There but for The Read Free Page A

said.
    Our Unwanted Tenant, she said.
    Oh, I see, Anna said.
    No. Oh you tea, Genevieve Lee said.
    No, I meant—, Anna said.
    Also, oh you tea spells out, Genevieve Lee said, which makes it what Eric, my husband, and I call a positive thinking exercise.
    Genevieve Lee was currently a freelance Personnel Welfare Coordinator for people who worked in Canary Wharf. When they had problems, financial, emotional or practical, their companies could contact her and she’d tell them what kind of help was available in both the public and the private sectors.
    As you can imagine, work’s been off the scale recently, she said. What are you currently doing yourself?
    I’m currently unemployed, Anna said.
    I can help you with that, Genevieve Lee said. The main thing is, it’s very, very important to talk about it. Here’s my card. What’s your field?
    Senior Liaison, Anna said. But I’ve just given it up.
    Gosh, given it up, Genevieve Lee said. Presumably something better on the horizon.
    There’d better be, Anna said, or I may kill myself.
    Genevieve Lee laughed a knowing laugh.
    She told Anna that Eric worked at the Institute for Measurement and Control and that he’d be back at three.
    The child, who’d followed them in, was sitting in the retro-modern armchair at the window, batting her bare heels off the front of the chair.
    Stop kicking that, Brooke, Genevieve Lee said. It’s Robin Day.
    Robin day? the child said. Today?
    Brooke, we’re busy, Genevieve Lee said.
    You would think robin day would be a day that it would make more sense to be nearer in time to Christmas, the child said. It is a very good idea for a day and everything. But the fact is, it’s the summer not the winter now, which is therefore probably why robin day hasn’t caught on yet and nobody knows about it like we know about Valentine’s day and father’s day and mother’s day and Christmas day.
    Anna noticed again how surprisingly polite and old-fashioned the child sounded.
    I’m sure your mother’s calling you, Genevieve Lee said.
    I can hear nothing that resembles what you suggest, Mrs. Lee, the child said.
    Let me put it another way, Brooke. I think you’re wanted elsewhere, Genevieve Lee said.
    You mean I’m not wanted here. Words words words, the child said.
    She jumped up and down. Then she did a handstand by the side of the couch, next to Anna.
    That’s from Hamlet, she said upside down from underneath her dress. A play by William Shakespeare, but you probably already know that. Words words words. Words words words. Words words words.
    She kicked her legs in the air. Genevieve Lee got up and stood pointedly at the door. The child upended herself on to her feet and straightened her clothes.
    Would you like to walk the tunnel later, right, maybe? the child said to Anna. It was built in 1902 and it goes underneath the river, have you ever walked it?
    She told Anna that if she’d been here three years ago she’d have been able to see the actual Cutty Sark.
    Because I don’t mean see the station, she said. But you probably already know how the fact is it was originally a ship, not just a station, and before the fire on it, it was still there, therefore if you or if I had come out of the station called Cutty Sark, and we’d turned the right way at the exit, by which I mean turned to our left, we’d have seen the ship called it. The point I’m making being, the thing is, I didn’t actually come to live here till last year. So I can’t see it until it is restored to its former glory. But maybe you saw the real original when you were my age or a bit older, I mean before it burned down.
    I missed it, Anna said. I never saw it in real life. I’ve seen it in pictures. And film of it on TV.
    It’s not the same, the child said. But it’ll do, it’ll do, it’ll have to do.
    She did a wild joyful dance in the doorframe.
    Brooke, Genevieve Lee said. Out. Now. And leave my stones alone. They cost money. Scottish river pebbles, she said to