Page 36 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
The girls huddle into me but there’s a sense of disbelief that I’d be able to take anyone on in a fight. It’s true. My arms are very spindly.
‘You’re a good mummy,’ Maya whispers. ‘What she said was complete bullshit.’
I pause for a second, grateful if a little shocked to hear that term.
‘Can we use another word there? Maybe?’
‘Crap?’ she asks.
‘No.’ I can’t deal with being a human lexicon now so simply hold them both tight. ‘Let’s just go home,’ I say, thinking of the security of our four walls, away from the eyes of a thousand mothers piercing the back of my head.
‘Is Aunty Meg at home?’ Maya asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say, in whispers. Thank god for that. I may need someone to catch me and pour me a stiff drink after this.
‘Good. She said we could make pizzas and I’m starving.’
I study her tiny face for a moment. ‘Is that why you bit Mrs Cantello?’ I ask.
‘I bit her because she’s a poo.’
‘Again, we need a different word there. And we don’t bite people. At least if you’re going to bite something, it should be tasty. Not nasty and bitter,’ I whisper.
A big grin radiates across her face. It’s all I need to see. Is this parenting? I don’t know. But she bit someone. For me, for us. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.Come on you, let’s go home and find Aunty Meg. Let’s get you something proper to sink your teeth into.
9
Dear Gracie,
I’m still in Vietnam and it’s still frigging amazing. I wish you were here to see everything and meet all these people. Today, we went up to some smaller villages and Linh and Cam introduced me to a group of people building schools out here. It feels like really good work to be building something from the bricks up. The kids are so receptive, like sponges. One of them calls me David Beckham but Olivier jokes that’s also the kid who’s been treated for cataracts. It’s just a simpler life. I wake up, I walk to the markets and I’m wooed by all these people selling fruit on fold-out tables. I have no idea what anything is so I buy one of everything and Linh gives me a masterclass when I go home. I want to show you rambutans. They’re hairy like bollocks.
Olivier and Cam are getting married in the next month or so. Olivier has asked me to be best man. I’ve taken him under my wing like a brother as he seems to be short on family. He’s so French. He smokes like a fucking chimney and we have arguments over football and queue etiquette. He’s not good at queuing. I’ll have to write a speech but I also think they’re making me wear some sort of pastel linen shirt which is less good. I’ll send photos.
Is it terrible that sometimes I see them together and I think of you? I know we’re not quite together but I miss you. Did I mention you’re in my lessons now? I’ve made flash cards with your face on. This is your friend, Grace. Grace is lost. She needs directions to the post office and she’d like you to help her buy stamps to send a parcel to Canada. All my kids and students adore you now. I adore you. That’s one step up from love, I’ve decided. Write me back. Please. I need to hear your words and for you to scold me and tell me to wear insect repellent.
Good luck in all your exams.
T xx
I am pretty sure when Linh Nguyen was placed on a boat by her father, pregnant and on her own, he had hoped that she would go on to do amazing things in her life. She’d find a country that would look after her and keep her safe, give her an education and embrace her tightly. I’m not sure he would have imagined that forty years later she’d be sitting in the Membury service station looking up at a coffee menu and wondering why there are five different types of milk.
‘You can milk oats?’ she asks me.
‘I guess.’
‘But they don’t have nipples.’ She cackles at her own joke as the man behind the counters looks at her strangely. She has a point. ‘I guess… a black coffee?’ she adds. ‘I’ve been told no sugar. Make it strong. Your coffees in this country lack kick.’
I laugh, taken back to a time when Linh first took me for a Vietnamese coffee served in a glass cup laced with condensed milk. It grew hairs on my chest, I swear I could feel them busting through my skin.
‘Latte for me, hun,’ Meg says and she ushers Linh over to a table in this dull if overlit services where the fragrance of floor cleaner and old burgers hangs sweet in the air. Meg accompanied me on the airport run and we’ve made the brief stop to refresh and caffeinate. She’s never met Linh before and I think she probably had preconceptions of who we were picking up: some frail older lady in floral pyjamas who doesn’t speak English and was raised on a rice paddy, but that stereotype couldn’t be further from the truth. It means Meg hangs on her every word, intrigued by this woman who’s shown up in a velour tracksuit and bum bag, her salt and pepper hair in a neat bob, the one her granddaughters still share.
That’s not to say Linh isn’t fascinated by Meg too. She’s always loved tales of my own huge family. When she left Vietnam, she found herself seeking refuge in London. She lost contact with her parents, her siblings and, soon, the only family she had was a daughter, born in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital. She called her Cam and they lived in West London’s Shepherd’s Bush, which was a mystery to her as there were no sheep. No bush either.
‘Coffees all round,’ I say, joining them at the table. Linh grins broadly, all her teeth on show to have the steaming mug handed over. She does what Linh does; she takes out a tissue and wipes down the spoon and the table space in front of her. The ex-nurse in her values cleanliness.
‘This will do for now,’ Linh says, grabbing onto my hand as Meg watches. She knows what this lady did for me, how she saved me, how she cared for me in a way the sisters couldn’t, so the look reads gratitude, awe. It’s a good hand, always impeccably moisturised, but Linh always clasps it and shakes it around like we’re doing a dance.
‘I was drinking my coffee on the flight. That sort of weak fluid that feels like it’s been brewed with soil and the man next to me suddenly gets nail clippers out and starts cutting his own toenails, right next to me. They flicked everywhere.’
