‘Thank you, Mum. I’m sorry. This is probably the first time you’ve been able to do something like this for years. I’m sorry for spoiling it.’

She laughs, then reaches over and ruffles my hair. ‘Don’t be silly. If you were messing around I’d have sent you home. But a mother knows, and I know that this is serious. You can tell when you have to prioritize your kid’s well-being above all else, and this is one of those times. Maybe we can talk properly in the car? That’s often a good way of doing it.’

I nod. ‘It’s going to sound mental,’ I warn her.

‘I can do mental,’ she says. ‘I, of all people, know how to do that.’

She looks at the road and drives and listens, and I find myself telling her every single bit of it. I tell her I’ve been living the same day for more than twenty years. I tell her about meeting Ariel. I tell her about all the future things, and about Lara, and about Gus and Abby and the girls. I tell her that in 2019 she lives mainly in India, just coming back to visit her granddaughters, and that Dad’s married to my French teacher. I tell her that no one has any idea what happened to me.

She listens without saying anything except, ‘Mmm,’ and other sounds along those lines. She looks straight ahead at the road, apart from the odd quick glance when she imagines I’m not looking. I know she thinks I’m having a breakdown, but I don’t care. It’s just lovely to say it all, from beginning to end, to someone who’s in a position where she has to sit and listen. She doesn’t try to shut me off, or stop me. She just hears me out.

When I’ve said every bit of it, I wait for a reply. I know what it’s going to be, and I’m right. She gently tells me that I shouldn’t go to France, and that they’re going to get me help. ‘We’ll start off by getting an emergency doctor’s appointment, and take it from there.’

I don’t care. I knew I was going to end up at Beachview, but this time I get to go almost all the way to Ariel with my mum.

31