33 West by Daisy Goodwin

Author:Daisy Goodwin [Bobby Nayyar and Charlotte Judet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781907536373
Publisher: Limehouse Books Limited
Published: 2011-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

The day the A-level results came out, Dawn was working. She could have asked to swap shifts, when she saw the rota. She could have gone down to the college in the morning with her friends. But something stopped her, perhaps the wish to let fate take its course one last time. Soon enough she would have to make a decision, actually make a decision. All her life she had been fire-fighting, reacting to what life threw at her, rolling with the punches. The idea of taking control of her own life was more frightening than exhilarating.

She spent the morning making one coffee after another, filling cups, calling names, rarely looking up to check the faces that went with the outstretched hands. Every now and then she peered around to check who was sitting at the tables. She half-expected, half-hoped to see Audrey sitting at her usual table. Dawn hadn’t reminded her mum of the date, there was no point in having them both on tenterhooks. But it would have been nice to have Audrey around. She told herself that Audrey would only be there if she had a flight that day, it wasn’t as if she came to Heathrow just to have coffee in Dawn’s shop. But ever since that day in Terminal One, Dawn had known, deep down, that Audrey’s story didn’t really add up. Which meant that she had been lying to Dawn for months. But it also meant that she came to see Dawn out of choice, which meant she could choose to be here today.

Dawn shook her head, shook herself out of this illogical train of thought. She checked her watch and ducked under the counter to grab her small backpack.

‘Taking my break now,’ she called out and elbowed her way out of the coffee shop without waiting for permission. She headed for the internet terminals in the middle of the concourse. They were arranged in a circle, their screens facing outwards and Dawn felt somehow exposed as she stood with her back to the crowds in the Departures hall. She swiped her cash card in the machine and logged herself on to the college website. Her fingers prickled with nerves as she clicked the link to get her results. Scrolling, going too far, clicking back up the page, slowly, slowly. Her name. Another click. Words and letters on the screen, the keys to her future. Dawn let out the breath she had been holding. She pulled a scrap of paper out of her backpack and wrote down her results, even though there was no chance she would forget them. She stood up, put the piece of paper in her back pocket and logged out of the computer.

Audrey was waiting for her back at the coffee shop. She looked tired. She looked like she had been crying. She was tucked into the corner, her head down. Dawn almost didn’t see her in the crowd.

‘I lost my suitcase,’ she said as soon as she saw Dawn, panic in her voice.

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