A haze of boxes, tea in plastic mugs, dust bunnies. Suddenly, even the most mundane details of our life in England have taken on a sentimental final sheen. The last time I will turn on the lawn sprinkler, chase the ice-cream van in the park with Stella, discuss the weather with the blue-haired lady three doors down. More personally, my beloved friends – people I have prayed with, had coffee with, arranged playdates for our children with.
Change is terrifying for most of us. Even the most wanderlustful people in the world must find comfort in familiarity.
So when our bed is dismantled, when I say goodbye to my apple trees knowing this year I won’t be picking Egremont Russets, the panic hits me. What the hell am I DOING? Who, at the age of 46, wants to give up hard-earned friendships to start afresh in a different language with no friends?
And friends aside, I’ve fought damned hard to make a home in this country. The Engineer and I lobbied Parliament along with a handful of couples in the 90s to change same-sex immigration law, and we won. I got the right to remain in my beloved England as The Engineer’s partner. When civil partnerships were introduced, we got married in 2006. When same-sex couples were allowed to adopt, The Engineer made Stella her legal daughter. And we were the first couple in the 800-year history of our parish church to have our relationship blessed, back in 1996.
Needless to say, none of this would have happened had I stayed in Singapore, the country where I spent the first 19 years of my life.
I said goodbye to my car today; it was hard. I passed my driving test at the age of 44 and bought my first car — a rite of passage most people enjoy at in their 20s. It’s a VW Polo in a virulent green the manufacturers like to call Pistachio. It turns heads for all the wrong reasons, but my little Polo and I have accomplished great things, the noblest of which has been regularly getting Stella to school 15 seconds before the bell rings.
In moments like these, I call my mother in Chicago. She wears two hearing aids and officially has only 3 per cent hearing left but she always knows. The Engineer, Stella and I hold hands and put the phone on speaker. She prays for peace in our family and for a new house full of joy, open to everyone. She prays for new friendships and old friendships.
The M25 is backed up all the way to Junction Five. A van ploughed into two cars in a pile-up and emergency services had to cut passengers out of the smashed vehicles. We are late for our ferry and an hour early for the next one. The Engineer insists on getting dinner at a petrol station but I balk. Pre-packaged sandwiches just seem like a flabby end to a miserable day.
The Engineer returns. “I got ham for Stella and coronary chicken for you”.
Let it be said that English is one of The Engineer’s four languages, all of which she speaks resourcefully and fearlessly. When tired or stressed, rather than hesitate, she will lunge for the nearest word. For example, when a temporary doctor – a locum – attended to her at our GP’s office, she asked him if he was a locust. I know doctors’ fees can be a plague, but really.
In the end, I am glad of the coronation chicken because everything on the boat is shut. Knackered, we stop for a two-hour nap at a motorway parking lot and get home at 5:45 a.m. The movers are arriving at 10. I don’t know of a better reason for a coronary.
