. He hadn’tknown I was home, because it was during school hours, but I was sick that day. I crept down the stairs because of the shouting, and I saw him there, like he was threatening her with it. My mum’s definitely known some dark times, and she’s stood up against them. So maybe she’s right? Maybe I should leave Greece well alone? But at the same time, this is my life, and I want to know about it. It’s my right.
“I want to go to Greece, Mum,” I tell her. “I want to go to Alythos.”
She stares back at me. Her eyes are bright blue, and just for a moment I sense there’s panic behind them. She’s been able to shut this down my whole life. But I’ve grown up and things have changed now. She can’t stop me.
“Why?” she says in the end. For the first time I realise I’ve defeated her. “Why do you want to go so much?”
I blink at the moment, and finally just shrug, because I don’t have an answer to give her. At least not one that I can say out loud. Because the truth is stupid, it’s impossible and there’s no logic behind it. Just something else, a kind of itch that I have to scratch. Even though I know it’s stupid.
I want to go to Alythos to search for my dad.
FIVE
I’m not stupid. I don’t mean it literally. I said Mum’s never talked about my father, but that’s not quite true, a couple of times she’s said something, when she’d had too much to drink. Once she told me he was a waiter – a Greek waiter. A proper cliché, as she put it. But she wouldn’t tell me his name. I couldn’t even understand if she knows it. Maybe that’s what she means by not being proud of that time of her life? I don’t know. But what I mean is, I understand there’s no chance of meactuallyfinding my father. But what I do know is that there’s this island in Greece, a place where I was literally born, and it’s real. So I want to see it. I want to know what it’s like. I want to meet the people who live there. And yeah, maybe I’ll get lucky, and bump into an older guy who looks just like me – but I’m not kidding myself. I just don’t know why it’s such a big deal for me to find out more about where I’m from.
