An Irresponsible Age by Lavinia Greenlaw

Author:Lavinia Greenlaw [Lavinia Greenlaw]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007391004
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

FOURTEEN

As the train from the airport wandered into Victoria Station, Juliet’s impression of London after five months away was of a collapse of light. Her eyes had grown used to the primary-blue skies of Littlefield and the town’s clean-cut brightness and shade. It was nine in the morning, midwinter, and the unseen sun was beginning to dilute the grey. At this time of year, the movement between London night and London day was more like a prevarication than any clear shift. Perhaps this was why people tended to look as if they were walking away from rather than towards something. They lived in a city built in a basin, which might encourage them to conduct themselves as if the accountable surface of the world skimmed past overhead.

Juliet’s hearing had also retuned itself, to the elastic, shallow, percolating Massachusetts accent. As the bus conductor chided his passengers, ‘Moovahlong!’, ‘Nah standin’ on top’, ‘Chain ja fivah? Yergotter be avin’ me awn!’, she heard him as an American might, the cockney of the Ealing comedy, his voice somewhere between a cough and a jeer.

The bus swung out of the station and into the one-way system heading west. An hour later, Juliet arrived at Khyber Road. A rag-and-bone man with a large television on his cart was disappearing round the corner and a woman inched past, barefoot, impervious, her hands reaching out in beseechment. Juliet, accustomed to Littlefield’s steadfast courtesy, almost said ‘Hi, how are you.’

Walking into the hallway, Juliet experienced a further sense of contraction. In Littlefield she had large rooms, all those windows and solid walls. Khyber Road looked as if it was built of dust held together by damp. She did not remember it being so derelict.

Juliet had been vague about her return and her family, who refused to be provoked, had not tried to pin her down. ‘Tuesday-ish,’ she had told Fred, who decided that this meant Monday afternoon or Wednesday morning. It turned out to mean Monday morning. Juliet went through to the kitchen. Her first impression was that it looked completely different and then she realised that everything was the same only arranged differently: cups top down and in rows, jars out of place by inches. The jug of cutlery that stood on the windowsill had been put on a high shelf and in the drawer, tea cloths had been folded into rectangles. There were three dirty plates in the sink, traces of butter, crumbs and yoghurt, a bowl and a child’s beaker. The kettle was warm and the tiled wall behind it still veiled in condensation. Were they hiding from her? Who were they? Fred hadn’t said anything about people coming to stay. In the living room, a rug had been thrown over the sofa, a living pot plant had replaced the dead one and the blind had been left up rather than down.

She found a bag open on her bed. In it, she could see a teddy bear with a head almost empty of stuffing, a heap of cassettes and a glasses case.

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