Page 22 of Never Too Late
To help alleviate our worries, she made a business plan and sat us down to look it over. Unbeknownst to us, she had been squirrelling away a good portion of her day-job salary with a view to being able to fund a career break from the corporate world while she threw all her time and energy into her passion project. Without taking into account the money that she was earning from her channel, funds she only touched to put back into that business, she had enough to live off for six months. She promised that if she didn’t hit her financial and business goals by the end of the six months’ break she’d budgeted for, then she’d go back to Corporate Land and take another marketing contract. Obviously, she was an adult and could, and possibly would, have done it anyway but knowing she had our support made it an easier, and happier, decision.
And now, with the extra hours Sasha had been able to dedicate to her channel, she’d hit both targets in under half that time and her numbers were only rising.
‘Sorry, were you on your way out?’ she asked as she peered in my hallway mirror and swiped the smudged mascara away.
‘Yes, but that’s OK. Are you free?’
‘Yep. Why?’
‘I’m taking myself out for lunch. Want to come?’
‘Yes!’
As we strolled along the pavement on the way to the Tube station, the thin, watery winter sunshine casting half-hearted shadows of skeletal trees lining the avenue, Sash linked her arm through mine.
‘You know, I’m liking this new you, Mum. Not that I didn’t love the old one too.’
‘Less of the old, thank you.’
‘You know what I mean.’ She squeezed my arm. I returned it and we began chatting about where to go for lunch.
We returned from London several hours later, having taken advantage of the weather to take a walk down the Embankment, gazing over every now and then at the familiar sights of Tower Bridge, its blue-painted iron matching the sky, and then a little further along the looming edifice of the White Tower, more popularly known to the many tourists as the Tower of London.
People bustled along in suits, in jeans, and two Buddhist monks, in their bright-orange robes. London was always interesting. Sasha had filmed much of our day, as usual. I’d always requested that I not be included as much as possible and she had respected those wishes. In a way, I wished I felt more confident in myself to be included on the odd time she asked. But I couldn’t. I didn’t like having my photo taken these days and in videos, I felt I looked older than I was, and rather frumpy. I didn’t know exactly how or when that had happened but I know The Girl From Paris would have been horrified. As would Gabby, if she had known. Assuming she even still remembered me. But then, if Gabby had still been in my life, it wouldn’t have happened. I knew that. She wouldn’t have let it. On the days that I let myself, I still missed my friend so very much.
That night, Sash and I were sitting on my sofa, feet up on the ottoman, narrowing down choices of Airbnb flats for me to rent in Paris for the six months I’d decided to spend there. We were down to two. One was modern, purpose-built; the other was a conversion of a large period property, now split into six flats.
‘Which one are you thinking?’ Sash asked.
‘The modern one is a useful location, and has all the mod cons.’
She nodded. ‘True. But that’s not what I asked, Mum.’
I touched the picture of the other one: its shuttered windows, the wrought-iron balconies in front, flower baskets attached to them, red pelargoniums spilling out and contrasting with the black of the iron.
‘Obviously, it won’t look like this now. That must have been taken in the summer.’
‘And yet it’s still calling to you, isn’t it?’
I shook my head. ‘I think I’m too old for things to be “calling to me”.’
Sash let out a groan. ‘God, Mum!’
‘What?’
‘You’re fifty, not five hundred! That’s nothing these days.’
I stayed silent. It certainly felt like something on the days when I looked in the mirror and wondered where the hell the time had gone.
‘Book it,’ she said.
My finger hovered near the key on the laptop.
‘But what if…’ I trailed off.
Sasha looked at me, waiting for me to finish but my mind was already tumbling.
What if…
