Floors

Six weeks.

The general prediction was three, but I was hoping for seventeen or possibly eighteen: nineteen or twenty if I could find a pot of Marmite somewhere. But six weeks it was: six weeks before I cracked and demanded that I be sent home to England, and I didn't care how I got there. In the luggage compartment of Ryan Air; in the large handbag of a lady, shared with a small dog; tied up with string and dragged behind a Eurasian bus: any which way, as long as by next weekend I could have a cuddle with my mum and a cup of tea and a conversation with a person in the local newsagent, just because they would understand me.

"No," my dad said immediately. "Absolutely not. We've not even finished redecorating your bedroom yet."

Mum pushed him away from the computer with one hand, muttered "don't be so sodding insensitive, Mark," waited until he had stropped out of the room and then sighed at the webcam. "Sweetheart," she said, "I'm with your dad on this one."

"Aha!" I heard dad shout from the kitchen. "You see?!"

"Mark!," my mum shouted back, and then pointedly shut the living room door. "We'll send some money darling, enough for you to buy food. But I don't think you should come home. You need to give it a chance there."

"But. I. Want. To. Come. Home," I gulped incoherently. "I. Don't. Like. It. Here. I. Hate. It."

"No, you don't," mum said in the voice she used when I fell out of bed, broke my nose and was still fast asleep when she came in to investigate: kind of soft and warm and worried and a tiny bit amused. "You do like it. You're just having a bad day."

"I'm. Not. I. Want. To. Come. Home," I gulped again, wiping my nose on the back of my hand and then wiping my hand on my jumper.

"You'll regret it if you do," mum pointed out reasonably. "Anyway, there isn't a lot to come back to. The weather here is awful. And we're sanding down the floorboards."

"I. Want. To To To To To C C Co," I announced, and then exploded into tears again.

"Tell her we've already booked tickets for a visit at New Year," I heard dad shout through the wall.

"That is not the point," mum yelled back.

"It is the bloody point," dad said, putting his head round the side of the door. "What are we going to do in Japan if she's back in the spare room in England, making a mess again?"

"B-b-b-but," I wailed, putting my head in my hands; "muuuuuuuuuuuum, please don't make me stay. I'm lonely and I'm tired and I'm broke and I don't understand what anyone is saying and I w-w-w-wanttocomehome."

"Make her stay," my dad said, and then peered at the webcam. "Can she see me?" he asked mum.

"Yes, and I can hear you too," I muttered crossly.

"Stay," dad ordered, with his eye taking up the entire screen. "You're out there now, you might as well stay."

"How long for?" I sniffled.

"Until you don't want to come home anymore. Then you can come home." Dad paused thoughtfully. "Or," he said, "until after January the 3rd, because if we fly back before that it's really expensive."

"Just give it six more weeks, sweetheart," mum said, glaring at dad as he started muttering about floorboards again. "You're done six weeks, you can do another six. And then if you still want to come home, you can."

"At least the floors will be nice by then," dad said, perking up a bit.

Six weeks. Six whole weeks. So much has happened in the last six weeks, it seems impossible that I can know what I'll be doing or how I'll be feeling in another six. The shameful truth is: I've had my heart broken, and when your heart is broken there is nowhere you want to be other than home, there is nobody you want to see other than your family, and there is no worse place to be than on your own, penniless, lonely and stranded abroad. But, ironically, the comfort comes from that same source. Because - when you've had your heart broken - there's nowhere that will make you happy anyway. And nobody who can make it better, even if it feels like they might be able to when they're not there.

So, England or Japan, Welwyn or Mitsukyo (from one shithole to another: I am apparently incapable of living anywhere nice), it doesn't really matter where I am for the next six weeks. I just have to keep my chin up, work as hard as I can, eat as rarely as I can, spend as little as I can, and wait until my life isn't on the floor again.

As my dad reminded me, though: the beauty of constantly ending up on the floor is that you can always look forward to the day when it'll become shiny again.