Page 80 of A Wedding in Tuscany

‘And how are you?’ he asks, seemingly a non sequitur.

‘Me? I’m fine. Why? What do you mean?’

His eyes narrow slightly and his expression softens. ‘Daughter number one, I know you and Cat think I’m one of those oblivious dads who has no idea what’s going on, but I’m not. And something is up with you.’

‘I was just thinking the same about you?before you told me about the ageing stuff,’ I say with a smile.

‘See? Another thing you get from me?we’re both open books.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, what’s going on in your book?’ he prods.

‘Oh, you know, freaking out about turning forty, a general feeling of restlessness?the usual.’

He frowns. ‘Forty isn’t an age to freak out about, love.’

‘So everyone keeps telling me.’

‘It isn’t. Today aside?and okay, the odd day here and there?most of the time I don’t feel old and I’m close to seventy.’

‘You’re sixty-six, Dad.’

‘That’s what I said?close to seventy.’ I roll my eyes. ‘Hey, it’s two years closer to seventy than it is to sixty.’

‘Okay, I’ll give you that. Continue.’

‘But they’re all just numbers, love. We’re here, we live?and none of us know for how long?then we’re not here. Life’s both short and long. Short enough that you can’t faff about waiting for it to begin and long enough that you can always start fresh, make a different decision, do something else. Is that what’s going on with you? You want to make a big change?’

‘No … no, it’s not that. I love my life. I love Josh, my friends, you all?my job. I love all the little things that make up my life. I don’t want to change it as such … I just … I just feel like there’s something missing, something I haven’t done yet, and any time I get close to figuring out what it is … I can’t quite …’

‘It’s not kids, is it?’ he asks. ‘Have you changed your mind?’

‘No. Cat asked me the same thing.’

‘Right, well, it’s a logical question, I suppose.’

‘For someone my age.’

‘Yes,’ he says. And we’re back on the ‘forty’ thing again. We both sip more tea, each contemplating my not-quite-a-dilemma.

After a while, Dad says, ‘You know what your Grandma Joan used to say …’ Grandma Joan was Dad’s mum, the one who gave her pearls to Cat. She died after a long illness when Cat and I were in our early twenties. Even though we knew it was coming, it was absolutely devastating because we loved our grandmother fiercely. She was tiny?only four-foot-eleven?but had a huge heart and even after living in Australia for more than forty years, she still had a broad Yorkshire accent. Grandma is the reason I began my love affair with tea?or ‘a proper brew’ as she’d call it?at the precocious age of seven.

‘I remember a lot of things Grandma used to say. I still hear her voice in my head telling me, “There’s no sense in worrying about things that haven’t happened yet”,’ I say with my (appalling) Yorkshire accent. Dad chuckles again. ‘That the one you mean?’

‘Well, no. I mean, yes, that’s always good to remember, but I meant the one about getting out of your own way?that when you’re tying yourself up in knots, to stop wallowing and lift your head.’

‘Oh, that’s a good one.’

‘My mum was a wise woman.’

‘I miss Grandma.’

‘I do too, love.’

We’re quiet again, then I break the silence with. ‘Okay, back to me now. How the hell do I get out of my own way?’

He chuckles softly, then says, ‘You know something you used to talk about all the time, but I haven’t heard you mention in years?’ I wrack my brain and come up empty. ‘You wanted to go to Africa?to teach.’

‘Oh, my god, you’re right.’ My mind starts somersaulting, thoughts zipping around and connecting and it suddenly hits me. The letter I wrote to myself when I was a teenager, this obsession that something’s missing from my life, the dread of hitting a milestone that, like Dad said, is just a number, an arbitrary marker of time. ‘Aunty Tessa’s school,’ I say quietly. How had I forgotten? I hadn’t just wanted to follow in her footsteps as an adventurer?I’d wanted to go to Africa and teach in her school!

Maybe I’d hidden it from myself, that long ago promise I’d made, because of how painful it is to think of her incredible life cut so short. Dad must be feeling it too, as his eyes gloss with unshed tears. ‘Sorry, Dad,’ I say, leaning over to grab his hand.

‘It’s all right love. Another one gone but in no way forgotten. In any case, have a think about it. Maybe that’s your missing piece.’ Not only my missing piece, but it’s quite likely the reason that the number itself feels so … hefty. Forty is only three years off the age Tessa was when she died.

I get up and wrap my arms tightly around my Dad and he pats my back gently. ‘Thanks, Dad. I love you.’

‘I love you, too, daughter number one. And you know you can always come to me when you’re on the horns of a dead llama.’

His deliberate malapropism does the trick and gets me laughing just as a booming Canadian voice calls out, ‘Hello?’ I release Dad from the hug and go to meet Anders at the front door.

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