A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman Read Free Book Online Page A

tasted all wrong. He jumped up. Fuck. It was her, he was sure of it. In the doorway, an elderly couple blocked his way with an oversize suitcase, there was no need for him to have sworn at them like that. He noticed the waitress’s pitiful look as he ran past the window.
    Two trains pulled in and the station was awash with passengers and noise and steam. Missy! he shouted. Missy wait! But his voice was swallowed by the constant din of chatter and the clatter of luggage and trolleys and the soot dust in the air. He stopped to catch his breath. She was nowhere to be seen. He took a punt and ran down the stairs towards the underground. He was quick at the ticket office, and staggered breathlessly towards the platforms. Eastbound or Westbound? He heard the familiar rumble of an underground train approaching. Come on! East or west, Drake? The noise of the train got louder. East or west! He began to run. East. She had to be going east.
    The platform was packed. It was difficult to move through the crowd without drawing comments and looks. He couldn’t see her; she must have gone west. He leant against the wall and felt the first swoosh of air rush through the tunnel, before lights appeared and finally the train itself. He lost his hat in the tumult and was resigned to leaving it there amidst the jig of jostling legs but as he bent down to retrieve it, that’s when he saw her. Getting up from a bench without a care in the world, looking into a compact mirror, adding more red to already perfect red lips. He felt restored and he began to laugh. She looked so bloody good.
    Bodies entered close. She took the left-hand door, he was swept towards the right. A man offered her a seat and a cigarette at one end of the carriage – she accepted both – and she placed her small valise on her knees. Drake stood at the other end of the carriage watching. It felt wrong and delightful. The brim of his hat pulled low. Peering out through the years, a latent buzz pressing against the front of his trousers.
    He could remember it so clearly, the day he had first set eyes on her. He was eleven, and it was after his mum had died when he was living with the aunts. She had burst into his room without knocking, all sixteen years of cheek and beauty, and she had said, I’m Missy Hall and I’m your third cousin. Don’t worry, we can still marry, and she laughed a deep laugh, and took a pack of cigarettes out of her school blazer. She went over to the window and opened it wide. She lit up and exhaled a stream of smoke. Said, Stick with me, Francis. I’m an orphan too.
    He hated that word. Wasn’t ready for that word.
    She said, One more year of school then the world’s my fuckinoyster. By the way, Francis is a girl’s name, you know that, don’t you? I’m going to call you Freddy, if that’s OK? And it was OK and that was that. And when the aunts’ backs were suitably turned, she marched him down to the River Thames where she shed her clothes effortlessly under the grateful eye of Tower Bridge.
    Come on in! Missy had cried, as she ran splashing into the water. Freddy would have given anything to have followed her in, anything to have been braver, to have been older, but he kept his clothes on instead, and anchored his toes ever deeper into the safe damp shingled shore. He watched pale scrawny bodies run and jump into waves as steam tugs passed. He thought it looked like fun.
    Whassa matter, Freddy? Can’t ya swim? said Missy stumbling towards him.
    No. Not really.
    Want me to teach you?
    Nah thank you, and he bent down and handed her a towel.
    He watched the costume dry upon her and noticed her body brought to life by the occasional breeze that blew across her skin and made her gasp. He watched her reach for her packet of Players cigarettes. He beat her to the matches and, in his cupped hands, he gave her light. In the brightness of her smile, it could have been life .
    An exodus at King’s Cross Station forced Drake to make a quick decision: