The Very Thought of You Read Free Page B

farewell. Children were crying, some of them howling. Mothers also were weeping. A sudden sadness washed over Roberta, though she and Anna were too resolutely independent to make any public display of sentiment. But still Roberta’s resolve wavered. She sought out a head teacher to ask where the children would be going.
    “Buses will take them to St Pancras station.”
    “Can we go with them there?”
    “No, I’m sorry,” he said defensively, “you must say goodbye here.”
    There was a long wait in the school yard, and children sat on the ground, yawning. Roberta and Anna stood together, not saying much, just holding hands. Soon they were organized into class lines, with teachers ticking names on clipboards. Roberta was proud that Anna looked so pretty, so bright and fresh.
    She could always take her back home again.
    Suddenly the buses arrived, coming on from another school in World’s End. Before Roberta had the chance to change her mind and retrieve her child, the crowd’s momentum had swept Anna’s class forwards. Without a backwards glance, Anna hurried to find a seat. She put down her bags and realized that, after so much waiting, she had hardly said goodbye to her mother. She pressed her face to the window.
    There she was below, looking up at her – gleaming brown hair, and a smile meant for her alone, wishing her every joy and all good things.
    “Goodbye, Mummy!” called Anna, through the glass. Suddenly, she began crumpling inside as she fixed her gaze on her mother. She could feel the pull of her mother’s eyes right through her – until she was going, gone, and Anna was away on her journey.
    She sank down in her seat. The bus had a sour smell of stale cigarettes which made her nauseous. She yawned in the heat; there wasn’t much air. She felt odd – excited and suspended in a strange new world, where anything might happen. She did not miss her mother yet, because she was still so firmly rooted inside her – her face, her voice, her touch.
    But for Roberta the separation was immediate. She walked back home from the school feeling limp, like a wilting plant. The trees she passed looked parched and weary, and the pavement was cracked beneath her feet. The dryness of late summer was all around her, and the streets seemed unnaturally deserted.
    Had she made the right choice?

4
    Anna’s school bus arrived first at Paddington Station, and sat there dead-engined for an hour. An inconstant sun came and went, making the children fidgety. Some of them disembarked there, but not Anna.
    Her bus pushed on to St Pancras – magical, colourful St Pancras, a riot of exotic brickwork. Anna had never seen this station before. Climbing from the bus, she glanced upwards at red Gothic spires rising to the sky – they looked like the towers of a fairy-tale castle, the first step in a great adventure.
    Inside, the vast vaulted space thrilled her
.
Steam was rising from the trains, their smokestacks were trailing wisps of white up to colossal arched girders. Beyond the platforms, the sky was framed like a stained-glass cathedral window – an infinite window of bright blue.
    But she was being pushed forwards, and there was little time to stop and look. The station was seething with crosscurrents of children and parents; it was hard not to get caught in the wrong queue. Station announcements and men with loudspeakers only aggravated the chaos. Many children seemed to have brothers or sisters, some of them very young and wanting to go to the lavatory. Anna felt strong in herself, and sorry for those who were looking miserable. She clutched her belongings carefully – the case, the food bag, the gasmask box.
    She longed for the seaside.
    A great clock hung over the sea of bewildered children, ticking away the morning. Gradually, Anna’s excitement began to dwindle, and the magic of the steel cathedral faded as they queued along the platform, waiting for something to happen. They stood, they sat on the ground. The