Split Second - страница 8

‘I won’t change my mind,’ he said, his eyes fixing on hers. His lovely fine brown eyes

She nodded. ‘But give it till your next birthday. I’ll ask around, see if anyone knows anyone.’ She waited, tense. Hoping to God she could find an opening. Half the kids in Manchester were on the dole, a lost generation, they were saying. What would Grandad make of this? Cameron and cronies finishing Thatcher’s job. Privatizing everything that moved, dismantling the public services, the NHS, crushing the north, where no one ever voted Tory, penalizing the poor.

‘’Kay.’ He let the chair fall back in place, got to his feet. ‘Not doing plumbing, though – skanky, man.’

Emma

Her flat was across the other side of the dual carriageway, next to the railway station. She was on the second floor, her windows level with the platforms. Sometimes she got the train to work, though if she did, she had a fifteen-minute walk across town at the other end.

Emma liked being near the line; the sound of the trains was reassuring, somehow, telling her that there were all those people out there going places, coming back. Growing up in Brum, the railway had run at the end of their terraced street, so it was probably in her blood.

She fed the fish and went into the kitchen. She hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, but with all that bother on the bus, she felt queasy still. Maybe something light? She opened the fridge and got out the Philadelphia cream cheese, put bread in the toaster and went to change out of her office clothes.

She settled in front of the telly with her plate and a mug of cappuccino. She kept flicking the channels, but there was nothing that held her attention. There was a repeat of A Place in the Sun: Home or Away on, but it was one she’d seen first time round. The couples were so choosy, and didn’t ever seem to actually settle on a place. They never liked the places that Emma did.

Sometimes Emma thought about working abroad. The sort of job she had, working in the claims office of an insurance company, meant she had quite a lot of transferable skills, for other office work at least, but she didn’t speak any other languages. ‘Barely speaks English,’ her dad would say. ‘Don’t mumble, girl.’

He’d always been impatient with her, impatient and disappointed. Because she got tongue-tied, because she was shy, he decided she was stupid. She sometimes wondered when it had started: had he been critical even when she was a baby? Because she was chubby (in other words fat), because she slept a lot and didn’t walk until she was eighteen months old, and because when she talked, her speech was whispered, hesitant. Had she been born like that, or grown to match his expectations: someone with no guts, no gumption, no wit? Feeble, worthless.

Emma texted her mum as she did every night, told her that work had been busy and town had been frantic. She paused, thinking about the bus: the hard face on the lad who hit the mixed-race boy, the girl’s thin giggle, that awful feeling, tight and sick, making you want to close your eyes and block your ears. She couldn’t have done anything, could she? She thought about telling her mum, but then her dad would want to talk to her, and she couldn’t face him now. She shook away thoughts of the bus; she was home, it was done with. She typed that it was snowing and sent the text.

Unable to settle, she turned off the lamp and pulled the curtains open. That way the velvet blue light from the aquarium cast a glow in the room. Outside, she could see the snow falling: rhythmic cascades of flakes, quick and quiet. The roof of the ticket office was cushioned in snow, as was the fence and the platform. Everything looked softer and cleaner somehow with the white covering.

Watching the fish usually helped her relax. Hypnotic or something. She didn’t know how it worked, but following them as they drifted to and fro would calm her down. The stripy green discus fish darted and turned swiftly in the tank, and the shoal of little neon tetras, sparkling blue and silver and red, wove in harmony through the weed. Emma stared for long enough, but her stomach was all knotted up. Maybe she was just too tired tonight. She’d feel better after a good long sleep. And it was Saturday tomorrow – a lie-in.