Page 37 of The Second Chance Bus Stop

London

I wake up with a funny feeling in my stomach, and at first I’m not sure why. Lying in bed, I go over the possibilities, ranging

from food poisoning to nerves, when it hits me. Today is my birthday. I don’t particularly care for birthdays anymore. I’m

older now and the day usually brings nothing other than a roast lunch in a pub and a book voucher from Waterstones. Both very

nice things but not deserving of the butterflies in the stomach. It’s a feeling I won’t be able to shake, I fear. A feeling

cultivated by my parents over the years, one of excitement and anticipation that this was, indeed, special .

That is why I never treated Blade in this way.

I downplayed it to feel like every other day.

I guess it’s your birthday today , I would say when he was as young as four.

It so happens that this is the day you were born on.

Then we would go to the park and have waffles with chocolate sauce and pick something from the toy shop. A day for specialness,

not necessarily a special day.

When he got older I started throwing his birthday party on a different date.

I didn’t want my son to spend his entire life waking up every February 2 with butterflies in his stomach, just to be greeted with a simple roast lunch.

Priming opens up the potential for hurt.

Set expectations can lead to disappointment.

Waiting for someone inherently means they might not come.

I look around for my phone, knowing that it should be next to my bed, but somehow I’m not able to see it today. I have trouble

looking for things. I can’t visualise the item I’m missing so I can’t see what it is I’m trying to find. In that moment the

phone I’m looking for could be any model or colour on the entire global phone market. It’s disappeared. But I can see Sven.

I would recognise him anywhere. I think that today is a very important day to spend at Hornton Street, so I decide to get

ready as soon as I can. Once I finally find my phone I reply to Blade.

Call me when you want. Have a great day, Mum , he has written.

We’ll see , I respond.

When I make it downstairs I have those flitting thoughts travelling through me, the ones I don’t dwell on because I know instinctively

that they’ll confuse me and require too much energy to figure out what they mean. Zara is in the kitchen with a cup of coffee

in her hand.

‘How do I look?’ Zara is wearing all black.

‘I only see your head. It’s like it’s floating around freely.’ It’s the truth. Some days, people are reduced to floating busts

and today is like that. The brain is so complex I don’t even try to understand the science of it. Blade’s Google search says

it’s normal and so I accept it. Zara laughs.

‘That sounds quite liberating, existing only as a head. As long as my face looks all right?’ She’s beautiful, of course; all

young people are they just don’t realise it. I look fat, I hate my hair colour, my lips are too thin , they say. Then they age, look back at the photos and see how stunning they were when it’s too late to enjoy it.

‘Your face looks lovely,’ I offer quickly but sincerely. ‘Now, today is my birthday and I’d very much like to go out if you

need to do some work?’

‘I know—happy birthday! I can absolutely do some work. At least in the library I don’t need to buy a beverage every hour to

justify my space there. Much better for my finances. Let’s go.’

On the bus, on the way to the library, I’m trying to think. About who I am, now that I’m sixty-five. We define ourselves by

the things we like when we’re younger mostly. Oh, I love dancing. Then when we get older we define ourselves by the things we don’t like. I can’t stand reality TV. Then there’s me who exists in some in-between land. Perhaps this definition of me will be different altogether?

At midday we arrive at the town hall, and I find myself a seat at the bus stop, for once knowing that Sven won’t come around

the corner.

Nothing special ever happens on a birthday.

At the end of the afternoon Eliza meets me at the corner of Campden Hill Road with a small paper box.

‘For you,’ she says.

Inside is a small cupcake with white icing, high and pointy like a pale Christmas tree.

‘I got one for me as well,’ she says and sits down next to me.

I nod gratefully, not having to explain that I’m unsure where to start.

I imitate Eliza as she gently lets thumb and index finger dive into the box and whisk the cake up without touching the icing.

I resist the urge to lick the white cream and instead bite into it from one side.

The sugary taste is intense and overpowering.

‘Hey there.’ Zara turns the corner and spots us.

‘Zara, meet my friend Eliza.’ I’m proud to manage the name without a cup.

The girls look at each other, their eyes diverting a little bit too soon. Oh! I know that look. It’s the look of someone who’d very much like to keep looking but doesn’t want to make a fool of herself.

‘Nice to finally meet you. I’d have gotten you a cupcake if I’d known you were coming. Edith says you are always very busy.’

‘Well, yes. Busy saving the world of flat-pack-buying consumers from assembly-related mental illness and nervous breakdowns.

That’s me.’

Eliza laughs. ‘I’m busy saving millionaires from having to squeeze the nursery into the walk-in closet because there’s no

second bedroom.’

They both smile. I think how if Eliza came up tonight on the phone Zara and I keep browsing perhaps she’d say, ‘What do you

think, Edith?’ and I’d take a close look and say, ‘Yes, do you know what? She looks quite all right.’ And perhaps Zara would

have swiped, and they’d have matched.

‘Right, have to get back to it, then,’ Eliza says, her cupcake half-eaten in the box. Perhaps Zara’s pink hair is too distracting

for her.

‘I’ll come collect Edith earlier tomorrow as well. To go to the bus,’ Zara says. ‘I’m sure the flat-pack consumers would understand

it if I were to sit down for twenty minutes to have a cupcake.’

Eliza laughs again. ‘The millionaires of Kensington would not understand if I sat down twenty minutes with a cupcake but I’ll bloody well do it anyway.’

Eliza trots off, not looking over her shoulder, not once. I pat Zara on the shoulder.

‘Look what you can find while waiting for the bus.’