Ellie’s belly is so weird. I can’t keep my eyes off it. She is really skinny everywhere else but now has this mound to carry around in front of her. She doesn’t like me staring, though. She says I am ‘unnerving’. I looked that up too. Also, not a compliment. She says I’m weird. Me?! I’m not the one with a Space Hopper up my jumper. I try not to get caught staring though because it makes Dad cross if I upset Ellie. ‘She’s very good to you,’ he says all the time. As though saying it all the time makes it more true.
There is a kiosk in the waiting room that sells teas and coffees and breakfast to people rushing to work in the city. There are no tables though, the place is too small. People have to eat their breakfasts standing up or take them on to the train and hope to get a seat. My favourite breakfast is a bacon buttie. I love the smell of warm fat sizzling and white bread frying; it reminds me of my granddad cooking breakfast for me when I was little. It’s usually a woman who serves behind the counter, but sometimes it’s a man. They are from Taiwan. I know because I heard the man tell a customer once. I didn’t know where Taiwan was, and it took ages to find it on Dad’s globe. Most of one Sunday afternoon, but I didn’t mind really, because it was something to do.
The Taiwanese couple tune their small radio into a classical music channel which seems to be surprising to the passengers, who always look astonished as they soak up the pianos and violins along with the smell of coffee and fried bread. It is certainly a change because in most shops and cafés only pop songs are played. I like the classical music because that also reminds me of my granddad who had old records of composers that have been dead for ages. I remember him telling me their names – Beethoven, Bach and Chopin – but I don’t really know which was which. My granddad died when I was eight which is so sad. If he was still alive, I think I would know which composer was responsible for which bit of music and maybe I wouldn’t even be sitting in this waiting room. I’d be sitting with him, most likely. In his lovely warm front room that had too much furniture for its small size but always smelt of sunshine and polish. Which was nice.
Obviously, Mum was more sad than I was about him dying because while he was my granddad, he was her dad and dads trump granddads. My dad said the way my mum grieved was indulgent and that it was disrespectful to the memory of my granddad, who liked people to be happy and would not want us crying. I don’t know but I did try not to cry in front of either of them because it upset them both in different ways. Because my mum cried so much, my dad made friends with Ellie. He’s explained it wasn’t his fault.
I think I must take after my granddad because I like people to be happy too. I think I am a person who is happiest when everyone else is happy. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
Waiting rooms are not peaceful; people always have a sort of jumpiness about them. I suppose they are worried they are going to miss their train. I know I worry, not if it is late but what if it was cancelled? What would I do then? Where would I go? But I like the place anyway. It feels safe, not one place or the other, just where I get to be me. Today it is rainy, so there are puddles of water on the tiled floor which are always tricky for the ladies in high heels and umbrellas are inconveniently shaken, scattering rain over me. Even so, I think this is where I am happiest because there’s no one to make happy here, but me.
The journey starts well. The train is on time. I get a seat with no one next to me, and no one talks to me or so much as smiles in my direction. It is best if they don’t because I’m not allowed to talk to strangers, but some strangers are women who look like grandmas; they don’t know the rules about talking to children, I don’t think. Then it’s embarrassing because my choice is to a) look rude by ignoring them or b) talk to them which is against the rules. The journey starts to go wrong when there is no one to meet me off the train. There isn’t always. Sometimes I have to get the bus, but I thought today that Dad was going to pick me up. That’s what he’d said. So now I have to think do I a) get the bus but what if he is on his way and he arrives, and I am already gone. That will make him cross or b) wait for him here at the station but it is getting dark and it’s the last bus, if he doesn’t come and I miss the last bus, I’ll be in real trouble.
I get the bus.
It’s a ten-minute walk from the bus stop to Dad’s. ‘Nothing at all’, he says, although I have never seen him catch a bus ever. He drives a BMW. It’s raining hard now so I walk as quickly as possible, sometimes running, although it is hard to run carrying a suitcase. I do it in seven and a half minutes. I time myself.
I quietly let myself in with my own key. I saw a report on the news about latchkey kids. It made me feel a
