Sixteen
The lights inside the tube train hurt her eyes.
Shanine Connor blinked hard and lowered her head momentarily.
When she looked up again she noticed that the man seated opposite was staring at her.
Wasn’t he?
He was in his mid-forties, dressed in an open-necked shirt and dark trousers that were far too short. As he crossed and uncrossed his legs, the material rode up to reveal the pure white of his flesh.
Shanine looked at his hairless legs. Anything rather than hold his gaze, which she felt boring into her.
Standing at one end of the carriage was a couple in their twenties, both dressed in jeans and leather jackets. They were kissing passionately, oblivious to the other passengers in the carriage.
A young woman with a dark complexion was studying a map of the Underground intermittently, glancing up at the map opposite for reassurance.
The man next to her was reading a well-thumbed paperback, chuckling to himself, unable to hear his own giggles over the sound of his Walkman.
Shanine glanced across at the man with the white legs and was relieved to see that he was gazing down the carriage at the leather-clad couple.
She pulled the holdall closer to her, hugging it tightly as if it were a sleeping dog.
She couldn’t remember how long she’d been on the train. Only that her journey had begun in natural light, overground, only to become swallowed by the tunnels as the tube had drawn closer to Central London.
Her eyelids felt as if someone had attached lead weights to them.
Christ, she was tired!
It felt as if she’d been travelling for days on end. From the service station she’d found a lift easily enough, but the journey down the motorway had seemed interminable.
And now this.
She needed sleep more than she needed food, but her stomach rumbled noisily to remind her of that particular requirement too.
Where should she get off?
She didn’t even know where the hell she was going.
The train pulled into Leicester Square station: Shanine glanced out of the grubby windows and saw the signs.
The man with the white legs opposite looked across at her.
He was staring at her.
Wasn’t he? It was obvious.
She shifted in her seat as the doors slid open.
Stop staring.
The leather-clad couple got out; so did the young woman with the dark complexion. Shanine saw her looking around helplessly on the platform seeking the way out.
Other people stepped on to replace them.
A young woman no older than herself sat a couple of seats away, brushing her long blonde hair away from her face, catching Shanine’s eye.
Shanine smiled.
The young woman ignored her and began thumbing through a copy of Cosmopolitan.
The train moved off.
How many more stops?
Piccadilly Circus.
Shanine looked around anxiously.
Should she get off here?
She hesitated a moment longer, then jumped to her feet just as the doors were sliding shut. The man with the white legs watched her as she jammed a hand between the doors to force them open again. She stepped out onto the platform as the doors closed behind her.
Shanine stood motionless, gazing around, searching for the Exit sign while dozens of other people walked,
scurried or pushed past her. She followed the largest group and saw the way out.
She rode the escalator behind a man who carried the pungent odour of sweat on him, the smell mingling with a stench like burning rubber. The moving stairway creaked protestingly as it rose, and Shanine looked to her right and left, at the posters which lined the escalator and at the profusion of faces on the down escalator to her left.
The ticket hall with its low ceiling seemed to amplify every little sound, and the noise crowded in on her. She could hear music coming from close by - many voices, some raised.
She passed through the automatic barriers, looking down at an old man who was seated cross-legged by one of the exits, a dark stain across his crotch, his grey beard resembling a hedgehog that somebody had stapled to his chin. He had a battered brown fedora on the floor in front of him with some coins in it.
Shanine passed him by, the smell of urine and alcohol strong in her nostrils.
She took the first flight of steps she came too, emerging into the cool evening air, the sound of cars and buses almost deafening. It hit her like a wall.
For a long time she stood motionless looking out across Piccadilly Circus, at the buildings towering above her and the constantly flashing neon of so many signs and hoardings. It hurt her eyes almost as much as the glaring white of the tube lights.
There was a Dunkin’ Donuts to her left and she fumbled in her pocket and found a couple of pound coins.
At least she could attend to the problem of her hunger.
And what about sleep?
She crossed the road, saw people emerging from the main entrance of the Regent Palace Hotel. Four of them, two couples, laughing and talking loudly.
Americans. She heard the accents.
One of the men looked at her.
Didn’t he?
She got her doughnut and coffee and sat down, one foot resting on the holdall.
Shanine took a couple of bites of the doughnut and looked at her watch.
She’d been gone almost eighteen hours.
They would know by now.
They would be looking.
For all she knew, they already were.
Her hand was shaking slightly as she took a sip of her coffee.
Seventeen
‘That was beautiful,’ said Frank Reed, pushing the empty bowl away from him.
‘Which branch of Marks and Spencer did it come from?’
‘You cheeky sod’ Cath said, nudging him as she retrieved the bowl and carried it to the sink. ‘That was all my own work. You should feel privileged. That’s the first meal I’ve cooked for a man in over six months.’
‘And was he as appreciative?’
‘We split up a week later, but I don’t think that was anything to do with the meal’ Cath chuckled, spooning coffee into a couple of cups.
She stood by the draining board, waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘Next time, why don’t you cook me a meal?’ she asked.
‘I’ll take you out instead.’
‘Typical teacher. You spend most of the year on holiday but you can’t even take the time to cook your own sister a meal.’
He smiled.
‘I don’t cook much. You know what it’s like when you’re on your own, Cath.’
‘I’m alone out of choice.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked, smiling. ‘What are you going to do now? Psychoanalyse me?’
‘You’re a very attractive woman, Cath. I’m just surprised you never settled down. It wasn’t as if there was any shortage of men.’
‘Now you’re making me sound like a tart,’ she said, pouring hot water onto the coffee.
‘You know what I mean,’ he said, quickly.
She returned with the coffee, nodding towards the sitting room.
Reed got up and walked through to the other room, seating himself at one end of the sofa.
Cath sat at the other end, slender legs drawn up beneath her. She sipped her coffee and looked at her brother. He looked dark beneath the eyes and his skin was pale. There was a small shaving cut on his chin which looked even more starkly red against the pallor of his flesh.
‘You make it sound wrong for me to be alone, Frank’ she told him at last. ‘Mum and Dad were always nagging me to get married. I don’t think they ever understood what I was doing. How much my work meant to me.’
‘I wasn’t preaching at you’ he teased.
She stretched out one leg and prodded him with her bare foot.