The airport’s international terminal was different to domestic, and if Thomas had to describe it he would struggle to go beyond the abstract suggestion that it had a different energy. Giant and not necessarily friendly, it was a zone where people came and went from vast distances, humans picked up from one side of the globe and plonked unceremoniously on the other, all foreign language and unfamiliar currency and body clocks out of whack.
Arthur, with his passport and his boarding pass, was the only one who could go through the customs gate so they stood there on one side of the departure lounge with him – all of them: Thomas, Elsie and Aida, Millie and Joseph. They stared around and tried not to stare at Arthur who, in about twenty minutes from now, they wouldn’t see for a year.
Thomas glanced at Elsie and saw she was fighting a lion-hearted battle against another fit of weeping. Aida’s lips were pressed together in a thin line and she rubbed the tops of her arms as she glanced about.
There were people everywhere. People dragging cases, jackets flapping across arms; people hugging and crying and mopping their faces; people strutting purposefully. Groups of people held boarding passes and frowned up at departure screens.
‘Righto,’ Arthur said. He lifted his arms and dropped them again, slapping his legs. ‘I suppose I’d better go through . . .’
‘Yes, yeah, mate,’ Thomas said briskly. ‘You’d better get going.’ He even made a show of looking at his watch, for confirmation of how important it was that they keep this as perfunctory as possible.
‘You call,’ Elsie said, pointing a finger at Arthur. ‘As soon as you land. Find a pay phone. Don’t forget you can reverse the charges. Any time. From anywhere.’
‘I’ve got it, Mum.’ Arthur smiled. He held out his arms and Elsie went to him and clutched him tightly.
Thomas’s throat ached. He looked again at Aida and she gave him a watery smile. Seeing the way Elsie was clinging to Arthur, he felt a recurrent flash of the anger he had first felt, months ago, when Arthur announced he wanted to spend a year in the UK. What the bloody hell for? Elsie had said. Why the bloody hell not? Arthur had said. Millie went away. I need space.
Despite his anger, Thomas understood. Arthur was twenty years old, he had finished school and spent a year working odd jobs here and there, and now he wanted to see some of the world before he enrolled at uni. Make up his own mind about who he was. But he didn’t like how it turned Elsie and Aida to jelly. How they looked at Thomas with demanding expressions and said, Is it something we’ve done wrong? Why so far away?
He fought the urge now, in the middle of this crowded, busy space, to take Aida’s hand as they watched Elsie lose her battle and sob onto their tall, adult son’s chest.
‘It’s okay, Mum,’ Arthur was saying. ‘I’ll be back before you know it. It’s only a year.’
Elsie, shuddering, pulled herself together and stepped back. She smiled at Arthur, wiped her cheeks, turned to Aida and said, ‘Your turn.’
One after the other they hugged Arthur. Even Joseph, who had teased Arthur for weeks about England’s warm beer and cold weather, looked a little wobbly. Millie playfully pushed at the side of his head, called him a loser and demanded a postcard from the Queen’s house. When it was Thomas’s turn, he hugged his son and slapped his back firmly, shook his hand and cleared his throat and discovered an intense interest in the skylights on the ceiling.
They watched Arthur walk towards customs. He turned back and waved, and then he was gone. Thomas put his arm around Elsie and she quaked against him.
‘It’s only a year,’ he consoled her. ‘He’ll be back before you know it.’
*
In England, Arthur met a young woman. He stayed longer than a year.