Perhaps it is reasonable that because we are tired, overworked, overwhelmed, because of the baby, because my mental health is poor, because we are distracted by our precarious housing situation, the world, the future, etc, that we forgot to get our visas and only realised this the night before we were supposed to fly to India. Or perhaps it is because we are very, very stupid. Anyway, after lying on the floor saying Oh my God, over and over again, we rebooked our flights, cancelled taxis, contacted the place we were supposed to be staying, accepted that this was a costly and horrible mistake, applied for our visas and hoped for the best.
The next day, D and the baby had their visas. I had an email asking me to clarify some of my answers, which I did. The email was not responded to. The phone was not answered. Reddit told me that I had fucked up by telling them that I am a writer. One person had their visa delayed by eight days. One by two weeks. I called and called. My wait time was four minutes, I was told, repeatedly. Then an apology that an agent was not available. Your wait time is four minutes. I looked at my phone. I had been on the phone for thirty five minutes. Nobody answers the phone, other applicants reported on various forums. I received a reply to my email asking how I could expedite the process. Your application is being processed and will be responded to. We couldn’t afford to rebook again. Now we had 24 hours left. Now we had 10 hours.
We repacked our bags. D and the baby had all their stuff in one suitcase. I had mine in another. The day of departure came. I did not have my visa. We set off anyway. I sent voice notes to various friends. I don’t have my visa, I told them, and I am on my way to the airport. Maybe my visa will come through in the next few hours. Or maybe, as we had discussed, D and the baby would fly to India without me. I would be ok, I said, not believing it myself. I’ll do yoga. I’ll work. I will not think about my baby who is halfway across the world without me. I will not think about anything at all. I will turn my phone off, and I will turn my brain off, and I will exist in a sort of blank stasis upon your return.
We do not have very much money or very much time together and we had gambled both of these things on a holiday because it really felt like it might help. Every day since booking the holiday I had been telling myself, it’s ok! We’ll be on holiday soon. I had recently and for some time been thinking that it might be time to start taking antidepressants again, but then again, I thought, it might be time to instead make significant changes to my life, including leaving the cold and fascistic country in which I live.
About twenty minutes before we were due to go to the gate we were sitting in the Pret in Heathrow, and we had split our bookings so that D and the baby could fly without me, and I was eating a chicken caesar salad in doom laden silence. I received a reply to my email telling me that my visa had been granted. I went to the website to confirm that this was true and it wouldn’t load. D asked me what I was doing staring at my phone so intently and I said please go to the India visa website and type these numbers into the box and tell me what it says. And he did and he looked up at me and he said granted. And he took my hand and said let’s go to India. And we RAN to the desk and printed out the visas and handed our passports to the woman who wondered why we were crying. And D lifted me up and span me around and it felt like a big, bananas dream. The baby was asleep in his pram.
One late afternoon, after we had been in Goa for a few days, I was walking down the beach by myself. The cows sleepily lay together on the pale sand. A man joined me and asked me questions about myself. And then he asked, are you here by yourself? And I said, no, I’m with my family. And after a minute he made his excuses and left me alone to swim. And I thought about how the last time I said ‘my family’, I was the daughter, and now I’m the mother. I am the mother! I am the one who is the mother!
A fruit bat slept in our porch all day. I had the funniest massage of my life, a story which needs telling in person. The baby ate sticky coconut rice and cumin-scented sweet buns that a woman called Bharti made for him and gave to us every day wrapped in newspaper and when we took him in the sea as the sun set we held his hands as the waves broke over his fat feet and he laughed. I felt so lucky. We can laugh. We are safe.
While we were away we had left the big food cupboard open and the mice had got in and this is what they had eaten: crackers, demerara sugar, pudding rice, vegetable stock cubes. A man had set himself on fire.
I really liked this!
Your newsletter is my absolute favourite