Chapter 1
Lorna
Euston station, 8.30 p.m. It’s midsummer and London sweats and steams, clutched in the middle of a heatwave. The after-work crowds have thinned but the concourse is still busy, figures in damp, crumpled suits staring at the announcement boards where times and destinations flash in orange letters. Families huddle in groups, mothers fanning young children and handing out water bottles as they wait, perched on piles of luggage. A surprising scent of coconut wafts from the glowing doorway of The Body Shop, mingling with the sourer human smells of hundreds of hot passengers leaving and arriving, carrying bags and their own secret burdens. A few discarded evening newspapers litter the floor, trampled underfoot by rushing commuters and holidaymakers. A police officer patrols the perimeter of the station, an Alsatian sniffing the air at the end of a short lead. Occasionally the officer pauses on his route to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead.
We are early. The 9.20 train to Fort William is up there on the board but there’s no platform yet. Beside me my daughter Ella pulls her new pink suitcase as though it’s empty, her steps light. My own case feels much heavier as it drags behind me. Partly because this whole trip was Ella’s idea really, not mine.
I glance across at her, my teenage daughter on the cusp of turning fourteen in just a few weeks’ time, as she pauses, staring eagerly up at the clock. Her pale cheeks are flushed with excitement and the warmth of this summer evening and her auburn hair hangs loose, for once in natural curls rather than the poker-straight style she spends nearly an hour achieving each morning. When Ella asked for hair straighteners for Christmas, I refused at first. I’ve always loved her curls, ever since she was a baby and the soft ringlets first started to grow. I’ll always remember the sweet, talcum-powder scent of her head when she was a baby and the feeling of her hair tickling my face when she struggled to sleep as a toddler and shared my bed. Back then I’d often wake with Ella’s face pressed against my cheek. Her reddish-brown curls would be the first thing I’d see when I opened my eyes. The thought of her singeing them makes me wince. And yet she was insistent about those straighteners, pleading with me for the first time in her life. So I bought them. When she opened them she nearly knocked over the small Christmas tree in our flat as she leapt over to thank me with an eager hug. That’s partly why I agreed to this trip: it’s only the second time she’s ever truly asked anything of me.
My hair is the same shade as Ella’s but even wilder – I long ago gave up trying to control my own curls and today they’re pulled off my face in a messy bun, the nape of my neck damp from the heat and the rucksack on my back. How is it so hot? Surely it should be cooler this late in the day, but the heat clings to me.
‘Shall we grab some food while we wait?’
Ella glances across at my question. There’s wariness in her eyes. We’ve always been so close: the two of us against the world. But these past few days have tested us like nothing else. I can feel my emotions simmering beneath the surface – anger, fear, grief – but I push them down like clothes stuffed into an overfull suitcase. I may have my reservations about being here but here we are. In the end I agreed to this trip for my daughter’s sake. And perhaps for my own too. After all these years, maybe it’s finally time to go back to the place I once escaped and to face everything that I left behind.
‘Leon?’ I suggest, knowing, of course, that it’s her favourite. Her lips part into a broad smile and there it is, one of those surging swells of love that so often take me off guard, a love that fills up every cell in my body and makes me feel as though I could levitate. For a second, I forget the reason why we are here and everything that awaits us at the end of our long journey and link my arm through my daughter’s.
‘Good idea, Mum,’ she replies.
Ella waits with the bags while I queue for our food. Ahead of me in the line is a family – two grandparents, a grown-up daughter and three children, one in a buggy, one on the mother’s hip and one holding the hand of his grandfather. My stomach twists as I watch them.
‘You all have what you like,’ the grandfather says, reaching for his wallet.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ replies his daughter, smiling wearily but gratefully.
I look away, blinking quickly.
‘Next please!’ calls the server and I return my attention to the menu, choosing two halloumi wraps and the waffle fries Ella loves. A few seconds later I’m holding the steaming foil parcels and returning to our table outside where Ella is wiping a debris of discarded food and litter into a paper napkin. On a neighbouring table a pigeon with one gnarled pink foot hops among a scattering of leftovers. From up here we have a view of the concourse below as well as the platform boards. I can hear the hum of the street outside, the buses pulling up in front of the station and the Friday night traffic crawling down the Euston Road. Even inside, the air feels heavy with fumes and dust: the hot, heavy fug of the city that I have grown used to over the past twenty-two years.
I moved here as a teenager, arriving with a stolen suitcase and a head full of dreams. I quickly learnt how brutal the city can be though, especially when you are alone with nothing but a few hundred pounds in coins and rolled-up notes stuffed in your rucksack. I took whatever jobs I could find. Temp jobs and then years of bar work. It was only when I fell pregnant with Ella at twenty-six that I decided I needed a proper career and trained as a teacher, helped out by a hefty student loan and the council flat I managed to get for us both in a sixties block on the Isle of Dogs, that not-quite island encircled by the muddy River Thames where the shining tower blocks of Canary Wharf glint garishly on the horizon. Over the years I managed to save just enough money to buy our flat from the council, although each month I still feel the same panic that I might not be able to meet my mortgage payment. I always do manage it but the fear is still there, as familiar by now as the sound of my own breath. I’ve always been anxious about money. Because if something happens – if I get sick or the boiler breaks or I suddenly need something important for Ella, there’s no one to bail us out. I know this well because all of those things and plenty more have happened over the years. And each time I’ve had to find some way to make ends meet by myself.
Ella’s phone chirps and she looks down, her hair falling slightly in front of her face. She smiles and types a reply, her thumbs tapping at incredible speed on the screen.
‘Ruby and Farah?’ I ask. The two girls have been Ella’s best friends since primary school. I’m used to seeing them at our flat, preparing snacks for the three of them and hearing their laughter spilling out of Ella’s bedroom. I know it makes me a terrible mother to admit it, but many times over the years that noise has caused an involuntary pang of jealousy in my gut. Being envious of your own daughter does not feature on the ‘ways to be a good mum’ list. But I do envy Ella’s closeness with her friends. I lost touch with the ones I used to have and have struggled to make them ever since. Making friends means answering too many questions and revealing too much about yourself and your past. It’s simpler to keep to myself, devoting my life to Ella and my job. Mostly I’ve got used to it but sometimes the loneliness catches me like a splinter.
‘No,’ Ella replies, not looking up, ‘Molly.’
At the mention of the name the reality of the nature of this trip hits me again, throwing me off balance. Is it too late to turn around and head home? We could catch the tube and then theDLRand be back at our flat in less than an hour. Then we could spend the summer how we’d originally planned – visiting galleries and ice-cream shops and reading magazines together in the parks. Just me and Ella, the way it’s always been.
My own phone pings and I reach for it in my pocket, the familiar motion distracting me. It’s Cheryl.
‘Have a safe journey,’the message reads.‘Let me know when you get there. xxx’
The message calms me slightly. If I say that Cheryl is my closest friend it’s only really a half-truth. The full truth is that she is my only friend. We first met five years ago when she started as a teaching assistant at the school where I was then a year head and am now deputy head. I remember spotting her on playground duty that first day, playing football with the kids, her large gold hoop earrings swinging as she ran and the children chased her, her smiling mouth painted in bright red. Her laughter rose high and loud above the background din of the playground and I remember feeling an instant need to get to know her – this woman who could make herself heard over a rabble of children. She caught my eye and waved, pausing in the game for a moment and coming over to introduce herself. I’m not sure if we’d ever have become friends if she hadn’t been so persistent though, chatting cheerfully to me every day at school and inviting me to go for a drink together after work. At first, she did most of the talking, but over time and as we grew closer she gently coaxed out details of my past. She’s the only person who knows at least parts of my story, parts I’ve always glossed over with other colleagues or with the mums of Ella’s friends who’ve at times made unsuccessful attempts to draw me into their groups.
Cheryl is ten years younger than me and sometimes it shows – when she tries to talk to me about what songs are in the charts and celebrity gossip and I just nod and smile blankly. But mostly the age gap between us doesn’t matter. We’ve grown close over the years and we each know enough about what it means to work at an inner-city primary school run by a chauvinist to understand one another well.
‘Thanks,’I type back.‘End of term, hurrah! No more Dave the creep for six weeks! xx’
Dave, or Mr Phillips to the children, is our head and my boss. He’s always made me somewhat uneasy, but ever since he appointed me as his deputy six months ago his inappropriate comments have become worse. If I knew it was going to be like this then perhaps I might have turned down the job. But I needed the extra money. And after ten years of teaching at the same school it felt like the recognition I’d been craving for so long. The recognition Ideserved. Now I’m not even sure I truly earned the job or whether I was appointed for some other reason entirely. It’s a depressing thought.
‘I’m already on to my third glass of wine,’Cheryl replies. I smile, picturing my friend in the flat I’ve come to know so well. For my fortieth birthday last year instead of a big party Ella and I spent it at Cheryl’s with her husband Mike and their two-year-old Frankie. Cheryl cooked for us while Mike dutifully topped up our wine glasses, pouring a splash for Ella to try too. It was a good evening and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it any differently. But there’s still a part of me that imagined something bigger and noisier, if only I lived a bigger and noisier life. It’s a thought that has visited regularly over the years – at birthdays, Christmases and New Years when Ella and I have celebrated alone in our flat again. We have our traditions: matching pyjamas at Christmas and watching the fireworks from our window at New Year with mugs of hot chocolate towering with marshmallows. But after we’ve said our goodnights I always stay awake, wondering if I’ve let Ella down by not being able to give her more than this – more than me.
Another message arrives from Cheryl and I know that she has seen through my joking tone. Of course she has; she knows me well.
I hope you’re doing OK though. It must be so hard. I bet you’re feeling nervous. I’m here whenever you need me. Just text or call, any time. xxx
A lump rises in my throat. I picture the black dress folded at the bottom of my suitcase and all the miles and all those years that stand between this station and our final destination.
