Travelling Hopefully

She tightened her arms around her wriggling daughter on her lap and wondered why something so uncomfortable should cost so much. This reminded her of her mother who had said with ever increasing frequency over the last few days, "How much did you say the ticket was?" This would be accompanied by a pointed look at the run-down furnishings in their house. Tita thought maybe she should have spent the money on something more useful but it was too late now.

The Carpenters had just begun 'There's a Kind of Hush' when the engines set up an almighty din, so loud that her daughter stuck her fingers in her ears. As they shot up into the air, Tita heard a moan and, having ascertained it came neither from herself nor from her daughter, she turned to the girl sitting next to her whose eyes were screwed up tight. Her face, which had looked suntanned when she had sat down, was now a pasty yellow which didn't go too well with her rhubarb coloured hair. She must have felt herself being observed because she opened one eye but before Tita could put together a polite form of "what are you moaning about?" the girl had closed it again.

Tita shrugged and looked through the window. "Olhe, look," she told her daughter. "Faro Airport. Olhe - Granny's house. Pequenina, tiny." The child glanced, looked duly sceptical and turned back to stare at the girl in the next seat who was far more interesting, especially with all those rings and studs dotted around her face and head. One was shining in her cheek and very tempting so the child stretched out a forefinger and slowly moved towards it. The plump digit was just a centimetre away when it stopped. The girl had opened her eyes.

"Sorry," said Tita, pulling the child back.

"S'Okay," the girl muttered, moving further away.

The child rocked on Tita's lap and babbled happily at the girl, her hands opening and closing like starfish until the girl's eyes slid round again.

"Nice kid," she said and Tita noticed that her face had returned to its normal colour.

"Thank you."

"What's her name?"

"Catarina."

The girl nodded. "I'm not really into babies myself," she said scratching a mosquito bite on her arm. "Know what I mean?"

Tita wasn't quite sure but she supposed that the girl meant she did not like children.

"So what are you then?" the girl asked.

Tita frowned and this time really wondered what she meant.

"From, I mean. You're not English, are you?"

"No, no." Tita laughed. "I'm Portuguese. I live in Faro."

"Nice place, that. I've just been on holiday near there. Cool beaches."

Cool beaches? It was the middle of August - was it hotter in England?

"So you're going to London, are you?" the girl continued, making her bite bleed. "Rave it up there without your husband?"

Tita took a moment before she answered. "I'm going to meet my…my…Catarina's father there."

"Oh right." The girl was scratching her head now. "Where's that, then?"

Tita, reached down and tugged up her bag. Rummaging around, she finally brought out a tattered letter. "It's somewhere called, let me see." She smoothed the well-worn paper out carefully. "Hounslow."

"Yeah, I know that. It's really close to Heathrow."

"Is it really? Close to Heathrow? So it's easy to get to?"

The girl nodded and Tita felt like cheering; her sneaking suspicion that London wasn't much bigger than Faro was correct, then. She thought again of her mother, scrubbing away at the washing in the wash-tub under the oleander and asking, "What are you going to do when you get there? Ai Madre de Deus, how are you going to find this 'OwnSlow'?"

"I'll ask, of course," she had replied. "Tourists always ask directions."

And here it was on a plate. She was being told without having to ask.

"Yeah. Get a bus or the tube. Be there in a few minutes."

The girl stared at her, sizing her up. "Is he going to meet you? This guy."

Tita looked at the girl's dead hair.

"No," she said, closing her mouth firmly.

"Does he know you're coming?" The girl pushed her face so close, she could count every black-head.

She shook her head.

The girl sucked on her teeth for a moment and Tita had the impression that in that moment the girl knew everything about her. She waited for the next question but instead the girl bent down and took off her trainers. Catarina, who had, open-mouthed, followed the girl's every word and movement turned to her mother, "Eauw!" she said, screwing up her face and pegging her nose.

The girl laughed. "Sorry," she said but she didn't put her trainers back on again so Tita turned to the window and watched the grey cloud cover way below.

The girl nudged her. "Does he know the kid exists?"

Tita wondered for a moment whether to lie or not, but she thought the girl knew the answer anyway. "No," she said, lowering her head and breathing in the warm smell of Catarina's dark hair.

"Well, is he Portuguese, or what? This bloke."

Tita sighed. She could never tell this girl who scratched a lot about that wonderful fortnight three years ago when he had been in Portugal on holiday.

"No. He's English."

The girl's red mouth stretched wide. She put her feet on the seat in front of her. "Brilliant! You'll make his day, you will. Wish I was a fly on the wall - the BBC could make a documentary about this and we'll all be famous. I can just see it. He's having a great day, all hip hop-like, and wham bam you knock on the door and say, 'here I am, remember me? And here's your kid'. Make his day."

Tita wished the plane would hit some turbulence so that the girl would go pasty faced again and quiet. Instead she was cackling like a third-class witch.

"I think he'll like her. I really do."

"So why didn't you tell him before?"

Why indeed? "Well, he went to Australia after his holiday in Portugal, you see. To study."

The girl raised her eyebrows which Tita thought must hurt with that ring in them, but her expression showed that she understood: Tita had not wanted to force him into anything until he was ready. She looked at the letter in her hand in which he had told her he was coming home, to Hounslow, because his brother was getting married.

"And what if he doesn't want to see you?"

"I'll get a plane back again."

She sat thinking of this horror for a moment until she realised the girl had gone quiet. She glanced at her and saw her grey face. "Are you alright?"

"I hate taking off and landing. Makes me want to puke."

Whatever that was it didn't sound very pleasant so Tita put her hand over the girl's who grasped it so tightly that, by the time they landed, it was numb.

As they were preparing to disembark, the girl handed Tita a piece of paper. "Listen. Go to the bus station and get this bus. OK? Ask the driver to tell you when to get off. And also," she bent down scribbling something. "If it doesn't work out. You ring me here." She indicated a number. "My Mum loves a bit of a fuss."

Tita stared at the address and number on the paper but before she could thank her, the girl had elbowed her way down the aisle and was getting off the plane before anyone else.

Tita still couldn't believe it as, an hour later, she sat on the red bus watching the rushing traffic, the hurrying people in the incessant rain. The bus driver shouted "'Ounslow Bus Station". He pronounced it just like her mother, so perhaps Tita had not needed to make her repeat it so often, aspirating the 'H', "Hhhounslowww" with a piece of paper in front of her mouth to test whether she was breathing the 'H' or not.

She got off the bus and asked a lady in a long colourful silk dress for directions. Within minutes she was at a blue door and with a shaking finger, she pressed the bell. The door opened.

"Yes?"

"Peter. I come for Peter." It seemed she had forgotten how to speak English: she sounded so idiotic, even Catarina looked at her.

The young man at the door was a little like Peter so this must be his brother - the one getting married.

"Ola!" cried Catarina, her arms open wide in their usual greeting fashion. She grinned at him.

He looked at them for a moment, to one and then back to the other again.

"Tita?" he said, rubbing his head. "Are you Tita?"

She nodded feeling elated: he knew who she was.

"Oh God," he said and her spirits plummeted.

"But what are you doing here?" he asked.

"I thought Peter…Peter might like it."

He sighed, opened the door wider and invited her inside. As soon as she was sitting in a comfortable armchair, he ran his hands through his hair again and desperately gazed about him. She had never seen anyone so ill at ease. His eye fell on a box of Milk Tray which he grabbed and pushed at the little girl who stared dubiously at it.

"Oh, she's not … into chocolates," said Tita. He glanced at her a moment and thrust the box at her. She shook her head and he took a deep breath.

"He's not here," he said, sitting on the edge of her chair.

"Not…here?"

Catarina began to cry.

"No. Peter went this afternoon."

"Went? Where? Back to Australia?" The panic sounded in her voice. She saw herself doing her journey in reverse, back on the bus, checking in at Heathrow, even sitting next to a strange girl with smelly feet on the plane. She fingered the piece of paper in her pocket.

He coughed and blew his nose. He looked like he was going to give her very bad news indeed. She could just see the 'I told you so' look on her mother's face.

"He caught the plane at Heathrow. It left about an hour ago. He's gone to Faro. Tita," he took her hands. "He went to Faro. He's gone to see you."

Biography

I was born of English parents in 1955 but have lived in Portugal for the last 20 years - and enjoyed every minute of it. My husband is Portuguese. My publishing record is unfortunately restricted to translation work - unfortunately because my first love is writing for myself, not translating. I work as an English teacher in the Language Centre of the Civil Service College and, when I'm not teaching, I'm translating. My husband and I recently published a book which my father-in-law wrote in 1950 and is entitled Palacio de São Lorenço. It is about the history of the Governor's Palace in Funchal and had been out of print for some time, but public demand was such that we decided to republish the original and an English version. I also write an occasional column for the local newspaper for the English-speaking community but am almost ashamed to say that the column is about golf. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to say that I write full-time (dream on).