Baby Blues and Wedding Shoes Read Free Page B

her tree-lined streets and,
despite Daniel’s luxurious seventh-floor apartment with views to
die for, it had cost her some heartache to move.
    The main bonus for her was that
the streets around Daniel’s apartment near Fleet Street were simply
amazing. Along Fleet Street, The Strand, even the Temple tube
station itself; the buildings were all so beautiful and so old. Of course, the hills around her parents’ farm were old,
but not in any way that could be measured.
    As she turned into Fleet
Street, Helen saw the clocks on the Romanian Orthodox Church
telling her how late she was. Even if a train was waiting when she
arrived at Temple she was going to be lucky to get there in time.
Up ahead she saw a bus waiting and adrenalin flooded through her.
She didn’t want to arrive hot and sweaty, but it was better that
than being late, which she guessed would be deemed an unforgivable
act particularly on her first shoot. She sprinted for the bus,
praying it was the 76. It was and she hopped on just as the doors
were closing and the bus began moving back into the traffic.
Flashing her pass, Helen sank into a vacant seat and tried to catch
her breath.
    It was hard sitting still when
she was in a hurry, but she knew it was the quickest way to the
tube at this time of day. Bouncing her leg up and down, Helen
looked out the window at the familiar shops and bars. She tried not
to think too much about what lay at the end of her journey. Instead
she turned her mind to the Award Ceremony she would be attending
with Daniel that evening. Mentally reviewing her wardrobe, she had
selected the right dress and shoes and was just thinking through
what bag Daniel would most approve of when the bus arrived at
Somerset House.
    Helen jumped down and trotted
along to the tube station, glad she had thought to get a rucksack
for her gear so that it left her free to move quickly. She ran down
the stairs two at a time and sprinted for the platform, thanking
her stars it wasn’t a week day when the place would be packed with
people even at this time of the morning.
    Goodness me, the gods of
travel are smiling on me today, Helen thought, as she arrived
at the platform to see a train about to depart. Offering a quick
prayer to her guiding deity, she stepped on and sank into a seat,
glancing up briefly at the map to make sure it was the right one
going in the right direction. Even after years living in London she
still had a country-girl’s fear of getting on the wrong train and
ending up in some remote destination. It hadn’t happened yet, but
today was not the day to be complacent.
    The doors closed with a hiss
and Helen felt her breath expel in a similar sigh of relief. She
would need to change trains at South Kensington, but the trains on
the Piccadilly line ran every few minutes so she should arrive in
plenty of time.
    Helen removed her rucksack and
hugged it to her chest, looking around at her fellow passengers.
The tube was a different beast at the weekend; the vacant-gazed
disinterested suits were replaced by visitors and tourists, all
agog. Each stop was a cause for comment. Westminster, St James’s
Park, Victoria, Sloane Square. She remembered how the names had
resonated with her when she had arrived in London as a nervous
undergraduate. She had dreamed of coming to live in London,
impatient to leave the rural idyll of her childhood, to savour the
exhilarating life she imagined she would live in the Big Smoke. Her
parents had been surprisingly supportive, given their natural
desire for her to go to university at Plymouth or Exeter or even
Bristol.
    Bless Mum , Helen thought
with a fond smile. With Simon already travelling the world, she
and Dad must have been so desperate for their remaining child not
to fly too far from the nest, and I did just that. I suppose I
could have ended up in Edinburgh or something, but with flights so
cheap that probably would have been as easy for them to get to as
here.
    She thought about how her
mother had come to