by Mel Darbon
“Nothankyou, Lawrence.”
“Why don’t I come with you to Victoria?” He looks at his watch. “It’s ten fifty-three now…I’m sure I can move my appointment half an hour.”
I shake my head. “No thank you, Lawrence.”
He holds his hand out to me. It’s soft and warm. “Okay then, if you’re sure.”
I tippy-toe up and kiss him on the cheek. I can see the lights from the Christmas tree in his eyes.
“Thank you, Rose.”
As I walk to the underground sign I keep turning back. Lawrence hasn’t moved. He waves. I take one last look as I go down into the dark. He’s still there. He looks small.
I go down a long snake-tunnel. It goes on for ever. I put my shoulders back. I’m brave. Jack is at the end of all my journeys.
People ant-march in a line. I can’t stop to put my bag in my other hand. If I do they’ll march right over me. My arm is burning in my shoulder.
In front of me I can hear music. Someone is singing. But I don’t know what the song is. Or why it’s in this place. Jack would know the song. He knows lots and more than me. It gets louder as I walk.
Round the corner a man sits on the floor with his guitar on his lap. He shouldn’t sit on the ground. He’ll get very dirty. He has a hat with a feather on his head. And a black hat on the floor with money in it. I know these people. We have them in Henley-on-Thames. On holiday days. I feel sad for him cos no one stops to listen. I stand next to him by the wall, as I like his singing. I tuck my bag behind my feet. I can wake my arm up now, as it’s gone to sleep. I listen to his song.
The music is happy and sad. And full of magic. A lady smiles at the man and throws a gold coin into his hat as she rushes past. The gold ones are the best.
On the other side of the tunnel there is a big, big picture in a circle of butterflies and bees. And lots of insects. It’s beautiful. I don’t know what the writing means. Butterflies flutter all over the circle. The colours paint rainbows in me.
I close my eyes and let the man sing in my head.
Dream Jack holds my hand and twirls me around. He shapes the words with his mouth, “I love you.” He smiles and lets me go. And watches me dance. I’m the ballet lady in my grandma’s music-making box, spinning on my toes. I’m a wind-blown tree. I’m a dandelion clock floating wishes up to the sky. I drift on clouds and pop the sun with my finger tops.
I peep through my eyes and the picture butterflies float off the flowers. They flitter in and out of my arms. Jack catches a tiny blue one in his hand. Its wings beat the patterns of the song. It glows in the shadows. He lifts his hand up to his lips and blows the butterfly to me. He laughs with happy. I am me dancing. I am free. I am Rose. I wave to Jack and laugh with him…
The laugh turns into a wrong laugh. I open my eyes. My happy crashes to the floor. Two teenager boys nudge each other with their elbows.
“Look at the dancing monkey!” one says with a nasty smile. “Her tongue’s hanging out. Yuck!”
“Leave her alone!” a voice shouts next to me. A lady with a baby in a bag on her front frowns at the boys. “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Yeah,” someone echoes behind me.
The blond boy grabs the dark boy’s arm and sticks his fingers in a V at the lady. They run. They shove a man with a suitcase on wheels. They criss and cross away. Their laughing vanishes with them round the corner.
The kind lady gives me a worry look. “Are you okay?”
“Yesthankyouverymuch. Thankyou for helping Rose.”
“Don’t take any notice of them. They’re just silly boys.”
“My brother Ben can be silly. But he’s not nasty.”
The singing man has stopped. He smiles up at me. “What’s your favourite song, little lady?”
“‘Love is in the Air’. It’s mine and Jack’s song. It was my mum and dad’s song but we borrowed it from them. Cos it happy-sings what we feel.”
“Yeah, I can do that one.” He shuts his eyes and does a little hum first. Then he starts to sing about love whispering in the trees. And thundering in the sea. And he doesn’t know if he’s dreaming.
The lady takes my hand and we dance together. She holds her baby bag with the other hand. People stop rushing past and join in. Some clap to the music. Everyone is smiling at me. The sun comes up in the tunnel. It shines on the walls. It shines on me. It lights up all the people. We dance and dance.
When the singing stops everyone claps and whistles and stamps their feet. Silver and gold coins shower into the black hat on the floor. I feel my cheeks pink-flush with happy. The kind lady kisses the top of her baby’s head. I peek into the baby bag.
“This is my Amelie.” She kneels down to let me see her.
The baby coos at me. She looks just like me.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” the lady says.
I nod and stroke the baby’s soft hair.
The kind lady smiles a big smile with all her teeth. She puts her head on the side ways. “Who are you with, sweetie? You’re not travelling on your own, are you?”
“Yes.” I stand up tall. “I’m going to be with my Jack. I can look after me.”
“All the trains are topsy-turvy because of the snow.” She looks at her watch. “It’s eleven fifteen now. I could easily take you to your next stop, if you like?”
I get my tickets out my bag and my list from Lawrence. I show them to her. “See? I can manage, thankyouverymuch.”
“You can…? I mean…of course you can.” Her voice wobbles. But her eyes shine into mine.
“I’m in-de-pen-dent. I work at Waitrose on a Saturday and sometimes at Jim’s cafe when he’s run off his feet.”
The kind lady laughs. “That’s wonderful, really wonderful.” She looks at her watch. “I have to go, now.” She wraps me in a hug. The baby wriggles against me. “Bye bye.” She waves at me before walking out of sight.
The singing man starts another song. People carry on their journeys. I pick up my bag and get my purse. I put some money in the singing hat. The man winks at me. His song follows me as I go. Walking in time with all the people.
A warm wind blows the hair off my face. I hear the clack and whistle of the tube train. Victoria line. Light blue. Five stops going south. I hug myself inside. I’m taking me to Jack. Not long now.
It’s easy.
Victoria Station has even more people than Paddington. I don’t know how to get through them. I keep saying, “Excusemeplease.” But no one hears me.
I have to find my train. I can see the train-time board, but not what it says. I wish I was taller.
A lady with an orange bobble hat takes it off and shakes it. Drops of water splash my face. “Sorry, love.” She hands me a tissue. “Here you go, dry your face with that.”
It smells of peppermint.
The man next to her stamps snow off his boots. “My toes are going to drop off, Pam, let’s get a cup of tea to warm us up while we wait.”
I look at the man’s boots as they walk away and hope his toes don’t fall off. The train-time board keeps changing the light-up letters. It says the same word under a lot of the trains. People look cross. My neck hurts from straining up to see. I split the word up in my head, can…can-kelled. I don’t see what that means. I can’t see the lady with the orange bobble hat to ask her. I try again. I break the word up into pieces. They trick me by jumping about.
A man talking on his phone throws his bag on the floor. “Typical! Cancelled. First sign of snow and they can’t cope. That’s the second time this week they’ve cancelled my bloody train.”
I understand what the word on the board means now. Can-selled. My train has been taken away. I wonder where it’s gone. A voice speaks into the air but I can’t catch it all. I’m inside my head bubble and the world is hushed up.
I hope my train comes back soon.
Every time the train board changes my heart spins round. But it still says the same word.
CANCELLED.
My
feet have gone icy and I can’t move them. A hand on my shoulder makes me jump.
The lady with the orange bobble hat puts her face in mine. “You still here, love? You look frozen.”
“I have to wait for my train to come back.”
“It could be ages yet, if at all, but they’ll announce it when there’s a change. Do you understand everything on the board?”
“I listen to the train-board voice telling me cos reading is more difficult. My teacher says I have knots in my brain. They need untangling, so I can think straight. I don’t think some of the knots will ever go away.”
“Dear, dear, that’s a shame. Are you here by yourself, love?”
“Yes. I’m all by myself. I can do lots of stuff all by myself. I cook dinner on Wednesday night with Ben. Though I do most of it. And I have a Saturday job. And—”
“That’s nice, but you don’t want to get stuck at Victoria on your own in this weather. Have you got someone you can ring to come and get you?”
I nod. “Lots of people.”
The man with her, whose toes might fall off, tugs her arm.
“Are your toes okay? Did they drop off?” I can’t see through his boots.
He throws his head back and laughs. “No, they were all there last time I checked.” He has furry earmuffs on now that make him look like a teddy bear. “Come on, Pam.”
She shakes his hand off. “You ring someone then, but why don’t you go and get a hot drink in one of the cafes while you wait? It will warm you up from the inside.”
“We’ll try and get a bus, I think that’s our best bet.” The man checks his watch. He smiles at me and leads her away through the crowds.
I’m shaky. I think the cold has crept inside me and frozen everything up. I only had a bit of toast at breakfast. I can see a coffee shop by the sign for platform seven. That’s my lucky number, so I decide to go there.
Through the station entrance I can see snow falling in a white curtain. Everything has lost its shape. The sky has tricked the street lights into coming on. But it’s only half way round the clock past twelve. There’s a line of people at the bus stop, curling round the corner. Everyone’s stamping their feet.
The cafe is full up and it’s warm and steamy. People’s shoes are dripping puddles on the floor. I join a queue that stops and starts towards the counter.
“What can I get you?”
“Hotchocletplease.”
“Y’what?”
“Hot choclet, please.”
“Anythin’ else?”
“A flap-jack, please. I like them cos they’ve got Jack’s name in. And they taste nice.”
The cafe lady smiles. “That’s sweet. Four pound twenty-five, please.”
I have to put my bag down and find my purse.
“Hurry up.” The man behind me sighs. “I have a meeting to get to and I don’t want to be late. Isn’t someone with you?”
The cafe lady glares at him. I put my purse on the counter. She helps me count out the money.
She drops some coins back in my purse, smiles again and looks round me to the man. “What can I get you?”
I stand to the side to wait for my drink. I look round for a table to sit at. I can’t see one.
“Here you are. Careful, it’s very full.”
The lady puts my hot chocolate onto the tray. My bag is heavy and it’s hard holding onto everything. The busy man knocks past me, spilling my drink.
A bit of me wants to go home.
I see a girl with pink and green hair sitting by the window. She has a hat like mine. Made from black felt. With a greeny-brown feather tucked into the hat band. There are two seats at her table with big rucksacks on them. The boy next to her is resting his head on his arms. As I walk over she sees me and pokes the boy with her phone and says something. He leans over and pushes one of the bags onto the floor.
“Thankyou.”
He grunts at me like Ben and puts his head down again.
I tuck my bag on my lap and put my hands round my mug of hot chocolate. My fingers tingle. I can feel the heat buzzing inside them. My nose feels like it’s blushing.
Through the window I see the man who doesn’t want to be late. He’s waving his fist at a train man.
The train speaker voice starts to talk and everyone sits up and listens. The trains haven’t come back yet. I’m scared I’m never going to get to Brighton. I try and guess what Jack would do. I make a Jack picture in my head, but I can’t get his mouth to talk to me.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“What don’t you know what to do?” the girl with painted hair asks me.
I didn’t know I’d talked out loud. I feel silly. The boy next to her is rolling smoking bits up in a square of paper, like students at my college do. He scrapes his chair back and goes out the door.
“No, I don’t want one, thanks,” the girl shouts after him. She looks at me and shrugs. “Guys! Your purple boots are so cool. I LOVE the roses painted on them. I saw them when you came in. Look at mine.”
She swings her leg up onto the table knocking the salt flying. “Shit! What d’you think? I painted the daisies myself.”
“You shouldn’t put dirty boots on the table.”
She grabs the salt pot rolling across the floor and hiccups. “The table’s dirtier than my boots.”
Her pink tights are full of holes. She puts her finger through one of them and rips it some more.
“Your legs must be very chilly.”
She throws her head back and laughs. When she’s stopped she leans across the table and taps my hand. “Hang on, didn’t you ask something? Oh I know! What is it you don’t know what to do?”
I pull my hand away. Her make up is smudged under her eyes and her breath smells like my dad’s when he drinks some Scottish whisky. She keeps staring at me, so I answer. “Idon’tknowhowtogettoBrightonorwhattodoifnotrainscomeback.”
“Ha, ha! You sound more pissed than me. I didn’t get any of that except for ‘Brighton’. What’s your name? I’m Paris. After the city. Thank GOD I wasn’t called Baghdad or Dusseldorf. Ha ha ha! Sorry, I talk too much. It drives Leo mad. Leo’s my boyfriend. The one having a smoke.”
“My boyfriend is Jack. He’s in Brighton. I’m going to find him.”
“What d’you mean find him? Has he got lost? You could always go to Lost Property.” She laughs again making herself choke on her breath.
When she’s finished coughing I say, “I don’t know what you said.”
“Just ignore me. Leo doesn’t get me or my jokes either. Can’t you just ring him, you know, ring your boyfriend?”
“His phone got broken up.”
“Okay, I like, still don’t get how he’s lost, he could easily use another phone. He must have mates.”
“Jack was taken away. My dad won’t let me be with him. He hid all the cards Jack sent to me. I thought Jack didn’t love me any more.”
Paris looks at me with her mouth open before banging her hand on the table. It makes me jump. And the people behind her.
“That’s outrageous! I’d tell my dad to eff off if he tried to stop me seeing Leo…that’s if I had a dad.” She takes a sugar lump out of the bowl on the table, bites a bit off and drops it in her Coca-Cola. It fizzes up out of the bottle. She catches it with her mouth and does a big burp. She clamps her hand over her mouth. “Oops, pardon me.”
“Is your dad dead?”
“Nah, I just don’t see him.”
“Why not?”
“I hate him.”
She frowns and takes another big mouthful of her drink. “I’ve always hated him.”
I feel sad. I can’t work out hating my dad. Dad lets Ben chill with his girlfriend in his room but makes a fuss about Jack and me being in my bedroom. That makes me unhappy. And he lets Ben stay out until eleven on the clock at the weekend. I have to be home by ten. That makes me cross. Now I’m more angry with my dad than for ever before cos he won’t let me see Jack… But inside me, my heart tell
s me I love him.
“Why d’you hate your dad, Paris?”
“Why do I hate my dad? He’s an arsehole, that’s why.”
“You shouldn’t swear.”
“Why not?”
“It’srude.”
“I quite like swearing, it says what you feel. Shit, bollocks, bastard…don’t look like that, I’m teasing you. You can take your hands off your ears, I won’t swear again – promise! I’m talking bollocks, oops, sooorry. God I’m pissed. Sorry again.”
I open one eye. Paris drinks some more Coca-Cola. It spills down her front, but she doesn’t wipe it off. She stretches her arms above her head then points her finger at me.
“Where were we with your dad? I know! Why won’t he let you see your boyfriend?”
“They think he’s going to hurt me.”
“That’s ridiculous; everyone gets hurt when they’re in love. I sometimes wonder why we bother with any of it as most of the time you’re miserable. Is it like that with your boyfriend?”
“Jack makes the sun shine in my head.”
“Oh my God, that’s so lovely.” Her voice trembles. She presses her face into her serviette leaving black and green on it. “Wish I felt like that with Leo.”
Leo comes back in, reaches under the table and drags his bag over my feet.
“Paris! Get your stuff, Gaz has a party on and we can crash at his tonight.”
“What about our train?”
“What train? They’re all fucked, so let’s go.”
Leo shakes his head and snowflakes spin down to the floor. Paris puts her hand out to catch one. “I want to go to Paris, the city of love and romance, where my mum conceived me.”
“Yeah sure, we’ll go tomorrow, now come on. Jeez! How much have you drunk?”
He tries to tug her through the door but Paris pulls his hand off her arm.
“We can’t leave Rose.”
“Who the fuck’s Rose?”
Paris points at me. I won’t look at him. His face is full of ugly and he said a very bad word again.
“Christ, Paris, she was on her own before. What is it with you? You’re always picking up bloody weirdos.”
I turn my face to him. “I’mnotabloodyweirdo. I’m Rose.”
