Free Lullaby Girl by Aly Sidgwick Page A

find Mum still there. Alone now, and smaller, and still waving. Magnus puts his hands on my arse.
    ‘It’s champagne time!’ he declares.
    ‘Wait a minute.’
    ‘Come on. I’m freezing.’
    I bat Magnus away and raise an arm to continue waving. Seconds later I hear the clack of the door. I look through the porthole and see him striding through the Stardust Lounge, hands jammed in the pockets of his skinny jeans. Is he angry? It’s difficult to tell from here. Well, let him have his tantrum. It’s nothing I can’t fix later.
    At that moment an icy gust plasters my face, and I stagger as my hair does a full loop the loop. When I can see again, I find I’m the last one on deck. My mother is an inch tall now. Her red coat like a tea light on the asphalt. To her right, the industrial skyline could not be a more perfect symbol of my upbringing. Shipyard cranes rising from the wreckage like steampunk hand puppets – antique remnants of the Industrial Revolution. The North. A different north to the one I am going to, and in social terms a hundred worlds away. My new life stands before me like an unwritten page, intoxicatingly pure and simple, and I am drunk on the notion that anything is possible. The most basic requirement – a roof over my head – is sorted, as I will be moving in with Magnus, but other than that I am going in blind. Aside from Magnus’s tales, my knowledge of Norwegian society is limited to what I read in the Learn Norwegian manual. Shopping for groceries, ordering lutefisk, complaining about hotel room taps, that’s all covered – but when it comes to the intricacies of the social security system, I’m stumped. It’ll fall into place, as Magnus said, and with my university education I’m sure to find a job. Before, such disorganisation would have terrified me, but not any more. We could live in a barrel for all I care, because all that matters is that we have found each other. There is nothing left to wish for. Nothing else to achieve. I have found what all those millions of people have sought since the dawn of man. I have found him. We have found each other. I could cry with joy. I could sing. I could puke.
    The ship is moving slowly. By the time Mum is out of sight, the sea winds will have frozen my arm off. Time to break away …
    I put both arms up and try to indicate I really am going now. I blow a kiss, and make an I’ll call you gesture, just in case she can see. Then I turn and enter the Stardust Lounge.
    The bar is already filling with elderly couples, and at first I can’t pick Magnus out of the crowd. The floor judders as the ship changes direction, and for a moment the world becomes unsteady. I stumble and grab a handrail. Christ, if it’s like this the whole way I’ll be in trouble. My seasickness pills had better work.
    Surely he hasn’t gone back to the cabin? I move to the middle of the room and hunt for his face. God, no. Not an argument. Not today. Then I see him by the cabaret stage, texting, and my worries melt away. As I approach his booth I glance round for girls my age, hoping to impress them with my uber-hot boyfriend, but to my dismay we are the youngest people in the room.
    Magnus does not see me at first. In his striped sweater, he looks like a handsome spider. Mia Farrow cheekbones, and those heavy, twig-wristed hands. It strikes me for the hundredth time how ridiculously pale his skin is. I used to think I was pale before I met him, but my God … he’s on a whole new colour chart. In the light from the window, he looks almost blue. When he sees me he claps his hands together.
    ‘Right! Champagne!’
    ‘Aye aye, cap’n!’
    I melt into his arms and clasp his face like it’s a priceless artefact. His skin stretches tightly around his jaw as I kiss him. Slightly weathered, as you’d expect from an up-north guy, or that might just be because he’s several years older than me. A few wrinkles are definitely setting in. But they’re good wrinkles. Laughter