Page 45 of The Love of Our Lives

Four months to live

The bus journey to the airport is strange, knowing that, for the very first time in my life, I’ll be leaving this country; something I’ve never even entertained before.

And as I stand outside departures, I look up in wonder at the powder-blue sky and the planes rushing up into the ether.

In no time at all, I’ll be up there too.

As high as I can go.

I check in my bag before heading through security. It’s hectic, and yet I kind of like it, how I feel just like everyone else going on holiday, or flying off to see a relative, or doing some business elsewhere.

Even the airport shops are exciting to me, this strange world of cafés and clothes shops and restaurants, open at all hours.

So I decide to make the most of it. Taking a seat at the champagne bar, it doesn’t take long for a young-ish waiter to take my order.

Then I just sit there with my glass of bubbles and think about what France will be like, and all the other places I manage to get to after.

I’d like to go everywhere, of course, see everything possible, and maybe I should be able to in the time I’m here; maybe I’ve made some great error by staying here in Edinburgh for so long.

But somehow, I don’t feel like that, given how very different it’s been to my old life in the city.

And if Adam’s taught me anything, it’s that there are brilliant adventures to be found and perfect moments wherever you are.

But for the next four months, it’s time for me to fly further, see everything I can in the time I’ve got left. For me and no one else.

Because this is my life too and I’m going to make damn sure I live it.

Pulling the list out from my pocket, I look to the next item on it and smile.

Experience the world .

I can still remember all those tours I booked for other people, all those images of bungee jumpers and surfers, ancient monuments and temples I only saw on a screen.

I think about all those experiences I missed out on because I was too scared.

Because if you live a certain way for too long, it becomes very hard to change it.

And life is scary and messy at times, and we can get hurt.

But we only get one, and it’s shorter than any of us realise, so now is the time to stop thinking and just go do.

Eventually, my flight is called, and wiping an unexpected tear from my eye, I place my empty glass down, before heading on over to the gate. The word Paris flashes on the board above, and my heart starts to thud. It’s time.

And with a last look back at the airport, I show my ticket and my passport, and head up the walkway.

For the next while, life really is a wonderland.

When I stepped off the plane on the other side of the Channel, the scents, sounds and even the air all felt different, but in a good way, and I found myself loving hearing the different accents all around me.

Everything felt new and wonderful, and my heart came alive with it all.

So I climb the Eiffel Tower, each and every step to the top, before drinking a little wine by myself at the bottom.

I stand in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and wonder what she’s smiling about.

I sit in a café in Montmartre and watch Paris go by.

I go to St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and actually look up at the Sistine Chapel in person.

I stand on Juliet’s balcony in Verona and smell hot paving stones in the air.

I walk the old city walls in Dubrovnik and sit quietly on the rocky cliffs overlooking the sea.

I touch the Berlin Wall and walk up to the topmost tower in Neuschwanstein Castle.

I go to ‘Dracula’s Castle’ in Romania and shop in Krakow’s cloth hall.

Then I finish up my first leg of the journey in Amsterdam, where Jess had been trying to get me before, and as I wander down the glittering canals and stare up at all the colourful canal houses, I wonder why I didn’t just go when I had the chance.

I could have definitely managed a slow-paced city break with some preparation. What was I so scared of?

Because now I realise that it wasn’t just me trying to protect other people, I was trying to protect myself.

From the world – the very place that excites me the most.

I’ve already been away for a month by the time I fly to India to see the Taj Mahal and the holy city of Varanasi, the Ellora Caves and Mysore Palace.

I eat street food of kachori and aloo chaat, and message Sven to say he needs to add new toppings to his pizzas.

I get a call from Charlie moments after and answer tentatively – I wasn’t sure she wanted to speak to me ever again after the accident.

‘Hello,’ I say from a hot dusty street. It must be breakfast where they are.

‘Emily,’ she says, and I can hear the nerves in her voice, ‘William told me you’d gone travelling . . . so London didn’t work out then?’

‘No, it didn’t, in the end.’

‘Good,’ she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice too.

‘How’s the pregnancy going?’ I say, concerned now.

‘Fine . . . better,’ she says. ‘Look, I won’t keep you long, but I just wanted to say I’m sorry.’

A scooter honks its way past me down the busy street and I cover my other ear. ‘What have you got to be sorry about?’ I shout down to her. ‘I was the one who suggested skiing in the first place.’

‘What happened up there on the mountain was a pile of bad luck,’ she shouts back, ‘and it was also my own goddamn fault.’

I start to protest again.

‘Yes, it was,’ Charlie cuts through. ‘I’m an experienced skier who took a calculated risk during pregnancy, and it went wrong. And the truth is, I was angry at myself, not you.’

‘For what, though?’

‘For not listening to my body, for being so focused on living my life to the full still, that I forgot about this new life Sven and I have made. So maybe, for a while, I need to take the slower lane for a bit, for Sven and the baby’s sake.

But you,’ she says, urgently, ‘you need to keep doing your list because this is your time now, so you need to stop worrying about everyone else and go follow your heart.’

A beat passes, as I process everything she’s said.

That, perhaps, what happened to Cat also wasn’t actually my fault.

That she was just living fully like Charlie, like Cat had always done – and she took her own risk that day at the loch because she loved life, because she needed to make the absolute most of her short time on this planet.

And yes, that need was maybe heightened by my condition, and yes, she made that jump after I’d suggested it, but it was the sort of thing she always did and always would continue to do.

And there was nothing I could have done to change that.

If it hadn’t have happened there, it may well have happened somewhere else.

And this guilt I’ve been carrying around since, which has been affecting everything I do, every way I look at life, has been mine and mine alone.

Maybe it’s survivor’s guilt or maybe it’s just fear, but it’s time to put it to bed now. Stop following someone else’s plan. Because while Mum might have been right about a lot, I need to live my own life now – take my own risks. Or I’ll regret it forever.

‘I will,’ I say to Charlie finally, smiling.

I keep pushing further into Asia after that, to the misty mountains of Yangshuo and the strange Avatar-like rocks of Zhangjiajie National Forest. I explore the Forbidden City in Beijing and walk along the Great Wall of China, before ending up in Hong Kong.

And as I go on a junk boat and hang out with monkeys at Kam Shan, I think about where my next stop should be in the last designated month of travelling.

As vaguely planned, I’ve come on a meandering line around the globe – there’s only so much time, after all.

So, I head to the States next, to California.

Cat always wanted to see what it was like to be in a place where the sun always shone, where you could be staring into the ocean in the morning, then up in the mountains by the afternoon.

I take surf lessons in San Diego and then fly over it in a biplane.

I taste wine at the oldest winery in the state and go backpacking in Yosemite, and it’s everything I’ve always dreamed of.

Almost.

Because as I stand there at the top, looking out across the rocky landscape, I can’t help wondering if I should go to Canada. Adam just made it all sound so great when he spoke about it. There are tonnes of experiences to have there too, and perhaps I could stop in on him.

While I’m here.

Before I can overthink it, I’ve booked the flight for the next day. San Francisco to Calgary, here we go.