Lost for Words (10 page)

I took a shower and put on jeans and one of her tops. She gave me a look when she saw me wearing her top but didn’t say anything. She was wearing a great skirt and loose layers of jumpers and shirts. If I wore an outfit like that, I’d look like I was trying to be cool, but she made it look arty and good. She had paint on her cheek. She said, “Are you
finally
ready?”

We walked to the station together. She smoked a
cigarette. Something else she’d taken up at art college. She talked about another project, something to do with lost gloves, which made me think of Mum’s collection, but I didn’t say anything, I just listened and nodded and admired her pretty blond hair as we waited on the platform together. We arrived at King’s Cross and changed for the Piccadilly line. It was close and busy on the Underground. We ran to catch a train. Emily got on, but the lace of my trainer was undone and I stumbled. She jumped off to help me, and the doors shut before we had a chance to get back on together. The next train was two minutes away. I didn’t think it mattered.

The worst thing Emily ever did was wait for me to tie up my shoelace. If she hadn’t waited for me, we’d have been on a different train. If she had made me get on the first train and told me to leave my lace, then everything would be different. And if Mark hadn’t gone to play squash, he’d maybe be enjoying his day with Katherine today not knowing his heart was a time bomb.

Everything’s a time bomb.

FRIDAY, APRIL 21
^ST

The temperature has dropped, although it should be getting warmer. I’m sitting outside King’s Cross Station wondering what to do with myself. I wish now I’d brought another jumper and some gloves.

I left the house really early today, before Mum got up. I was going to Bowood Road. It was like a mantra.
18 Bowood Road. 18 Bowood Road. 18 Bowood Road
. Not that I know where it is, really. Elephant & Castle somewhere. I figured I’d just go and work it out. So I walked all the way to King’s Cross, but then I got stuck outside. Since I got there, hundreds of people passed by, but no one seemed to see me. The air was acrid. People rushed past, looking down.

I watched a man wearing a suit. I imagined blood on his cheek like a jagged, red pen mark. He dove into the entry point of the Underground. I wondered who he was and where he was going, which train he was catching. I wondered if he realized how it was just chance that he wasn’t sitting on that train. He’d already forgotten, probably forgot about it the very next day, moved on to his life, his office, his wife or girlfriend. I hated the man suddenly. But then he was gone into the crowd and he didn’t matter. Nobody mattered.

I looked at the crush of people passing. I wanted to open out my arms and scream at them that they shouldn’t go down there. They shouldn’t go into the Underground!

I couldn’t go into the train station. I couldn’t go in and catch a train. Just the thought of it made me want to weep. In the end I bought a
London A–Z
map book so I could find Bowood Road. If I caught a bus, there was a route I could walk afterward that went past St. Thomas’s Hospital, which
was where I was born, so I decided to go that way. I caught the bus and then walked REALLY FAR. I had no real idea that London was
so
big. Or so lonely. I mean, I knew in my head it was big, but I’ve never
felt
it before.

I arrived at St. Thomas’s Hospital and looked at the grey boxy windows, trying to picture myself as a baby. Had Emily been brought to visit me? She must have been. I tried to bring the building to life with any memory I had, but I didn’t have any. In my imagination the hospital had assumed more importance. Standing there, I realized how many thousands of babies must have been born behind those windows, were probably being born right now. I was no different. Not special, not anything.

I walked south. The streets were filled with little shops and pubs, people busy with their own lives, buses streaming past, cars beeping, the noise and chaos of London.

And I walked and walked.

And then I got there.

Bowood Road is narrow, full of identical terraced houses. I’d hoped to remember something, anything, but if it hadn’t been for the photograph, I would never have known our old house. The sun was out, full and warm. I sat on a low wall opposite 18 Bowood Road. At about four in the afternoon a boy came up to number 20 and went in. Ten minutes later he bounded back out like a puppy, smiled quickly at me, and rushed off. He looked about my age, a blond boy with
a sweet smile. I smiled back. This blond boy could have been my friend if Dad hadn’t died and we hadn’t moved away from Bowood Road. We’d have gone to each other’s houses all the time and hung out. As babies I bet we played together.

I walked away. My hands were shaking.

I walked on automatic pilot. Ages later I realized I was hungry. I went into one place thinking I might find something to eat, but when I saw everyone was drinking and playing darts or pool, I backed out onto the pavement.

I saw the word
Emily’s
on a scruffy building next door, the letters made from red tubular lights. Her name. A restaurant. Inside it was gloomy and empty. It smelled of cooked burgers and the grease of years of frying chips. An old pop song played quietly in the background. A woman with thick yellow-stained glasses stood by the door, cleaning one of the tables. She was thin and beaky, like a half-starved heron. Her movements were really quick.

She said, hardly stopping, “What can I help you with?” and I wondered from her accent if she was Scottish.

“I need something to eat.”

“Okay.” She gave me a look then and we both paused. I felt like she was weighing me up; I could almost see the darkening of her pupils as she considered something. She said softly, “Are you okay?”

“Just hungry.”

“I know the feeling,” she said. She leaned over and gave
me a gentle pat on the shoulder. She led me to a table near the back.

I looked at the menu. “I’ll have the chicken and chips, please.”

“Ketchup?”

I nodded. “And a Coke.”

Time floated past. I looked at the photographs of celebrities on the wall. The chicken arrived. I ate everything on the heaped plate. I went up to the counter surrounded by fairy lights, and paid my bill with a torn note.

She said, “Hope you’re feeling better. I’m Emily. This is my restaurant. Come back anytime.”

I wanted to tell her that her name was my sister’s name, that her restaurant was named after my sister. I wanted to tell her I was too frightened to get on the train home, but she was a stranger and so I remained silent.

I left. The evening had slipped by. I phoned Mum and lied and told her that Rosa-Leigh and I were still hanging out. She sighed and said, “I have dinner ready.”

“Sorry,” I said quickly before I switched off my phone and started walking.

It was a long, lonely walk, and in the end I had to catch two different buses because I was so tired. By the time I got in, it was late. Mum had made a chicken casserole. She’d put my plate in the fridge and gone to bed. I didn’t eat it. I wasn’t hungry.

SATURDAY, APRIL 22
^ND

This afternoon, from my spot sunning myself on the roof of our house, I saw Mum coming up the road. She was smiling and talking into her mobile. In her other hand was a bag of shopping. She didn’t notice me watching her. Tears trickled from my eyes. I’m going crazy with sadness. I wish I’d never got on the stupid train. I wish I’d tied my shoelaces properly. I lay back and stared at the big empty sky, hoping for answers.

SUNDAY, APRIL 23
^RD

I woke from a dream where I kissed Dan. I tried to remember him kissing me, and my insides skipped with the memory of his lips, of his hands pressing against me. To make me forget about him, because he hasn’t called, I concentrated on the posters of blue and white buildings in Greece on my walls. I looked at the scrawled quotations from my favorite books on my chalkboard. I gazed out the window framed by blue silky curtains looking over a telephone pole populated occasionally with birds.

I can’t connect the girl in this room with the girl who was kissing Dan at that party. Nothing feels the same anymore, not even me. I don’t know who I am or how I fit into a world I don’t understand.

I feel like going to Bowood Road again to look at our
old house. Things in my life were good there. Maybe I’ll go now just to pass the endless time.

Everything was horrible. Awful. I don’t even understand what happened. I’m so embarrassed. The walk started okay. It was sunny outside when I left the house. I caught a bus and got off near Westminster. It was surprisingly warm. I sweated as I walked, and my throat started to hurt, taking in the dirty, warm air. Central London is so busy and polluted.

The buildings in Westminster are beautiful. I didn’t think I cared about buildings, but the Houses of Parliament are so perfect, so stunning, that I can’t believe I’ve never really looked at them before. We’ve driven past, but I’ve never stood in front of them like I did today. If I could draw, I’d sketch them. When I try to write about the color of the stone or the shape of the spires and the feeling there of age and history, I can’t get the words onto the page. I wish I could. This morning Big Ben rose out of the mist, and despite all the cars and the traffic and the noise, I swear I could feel the past weighing on me. In a good way.

Outside the Houses of Parliament there was a small protest against the war in Iraq. The war seems pointless. Even thinking about it confuses me. Some say the war is making things better. Who for? Not for me. All these people being killed and for what? For religion? It
doesn’t seem possible. People are angry, people are confused, people are frightened, maybe, but not because of religion.

Dan’s family is Muslim, I think, although I’m just guessing, and Kalila’s a Muslim, for sure. Megan’s a Christian although she’s totally unchristian all the time! I’m not anything, I don’t think, although Mum occasionally goes to church and I have been a few times. I don’t think I even believe in God sometimes. Rosa-Leigh said she is going to become some sort of Buddhist one day. In the end we’re all just people.

Just as I arrived at 18 Bowood Road, a girl who looked at least a couple of years older than me took out a bag of rubbish. She put it in the bin and went back inside. Emily
never
took out the rubbish. Never. I wanted to follow the girl inside. I wanted to see where I grew up, where I lived when my family was whole.

So, stupidly, I opened the gate.

The sun made striped patterns on the path. I knocked on the front door. As if she’d been waiting on the other side, the girl who’d taken out the rubbish opened it. She frowned. Her face was closed.

She said, “What?”

“I—” I suddenly had nothing to say. “I’d like to—”

The girl turned before I finished the sentence and called, “Mum,” over her shoulder. She faced me again.
Except she wasn’t looking at me. She was waiting, like a person at a station might wait for a train, not really focusing on anything. I didn’t matter to her, because I was a stranger. And so to get her attention, I said, “I used to live here.”

Her gaze snapped back to mine, her eyes dark as Emily’s. “Oh,” she said sarcastically.

I began to feel really stupid. What did it matter where I used to live? What did any of it matter? None of it was going to bring Emily back. I felt a panic attack surging like a tsunami.

I reached out a hand to steady myself. I was finding it hard to breathe. I didn’t want to panic in front of this stranger, but thinking that made me feel worse. I said, “I’m sorry to bother you. I just—”

She shook her head as if a fly were buzzing around her.

A woman appeared in the corridor, an older woman, thin face, long, dyed red hair.

The girl at the door said very loudly, “She used to live here, Mum.”

I whispered, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

The woman said, “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. And then it was as if the ground rushed up to meet me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Oh God.” Nausea rose in my throat. I laid my hand across my mouth to stop myself being sick. “I don’t know why I’m here.” I looked at them, somehow lost my footing, stumbled, and fell. Hard.

The woman pushed past the girl at the door and leaned over me. “Give me some help, Sally,” she said to her daughter. The woman got me to a seated position and made me copy her breathing. “That’s right, breathe slowly.” She squinted at me. “I’m Eleanor Summerfield,” she said.

I nodded, struggling not to faint again.

Eleanor said, “Why don’t you come in and we’ll sort this out?”

The girl, Sally, was back in the house, and she was looking worried. As I followed Eleanor through the short corridor to the kitchen, I looked at the pictures of Sally all along the walls. She was a dancer, it seemed. I tried to remember the house when I’d been in it as a little girl. I had a flash of memory of Emily laughing, trotting along in Mum’s high heels.

The kitchen was small and dark, with only a little window. I could picture Mum reading the paper in there. I thought I remembered my dad, the faint shape of him, and then the memory was gone. The kitchen was different from how I thought it would be. Changed.

It smelled of fresh coffee. Eleanor guided me to sit at the plastic table; my hands shook. I said, “I’m sorry.” I was going to say something else, but I didn’t know what to say, so I sat there with my palms down and tried to steady my breathing. I said, “I don’t recognize the house; well, I kind of do. I think we had a round table and maybe there was some sort of plant over there.”

“It must have been years since you lived here. We’ve been here forever.” Eleanor switched the kettle on. “We finished the coffee. Make some tea, Sally.” She sat next to me.

“I thought I’d remember more. It’s just shadows of memory. Shapes. Nothing I can be sure of.”

Sally said, “Is she all right?”

“Make it sugary. Should help. There are some clean cups in the dishwasher.”