Page 74 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
Why the coats? Was it because she was meant to meet him in winter?
Pushba comes up behind her.
‘Letters,’ she says, with interest in her voice.
‘Yes,’ Eliza replies. ‘It does look like letters.’
Blade
London
I’m pacing next to the luggage carousel until my one suitcase eventually turns up. Zara meets me at Arrivals, and I silently take one of the two Costa cups she’s holding.
‘Okay. You’re too quiet,’ she says as I fling my smaller bag onto my shoulder. I stay quiet until we reach the car park.
‘Where is your method of transport?’ I ask.
‘It’s a car.’
‘Carwould be too great a compliment.’
Her Fiat from about last century has only a left blinker: don’t ask me how she gets out of having it fixed. And of being fined. As I sit down I’m also reminded that the seat warmer can’t be switched off, a wonderful feature in July. At least if you’re Sophia.
Sophia.
‘She’s okay, you know. Your mum.’
I feel guilty for having thought of Sophia, Zara having misread the pain on my face. The guilt comes out as anger when I speak.
‘You were meant to keep her safe.’
‘It was an accident. Accidents happen. The only thing that could have prevented it would have been living in a housethat doesn’t have stairs. She’s not a child, she’s not frail, she’s not even a danger to herself, really. You smother her.’
‘I watch out for her! What am I supposed to do, let her wander off and just hope she makes it home eventually? I guess I wouldn’t have to wonder much. She’d just be sitting at that bloody bus stop all day.’
‘She lights up when she’s at Hornton Street, like she’s got this purpose again. She can be unaware and frustrated at home, struggling to find the right items and words, and then we get on the bus together and her focus shifts. She’s clear and determined and knows exactly where she needs to be. How could you not support that?’
‘Her doctor told me to keep her away.’
‘Well, her doctor doesn’t know her like you do, like I do.’
Zara flicks the indicator switch with an aggression she usually reserves for half empty ketchup bottles. I can’t help thinking she imagines flicking my nose.
‘She’s still a human being, a woman. She’s not dead yet, you know,’ she says.
I’m furious now. I know. I bloodyknowall this as she’smymum and I’ve been taking care of her for three fucking years whilst Zara has only had a glimpse. I swallow my anger and continue to listen.
‘It’s real to her. And that means it’s real to me, and it should be to you. That’s why I tell her hemaybe real. I respect that that’s her reality, you know? Who am I to say my reality is more important than hers? If she wants to wait for him, then I can let her.’
I feel that familiar defeat, the sense ofFine, you’re right, but I don’t like it.
‘Why? Why wait for this man? It doesn’t make any sense. And don’t say love, please. He never turned up, he left her for all intents and purposes, and she’s just been pining for decades, unwilling to let go. She just sits and sits at that damn bus stop.’
‘If you didn’t always know where you were, would you not go to the one place you know means something to you? Where you are yourself? What moment would you go back to if everything was slowly slipping away from you?’
To Sophia.There is no hesitation, no thought process involved. The name is simply there.I want to un-think it, unsend, but it’s been thought.There.If I couldn’t remember how to make tea or where I lived, at least I know I’d never forget the way I felt when I was with her. And I’d want to be back in a forest clearing in a warm July with her.
‘Even if she’s unwell and even if she’s your mother. And so what if she can’t do what she used to? She can still have purpose somewhere. Right now, this is her purpose, and if you take it away, then what’s left? What does it matter what it is that makes us get up and live every single day? As long as something does, we’re good.’
