Come down to earth, I told her.
Mum, can you imagine if I got a place at Oxford? Their linguistics department is topnotch; I read on forums that graduates end up at the UN, even in embassies
Irene dropped the cucumber slices, looked at her daughter as if shed just suggested dancing on the kitchen table.
Emily, what are you on about? Oxford? she snorted, turning back to the salad. Where do you think youll go? Everyones clever as a whip there. Get your head out of the clouds! Youll end up crawling back, and the spot at a decent university will already be taken.
But my grades
Grades, grades, Irene waved the knife. Be glad theres something to do around here. Youll stay with me; you wont have to scrape by in some others corner.
Emily fell silent, staring out the window. Her mother had warned her against dreaming long before she even thought of it. Shed checked her Alevel results behind a locked door.
Ninetyfour in English, ninetyone in French, eightynine in History.
She reread the numbers three times, disbelief flashing across her face. Then she sank back onto the pillow, eyes fixed on the crack in the ceiling that looked like a map of some unknown land. Her mind felt oddly empty and ringing at once. She was one of the best pupils in the district. With scores like that she could get into anywhere.
Anywhere
That night she stayed up on university websites until three in the morning, scrolling programmes, reading reviews, comparing entry points. When she landed on the Oxford page, the historic stone façade glimmered on the screen and the description of the modern languages faculty sparked something inside her, like a lock finally clicking open.
This is it, she thought. This is where I belong.
But her mother didnt share the enthusiasm.
Dont even think about it! her voice cracked to a scream. Oxford? Do you expect to leave me here alone?
Irene paced the kitchen, clutching the edge of the table, then the back of a chair.
Mum, Im not leaving you
Youre leaving! Traitor! I raised you, devoted my life to you, and now
The drama played out day after day.
Emilys sleep fell apart. Dark circles grew under her eyes, her appetite vanished. She moved through the flat like a ghost, trying not to be seen by her mother, but the tworoom flat was far too small to hide in.
Irene, thats enough, Aunt Martha, Irenes younger sister, said when she arrived for the weekend and caught the latest act. The girls bright. Let her go, let her study. Its her future!
And what about my future, staying here alone?
Youre fortythree! Youve still got life ahead. Martha snapped. Emily isnt your caretaker! She has her own life.
Grandma, stooped and quiet, rocked her head in the corner.
Irene, let the girl go. Youll bite your own elbows later if you keep denying her a chance at something bigger.
Irene ignored them. In her mind a plan was forming. A few days later Emily rummaged through every drawer, the whole wardrobe, and vanished her passport, birth certificate, and school certificate.
Mum! Where are my documents?
Irene sat before the telly, a smug grin on her face.
Where you cant reach them. I wont sign anything, understand? Youre seventeen; you wont go anywhere without my consent.
Emily collapsed onto a chair, a single thought pounding in her head: applications close in a week, and she had neither papers nor her mothers signature.
She called the university; a polite voice explained that undereighteens need written consent from a legal guardian, no exceptions.
She rang a legal helpline; the adviser confirmed that until she turned eighteen, her mother could dictate her life.
Aunt Martha came back twice more, trying to persuade Irene, but to no avail. Irene clung to her daughter as though her own life depended on it.
Three days before the deadline, Emily gave up. She and her mother drove to the local polytechnic on the towns fringe, a drab building with peeling plaster the colour of stale curd and a crooked sign.
The admissions office smelled of dust and hopelessness. A woman at the desk took the forms without meeting Emilys eyes and muttered about timetables. Emily stepped out onto the forecourt, stared at the grey pavement. Inside was emptiness, burnt out.
See? Its perfect, her mother beamed. Youll be right here with me. No need to go anywhere. I told you there was no point in showing off!
The first months of study were a peculiar torment. Lecturers read from yellowed notes half a century old, students glued to their phones, and the lock on the groundfloor toilet hadnt worked for years, according to rumor.
Emily forced herself to attend, then began to skip.
Where have you vanished off to? asked Yvonne, the only classmate she ever chatted with, catching her in the corridor. In the library.
It was true. The town library became her sanctuary. Shed sit for hours surrounded by textbooks on grammar, phonetics, and cultural studies. She was preparing, though she didnt yet know for what.
Her eighteenth birthday fell on a bleak November Tuesday. Her mother baked a cake, invited the neighbour, and Emily blew out the candles, ate a slice, and retreated to her room.
The next morning she walked to the deans office.
Voluntary withdrawal form she placed the sheet on the desk.
The secretary raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Shed seen worse.
At home Emily retrieved her hidden documents from behind the wardrobe the passport, school certificate, birth certificate all exactly where Irene had tossed them after the university admission.
Where do you think youre off to? her mother shouted as she stood in the doorway.
Emily turned. Irene was frozen.
Im leaving. To Oxford.
What? Again youre doing this? I forbid you!
Im eighteen now. Youve no right to tell me how to live!
Irenes face flushed with fury.
Youre ungrateful! After everything Ive done for you
Ill call when Ive got a job, Emily zipped her bag and walked out, leaving the flat and its cage behind.
At the bus station Aunt Martha waited.
Here, she handed Emily an envelope. I kept it for you. Itll get you started.
Emily tried to protest, but Martha waved her off.
Shut up. You earned this. She hugged her niece tightly, until the knuckles creaked. Dont give up, alright? Whatever happens, dont give up.
The coach to Oxford left at six a.m. Emily watched the grey terraced houses of her hometown melt into the early fog. She didnt cry. No tears fell, just a strange ringing feeling, as if she could finally breathe fully.
Her new room in a student house was tiny a bed, a desk, a chair, and nothing else. Within three days she found work as a waitinggirl in a café. Twelvehour shifts left her feet throbbing by night, and the smell of overfried onions seemed to stick to her hair forever. Yet the pay covered the rent, food, and most importantly the textbooks.
The year ran on a strained rhythm: mornings spent sleeping in, afternoons on the job, nights with notes, tests, and listening exercises. She lived on the edge of hunger literally. She survived on kitchen scraps from the café, tea with a slice of bread for dinner, and she dropped six kilos. Once she nearly fainted in the dining room; the manager sent her home and told her to eat properly.
But Emily kept moving forward. She had a dream and she wouldnt surrender.
In the summer she reapplied to the very same university, the very same department. The entry threshold was high, but her own scores were still higher.
The lists were posted in August. Emily stood before the board, scanning for her surname, heart thudding in her throat.
She found it.
A place funded by the university.
She sank onto the steps of the venerable stone building, vaulted ceilings and stained glass above her. Passersby glanced, but she didnt care.
Shed done it.
Five years rushed by like a single, packed day. She never returned to her hometown. She ignored her mothers pleas to come home for Christmas or her birthday.
Irene called less and less. Their conversations began with complaints and ended with accusations. Emily would nod, say right, I understand, love you, goodbye, and go back to her life.
She received her redribboned degree on a June morning, stepped out of the university holding the diploma, and paused on the riverside promenade.
A job offer already waited in her mailboxa multinational translation firm in London, a salary shed never dared to dream of.
Her phone buzzed. Her mother.
Emily, when are you coming back? I have
Mum, she cut in, soft but firm. I just got my degree. Ive got a job in London. Im not coming back.
A pause, then a sob.
Youve abandoned me! I knew it! Ungrateful
Bye, Mum. Ill call in a few months.
She hung up, looked at the grey water glinting in the sunrise, a ferry humming in the distance.
Emily smiled to herself, quietly. She hadnt let anyone break her. Shed achieved what she set out to do.
