Page 16 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
He holds a white rose (boring choice, supermarket plastic wrap, could go on), and I can’t help but look at him. I blink twice to see if I’m doing one of my zooming-out episodes where my gaze fixates out of my control, but nope. ApparentlyI am in control of my eyesight and where I’m looking. Which isstillat this man. A man who seemingly arrived late and has a flower that needs to get to the coffin before it’s buried. Which means this man, or rather his flower, ismyresponsibility.
There is only one way to deal with this. I start to walk towards him.
Blade
Skurup
I don’t get farther than the doorstep.Because someone is staringat me and my flower from across the room. A woman. Did she immediately sense that I don’t belong here? Am I that out of practice being around people? I watch her for a brief minute. Notice now that she wears an apron. Seems like a funeral crasher too, the way she’s standing on the outside of the crowd, not talking to anyone. Ismajestica compliment? It should be. Because that’s what she is. As tall as me and up on the balls of her feet, gliding around the room with flowers in her hands. I feel like a fraud: I don’t belong here, and I’m not ready to explain myself to majestic strangers.
No nono.Don’t screw this up. Think about Sven. The key to Mum’s happiness. To my freedom. I feel guilty for thinking it, but it’s essentially a perk of her being happy and safe somewhere. I pull my thoughts back and tell them to stay there.
Except now the woman’s right next to me. Saying something in Swedish.
‘Sorry, could you repeat that in English, please?’ I ask.
‘Do you want me to take that?’
I follow her gaze to my hand which is gripping the single white rose.
‘It’s for the coffin.’
She smiles, and her eyes flicker over mine.
‘Well, I assumed it’s not for me. I meant would you like me to place it for you? Or if you’d rather hold onto it and walk up and say a personal goodbye, that would be fine too. But you’ll have to be fast. You kind of missed... it all.’
I hesitate.
‘Are you going out there or not?’ She nudges me towards the door. People are beginning to look at us. Go through my options. Could say he was a friend of my mum, and I’m here on behalf of her. But then I’d be expected to interact, chat, place said flower. Somehow the student alibi doesn’t roll off my tongue.
‘I don’t know him. I’m crashing the funeral.’ There. I said it. I desperately search for something else to say to prolong this moment. Because suddenly all I want to do is stay here and talk to her. Who knew I was so desperate for human interaction? I’m in a worse state than I thought.
She gives me a genuinely interested look and not the judgemental one I was expecting. I have to come up with a better search plan, because this was so very obviously a bad idea.
‘Is it for the free food? I can get you a quiche from the deli down the road if you’re struggling.’
‘I’m not here for the food. You don’t have to call security or shoo me out,’ I say in an attempt to reassure her.
‘So why are you here then? If not for free quiche, then is it for the entertaining anecdotes?’
I don’t even know where to start, so I search my mind for an alternative story. As soon as I walked in I realised my former student one wouldn’t work—I don’t speak a word of Swedish. And I have never really been able to lie successfully. When you are raised by a no-nonsense mother who can senseany lie however small, you drop the habit very quickly and never quite manage to pick it up once you become an adult and realise that lying is considered a valuable life skill. So I tell a very brief version of the truth.
‘I’m looking for a man, someone that my mum used to know, who would be around the deceased’s age.’ I’ll never see this woman again, so it doesn’t really matter what I tell her. And I shouldn’t care what she thinks of me. But I do.
‘Your dad? Did you not know your dad? Are you trying to find him?’
She looks at me as if she didn’t just overstep and as if I’m meant to expand. When I don’t, she continues.
‘I heard all the speeches. He was loyal and loved, was a brilliant teacher and never left the local area. Married to the same woman for fifty years. Too good to generate any headlines by the sound of it. I don’t get the feeling he had an English love-child.’
Never left the local area.So this is not my Sven. This reminds me of the books I had when I was little. This is not my fairy–her hair is too long; this is not my kitten–his tail is too short; this is not my car–its wheels are too black. This is not my Sven–he was married to the same woman for fifty years and never went to England! This means the number of potential Svens has dropped to four.
In that moment someone calls the woman and she turns with a smile, mouthing the wordComingtowards the voice. I’d like to shake hands, somehow commemorate this meeting. Or smile and say a proper goodbye. But in the end it all happens so fast, she is already walking away when I manage some speech.
‘What is your name?’ I ask, desperate to have something to hold on to when she walks away.
She’s already halfway across the room and gives her answer over her shoulder.
‘Sophia. And I suggest you leave now—before anyone else notices you’re here!’
