Page 38 of To Hell With It
He misses me!
Anytime : ) How was your flight?
Long! Good to be back in the sun, though!
It’s raining here : (
You should come to NZ then – lots of sunshine here!
I would love to!
Hop on a plane and come on over, lol! I could give you your present…
Oh my God, a present?! He got me a present!!
What is it?
A pearl necklace ; )
Maybe I will then… Missing you too by the way…
* * *
I had never taken any holiday from O’Callaghan’s. I must have been entitled to a whole year’s worth, but I didn’t see the point in taking time off to do nothing. My mother often tried to get me to have a hobby, an interest of some sort – and it wasn’t that I didn’t have any. I liked running, for example, and even swimming, when I wasn’t thinking about what might be coming out of people’s bodies and onto my own.
But none of those things involved taking time off work. I swam in the evenings during the week, on and off (Sally had an outdoor swimming pool at the farm, which wasn’t particularly hot but it beat going to a public one, for obvious reasons) and I ran when the mood took me, usually up The New Line, and around the village.
When I’d texted Una about Jack’s pearl necklace comment, she’d emailed me the flight details again under the subject line: PEARL’S TURBO PENIS ADVENTURES. An open ticket, with a stop off at Kuala Lumpur, and a five-hour wait at the airport. I could sit and have a cup of tea and not have to worry, the place would be full of antibacterial wipes if I were to need more.
I’d already checked how much sanitiser I could bring – 100ml, which would get me there, and I could buy more once I’d landed. I could avoid using the plane toilet if I made sure I went before both flights at the airport. How hard could it be to hold in a wee for fourteen hours? I remembered how small the cubicles were from my trip to England. There was no way I could do everything in there without touching something, and then what? How would I shower?
My simple life had its perks. I had more than enough money to stay for as long as I wanted to because my outgoings were so low. I had my house, I didn’t own a car, my job covered the cost of living. When my grandmother died, she’d left me so much money I had actually considered giving some of it away to a charity, but Una had talked me out of it.
I stared at Una’s email. If I went for a few weeks I could be back before the end of the summer (even though technically September isn’t summer, it still felt like that sometimes), like a mini summer holiday only on the other side of the world.The other side of the world. I felt sick just thinking about it.
When I looked at a map, which I had done on repeat since Jack had left, I felt dizzy. There were so many places the plane could come down, like the Indian Ocean or Saudi Arabia, and I would never be found.
I tried to ignore the plane that was on fire in my head and keep my focus on Jack. Two weeks was nothing. I could do two weeks, instead of three. I glanced down at my open passport on my lap (I’d dug it out from underneath my bed, where it had been buried) and completed the booking page. I hovered over the flight details, then closed my eyes and clicked on the confirm button. I heard the ping of my confirmation email but I kept my eyes shut tight as I thought of only one thing.
At least Una would be wrong about me dying having barely left Drangan.
ChapterTwenty-Three
My very slow, simple life suddenly became fast-paced. I’d sent a photo of the booked flights to Una and she’d screamed down the phone at me so loudly I could barely work out what she was saying. She sounded like she was hyperventilating and when she finally composed herself she started to cry.
She cancelled the rest of her week because she could (she worked for herself so could do as she pleased, as she’d often told me) but I think it was because she wanted to make sure I wouldn’t change my mind. She had offered to stay with me until I left but I’d turned her down, because there was no way I would get anything done with Una around. I needed to keep the house quiet and calm. I needed to keep myself quiet and calm.
Mrs O’Callaghan had been fine about me taking the time off and I’d felt bad because it meant she’d have to work more hours but she insisted she wanted to keep busy and that Niall would help her. Niall hadn’t said much about me going, apart from to tell me to look out for sand flies because they hurt when they bit. He’d been more quiet than usual, but I guessed that was understandable given Mr O’Callaghan had died.
I ordered my rucksack online. I’d chosen one with small side pockets to keep my hand sanitiser for easy access, and a front pocket for my dirty clothes – I couldn’t have them contaminating the rest of my stuff if I was living out of a bag for two weeks. Una assured me I’d be able to use the hostel laundry rooms to wash my clothes and I reasoned with myself that anything I felt had been ruined (i.e. totally sneezed on) I could just leave behind.
I’d taken three weeks off work because it would take a couple of days to actually get there and back, and I know two weeks on the other side of the world isn’t the norm (don’t people usually do two months?) – but it would be long enough for me.
I hadn’t really thought about how I would find Jack, or what I would do once I’d found him. Or what would happen if he wasn’t even there, or if he didn’t want me there. None of that had crossed my mind (well, it had, but I’d pushed it away) because I could only cope with what I was doing, not what might happen when I was doing it.
I was good at talking myself out of things. I’d done it since I was a little girl, although it was harder when I was younger because my parents would make me do things I couldn’t get out of. Like going to the village pantomime. For some reason, I was always the person picked out in the audience to come up on stage. Everyone would laugh while a trick was played and I hated it. I hated the eyes on me.
Christmas parties were the same. Ian would hold them in the pub and we’d all play pass the parcel, except he’d add in challenges as well as sweets and they’d always land on me. What was worse was I had to read them out loud and then act out the challenge, which usually involved hopping on one leg around the restaurant before the music stopped to the cheers of everyone.
