case it would be a lie. But then she turns it over.
“Wish I was there,” it reads. Four words and an
x.
A kiss, or to mark the spot.
But the writing is neither Will’s nor Eleanor’s. And Het finds her left hand clutching at the narrow wooden slots, as her heart races and her head dizzies with the thrill of it.
It is from him.
I’LL SEND it,
I think. I’ll send it to Cass. So she can laugh at the land-that-time-forgot I’ve been transported to. But Cass doesn’t care about stuff like that. She’d toss it like an empty cigarette pack or a used tissue. So I pick someone who does. I pick Luka.
There’s a postbox across the street, and I run out into the road, dodging a white panel van. I forget this isn’t Peckham High Street, an endless stream of buses, cars, lorries on their way to the West End and beyond. The van honks a reprimand, and I mouth an apology. That would be something. Getting run over in a dead-end town.
The next post is at 11:15. I check my watch. 10:30. I don’t have time to go home and get a pen. I fumble in the deep pockets of the Burberry, but the lining is ripped in the left, and the right only turns up coins and a stick of Juicy Fruit. The postcard is getting damp, threatening to turn to mush. I need somewhere to borrow a pen, to sit and write it. I could go back to the Internet place, but I don’t want to talk to the nicotine man again. Besides, I need to find somewhere, a place that’s mine. Like the Crossroads on Victoria Street. This old Italian greasy spoon. Cass and I would sit there, eking out one tea for hours. Laughing with Roberto at the builders on the Trivial Pursuit machine; watching the world, or Peckham, go by.
There’s a restaurant, the Excelsior. Leatherette banquettes the color of liver, and paper napkins in dirty glasses. In the windows are faded photographs of food: steak and chips, a trifle, green tinged now, so they seem dusted with mold. I mentally cross it off a list, though they don’t open until twelve anyway. Half the town is shut up. For the day, or for the season. I wonder where everyone goes. If they just sit it out behind their lace curtains, waiting for Easter and the tourists to start trickling in. Or if they’ve gone up to London, like Dick Whittington, like Mum, looking for streets paved with gold. And I’m pricked again by the thought that I’ve come here for this. For nothing. For rain and a boarded-up pier and empty shops. Nothing on the pavement but puddles and dog shit and gum. Same as everywhere.
I’m about to turn back up the hill when, on the corner, near the front, I hear the jangle of a door open, see a triangle of light shining onto the wet road. A girl comes out. Fifteen, sixteen, dressed in the gray of a school uniform. Her hair a mass of pale curls glowing in the light behind. She lights a cigarette, smoke mingling with the fog of her breath as she huddles in the porch. Like Cass outside the Wishing Well. And I feel a rush of something — excitement, or relief. I walk toward her, toward the light and the heat and the dry. As I get closer I hear some indie band blaring out, the sound of low-slung guitars leaking under the door frame; see blue tiles and a flash of red, and a sign. JEANIE’S . It’s a café and it’s open.
The girl pulls hard on her cigarette and looks me up and down, as if she’s trying to add it up — the wet, lank hair, the coat, the boots. I smile, mumble a “Hi.” She says nothing, just leans back to let me past, one eyebrow arched. She smells of cigarettes and too much perfume. The cheap stuff that comes in a spray can. As I push open the door she breathes out, letting smoke curl up through her hair. She is all that. And she knows it.
She follows me in, and I think for a minute she’s going to trail me to the counter, flank me, demand to know who I am and what I want. But maybe I’m not worth it, because from the corner of my eye I see her blazered back head for a table, slump down in a plastic chair
“Wish I was there,” it reads. Four words and an
x.
A kiss, or to mark the spot.
But the writing is neither Will’s nor Eleanor’s. And Het finds her left hand clutching at the narrow wooden slots, as her heart races and her head dizzies with the thrill of it.
It is from him.
I’LL SEND it,
I think. I’ll send it to Cass. So she can laugh at the land-that-time-forgot I’ve been transported to. But Cass doesn’t care about stuff like that. She’d toss it like an empty cigarette pack or a used tissue. So I pick someone who does. I pick Luka.
There’s a postbox across the street, and I run out into the road, dodging a white panel van. I forget this isn’t Peckham High Street, an endless stream of buses, cars, lorries on their way to the West End and beyond. The van honks a reprimand, and I mouth an apology. That would be something. Getting run over in a dead-end town.
The next post is at 11:15. I check my watch. 10:30. I don’t have time to go home and get a pen. I fumble in the deep pockets of the Burberry, but the lining is ripped in the left, and the right only turns up coins and a stick of Juicy Fruit. The postcard is getting damp, threatening to turn to mush. I need somewhere to borrow a pen, to sit and write it. I could go back to the Internet place, but I don’t want to talk to the nicotine man again. Besides, I need to find somewhere, a place that’s mine. Like the Crossroads on Victoria Street. This old Italian greasy spoon. Cass and I would sit there, eking out one tea for hours. Laughing with Roberto at the builders on the Trivial Pursuit machine; watching the world, or Peckham, go by.
There’s a restaurant, the Excelsior. Leatherette banquettes the color of liver, and paper napkins in dirty glasses. In the windows are faded photographs of food: steak and chips, a trifle, green tinged now, so they seem dusted with mold. I mentally cross it off a list, though they don’t open until twelve anyway. Half the town is shut up. For the day, or for the season. I wonder where everyone goes. If they just sit it out behind their lace curtains, waiting for Easter and the tourists to start trickling in. Or if they’ve gone up to London, like Dick Whittington, like Mum, looking for streets paved with gold. And I’m pricked again by the thought that I’ve come here for this. For nothing. For rain and a boarded-up pier and empty shops. Nothing on the pavement but puddles and dog shit and gum. Same as everywhere.
I’m about to turn back up the hill when, on the corner, near the front, I hear the jangle of a door open, see a triangle of light shining onto the wet road. A girl comes out. Fifteen, sixteen, dressed in the gray of a school uniform. Her hair a mass of pale curls glowing in the light behind. She lights a cigarette, smoke mingling with the fog of her breath as she huddles in the porch. Like Cass outside the Wishing Well. And I feel a rush of something — excitement, or relief. I walk toward her, toward the light and the heat and the dry. As I get closer I hear some indie band blaring out, the sound of low-slung guitars leaking under the door frame; see blue tiles and a flash of red, and a sign. JEANIE’S . It’s a café and it’s open.
The girl pulls hard on her cigarette and looks me up and down, as if she’s trying to add it up — the wet, lank hair, the coat, the boots. I smile, mumble a “Hi.” She says nothing, just leans back to let me past, one eyebrow arched. She smells of cigarettes and too much perfume. The cheap stuff that comes in a spray can. As I push open the door she breathes out, letting smoke curl up through her hair. She is all that. And she knows it.
She follows me in, and I think for a minute she’s going to trail me to the counter, flank me, demand to know who I am and what I want. But maybe I’m not worth it, because from the corner of my eye I see her blazered back head for a table, slump down in a plastic chair
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