For the rest of our holiday Mike lies comatose on his lounger, plugged into his music. In the afternoons, he goes back up to the hotel to sleep in the cool. It feels a little as if he is screening us out. I tell myself not to be selfish, that he needs to unwind.
Will and Matteo float between us and the groups of young people who migrate together like starlings. I stay outside under a sun umbrella. I don’t want to miss a moment of sun and sea and mountains.
One afternoon, Matteo, reading beside me, puts his book down. ‘Dad seems a bit played out this holiday. Usually, he wants to hire a boat or do something.’
‘He would never admit it, but I think his job is proving a challenge. He’s weary, Matt.’
Will appears. He had gone back to the hotel to fetch his iPod.
‘Dad’s not resting, Mum. He’s bloody working. He’s writing emails and phoning Karachi …’
Will sounds so unaccountably angry I sit up, startled.
‘I told him that if he’s not sleeping he should be spending time down here with you. You’re on your own the whole bloody time. He’s spent a fortune on getting us here and then he slopes off to work every afternoon …’
‘Will, come on, be fair. He has to keep in touch with his office …’
‘There you go again. Just accepting everything, all the time, just as you always do. You’ve been apart for six months and Dad can’t even be truthful about why he slopes back to his room every afternoon … You know what, Mum, how different are you from those veiled … passive Saudi wives we saw at lunch today, lifting their stupid bits of material so they can poke food into their mouths, because of some male edict …’
Will throws his iPod and book onto his lounger and heads for the sea.
Shocked, I watch him walk away. This is so unlike him.
‘Go after him,’ I say to Matteo. ‘Do you think they had a row or something?’
Matteo walks across the sand and he and Will both stand with their backs to me, heads bent together. Voices carry over water and I hear Matt say, ‘Will, you can’t be sure and you certainly can’t say anything to Mum …’
Will shrugs, enters the water and starts to swim away. Matt walks back to me.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
Matteo drops on the sand beside me. ‘Will’s not angry with you, Mum. He caught Dad sitting out on the balcony having a long chatty conversation. He got mad that he wasn’t down here talking to you. Dad’s gone to all this effort and expense but he isn’t really here with us, is he? He’s still in Karachi.’
I know Matteo is right, but I say, ‘Matt, if your dad wants to disappear in the afternoons to rest and unwind, why shouldn’t he?’
‘But he’s not resting and unwinding, is he? He’s working. Dad chooses to live and work away from us. We are only with him for a few days. Is it too much to ask that he unplugs his bloody music and engages with us when we are all together? That he doesn’t leave you on your own every single afternoon?’
‘I don’t mind …’
‘Well, we do. We worry about you, Mum …’ He jumps up. ‘Listen to me. This is stupid. Will and I are adults, for Christ’s sake, not four year olds. Dad will always be Dad. It’s just, Will and I always hope things might change as we get older and it never does …’
I never knew. I never knew my sons felt like this.
On our last evening in Oman, I sit on the sea wall looking out over the Arabian Sea towards Iran and Pakistan. Behind the mountains the sky is ochre and pink and gold. A small wooden dhow with a white canopy is moored, turning in the breeze.
Will and Matteo come and sit each side of me. We sit in companionable silence watching the sky and sea catch fire.
‘Reminds me a bit of Cornwall,’ Matt says, after a while. ‘That feeling of awe and sad insignificance in the sheer power of …’
‘Sad insignificance!’ Will jeers, leaning over me to peer at his brother. ‘Wha …’
‘Oh shut up,’ Matteo says before Will can say any more.
I smile. My eldest son will now make everything sadly insignificant all evening.
‘Ignore him,’ I say to Matteo. ‘I know what you mean. The power and beauty of nature does make you feel small and insignificant.’
‘Sometimes,’ Matteo says, ‘I forget Mamie and Gramps are dead.’
‘I wish we could have kept their house in Cornwall,’ Will says. ‘We shouldn’t have sold it.’
‘We had to sell. Dominique needed the money and …’
‘Why couldn’t you and Dad have bought her out?’
‘Because the house needed a fortune spent on it and we still have a sizeable mortgage on the London house …’
‘But it would have been possible, wouldn’t it, if Dad had wanted to keep it too? You could have rented it out for a fortune each summer to help with the mortgage.’
I do not want to revisit the pain of letting my home go. Mike and I had argued vehemently. It was the only thing I had ever asked or fought for. He was right though. We had two boys to put through university. Pouring money into repairing a house hundreds of miles from where we lived was not practical. We did not have unlimited resources. Yet selling it nearly broke my heart.
‘It was the wrong time. Too much work and too much money and I was reeling with shock …’
‘It was awful. I can’t imagine what it would be like if you and Dad died within months of each other …’ Matteo says.
‘Mum?’ Will says. ‘Did you ever think it odd that Gramps drowned?’
I stare at him.
‘I mean. He knew the sea. He fished all his life …’
‘Fishermen drown, Will.’
‘Yes, but Gramps could spot weather coming in faster than anyone. He never got it wrong. So why was he out in a force eight gale?’
‘He was in his eighties. He must have misjudged the speed of the storm …’ I say, uneasily, trying to banish the image of a little boat foundering in huge seas.
‘We’ll never really know why he was out in rough weather, will we?’ Matteo says quietly.
At that moment, Mike arrives looking showered and spruced, followed by a waiter carrying a glass of drinks.
‘Ah!’ he calls. ‘I’ve found you. My lost family! As it’s our last night here, I have pushed the boat out. I have champagne!’
Never have three people been so happy to see him. He’s seemed so much happier and more relaxed these last two days. We jump up and hug him until he is overwhelmed. Who knows when the four of us will all be together again.
‘My God! What did I do to deserve all this? It is only one bottle of probably doubtful champagne …’
Will holds his glass up to him. ‘Every now and then, Dad, you remind us of why we love you. Your timing is impeccable. This is perfect.’
I watch Mike’s face. A myriad of emotions cross it. He is touched and trying not to show it. My heart turns. I don’t need to be reminded of why I love him.
Karachi, 2009
Nothing could have prepared me for Karachi Airport. It is a swirling mass of earthy, colourful humanity. As the plane