Miss You Read Free

gently from side to side on the luggage rack above me. Which floor would I be on? Would I have a view over rooftops towards the Telecom Tower, like the one they’d shown us on Open
Day? Or would I be on the street side of the building, with the tops of red double-decker buses crawling past my window and sudden shrieks of police sirens that made it feel like being in a
movie?
    The air in the compartment grew chilly as the train started its climb through the Alps. I covered Doll with her fleece. She murmured her thanks but did not wake, and I was glad because it felt
special to have private time to myself, just me and my plans, travelling from one stage of my life to the next.
    I must have fallen asleep in the small hours. I awoke with the rattle of a breakfast trolley. Doll was staring dismally at viscous raindrops chasing each other down the window as the train sped
across the flat fields of Northern France.
    ‘I’d forgotten about weather,’ she said, handing me a plastic cup of sour coffee and a cellophane-wrapped croissant.
    It wasn’t that I was expecting bunting, or neighbours lining the street to welcome me back, but as I walked up Conifer Road after leaving Doll outside her house on
Laburnum Drive, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that everything was exactly the same. Our council estate was built in the late sixties. It was probably the height of modernity then with
its regular rectangular houses half pale brick, half white render, and communal lawns instead of front gardens. All the streets were named after trees, but apart from a few spindly flowering
cherries, nobody had bothered to plant any. Some of the right-to-buy households had added a glazed porch at the front, or a UPVC conservatory to the through-room downstairs, but the houses all
still looked like the little boxes in that song. With a month’s distance, it was clear to me that I had outgrown the place.
    Mum only had a rough idea of when I’d be getting back, but I was still slightly surprised that she and Hope were not positioned by the window or even sitting on the front lawn, waiting for
me. It was a lovely evening. Maybe Mum had filled the paddling pool in the back garden? Perhaps there was too much splashing for them to hear the bell?
    Eventually, a small, familiar shape appeared on the other side of the frosted glass.
    ‘Who’s there?’ Hope called.
    ‘It’s me!’
    ‘It’s me!’ she shouted.
    It was never quite clear whether Hope was playing games or being pedantic.
    ‘It’s Tree!’ I said. ‘Come on, Hope, open the door!’
    ‘It’s Tree!’
    I could tell Mum was responding from somewhere in the house but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.
    Hope knelt down to speak through the letter box at the bottom of the front door. ‘I get chair from kitchen.’
    ‘Use the one in the hall,’ I instructed through the letter box.
    ‘Mum said kitchen!’
    ‘OK, OK . . .’
    Why didn’t Mum come down herself? I was suddenly weary and irritable.
    Eventually, Hope managed to open the door.
    ‘Where is Mum?’ I asked. The house was slightly chilly inside and there was no warm smell of dinner on the air.
    ‘Just getting up,’ said Hope.
    ‘Is she poorly?’
    ‘Just tired.’
    ‘Dad not home yet?’
    ‘Pub, I ’spect,’ said Hope.
    I manoeuvred my rucksack off my back, then Mum was at the top of the stairs, but instead of rushing down delighted to see me, she picked her way carefully, holding the banister. I put it down to
the slippers she had on under the washed-out pink tracksuit she wore for her aerobics class. She seemed distant, almost cross, and wouldn’t catch my eye as she filled a kettle at the
sink.
    I looked at my watch. It was after eight o’clock. I’d forgotten it stayed lighter in the evenings in England. I started to think I should have found a phone box and rung home after
getting off the ferry, but that didn’t seem a serious enough offence for Mum to give me the silent treatment.
    I noticed