Hello Stranger

Definitely no Chloe and Gone with the Wind.

I settled down into my seat, exhausted on my feet, having scraped barely ten minutes for a lunch break. My head was thumping and my chest was tight, but my hands still moved on instinct, pulling my book from my briefcase.

The Master and Margarita.

I’d say that was the first time I truly began to realise Chloe’s inexplicable impact on me.

As I flicked open the pages, I found myself wondering if she’d read the Mikhail Bulgakov masterpiece. I found myself wondering if she’d sunk into the same scenes that I’d sunk into a hundred times over, just as deeply as I’d sunk into them, and if she’d pondered the same thoughts over the same words.

I wondered if she’d have different thoughts to me, about different characters. If she’d surprise me with her observations about plot points, and if she’d enlighten me with her freckle-faced opinions on the huge talking cat.

Then, I wondered if I’d surprise and enlighten her right back with mine.

I stopped myself just as soon as I registered what I was thinking about. I put those thoughts away and settled down for the remainder of the journey, determined not to waste a second more. Reading time was the only time I ever truly allowed myself. The only time I slipped out of my own world into someone else’s and left the heaviness of mine behind.

My only escape.

I enjoyed Pontius Pilate, and the devil, and the huge talking cat without another thought to the freckled girl. Yet still, I looked up through the window at Eddington station, casting an eye along the platform. But she wasn’t there.

Redwood approached soon after.

I was on the verge of folding down my page corner when I indulged myself a stupid little token of pleasure. I reached into my inside pocket and pulled out the tatty pink bookmark, slipping it between the pages to mark my spot. The page corners would thank me for it.

I stepped from the train and made the same journey along the same streets. My head was still tense, and my chest was still tight, and my feet were heavier with every step as I turned the corner into King Street and put my key in the lock.

The upstairs lamp was on, just like usual.

My mother was propped up in bed in her room, just like usual.

Her oxygen mask was over her face and her eyes were closed tight, and Olivia was sitting in the corner, her attention fixed on her phone. Just like usual.

“Sorry,” I said, as I stepped through the doorway. “Patients overran.”

Olivia was used to it. Her smile was her regular smile as she picked up her bag from the floor and slung it over her shoulder.

“She ate omelette, but there’s still half of it in the fridge if she gets hungry.”

“Thanks.” I nodded. “How has she been?”

She wobbled a hand in the air. “So-so. Tired.”

Just like usual.

I checked she’d administered the right doses of meds at the right time, and checked the performance of Mum’s morphine driver, just like usual.

Olivia had done everything asked of her. Shower, and dinner, and getting Mum changed for bed.

I didn’t bother to watch her leave. I knew exactly how she would look, bobbing down the staircase and out the front door to the street outside.

Instead, I pulled my seat up to the side of the bed, and leant in to take Mum’s fingers, squeezing tight enough for her to open her eyes.

Her smile was bright, same as usual. She squeezed my fingers right back before she tugged her mask from her face.

“Good day?” she looked at the alarm clock, then flashed me her usual cheeky smile. “A bloody late one as per.”

I shrugged. “Not so bad.”

I loved the way her eyes twinkled, so alive against her pallor. I loved the way her face was so expressive, even when she could barely move a thing.

“Got a couple of crossword clues left for you to help me with,” Mum said, as per.

I grabbed the newspaper from the bedside table and we went through the rest of the crossword, giving each other a congratulatory high five on completion, and she was pleased with us, squeezing my fingers some more.

I made her a cup of tea and talked her through my day as she sipped it down. I played down my lack of work breaks when she quizzed me, promising I was taking care of myself, in the face of the world screaming at me for help.

I knew that she didn’t quite believe me, but she kept her smile bright.

“I heard from little Amy,” she said with a wink. “She wants to come over and visit me next weekend. I told her you’d be around too.”

“Stop it,” I told her. “Stop with the winking, please.”

She laughed. “I’m not going bloody anywhere until you settle yourself down with someone nice, Logan Hall. Mother’s duty.” She winked again. “Amy is a great fit.”