Blue Moon by Julia Green

Author:Julia Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141926766
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-05-20T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The hospital was a mile or two from the town centre. Better catch a bus. Then she’d be back in Ashton well before Dad left work.

She felt light-headed with relief, walking along the busy street away from the hospital, her bag over her shoulder. They’d forced her into it really, hadn’t they? But she could choose. Why should she do what they wanted? Didn’t she always do that? Well, not now, not any more. She’d show them. Why shouldn’t she be a mother? What did age have to do with it? She’d find a way.

Mia sat on the top floor of the bus at the front. She’d not been along this route before. The bus didn’t go straight into town like she’d expected, but turned off and meandered through huge estates of houses she didn’t know existed. At each stop there were groups of mothers with small kids and pushchairs. Mia stared out of the window at the rows of terraced houses, the semis with paired front gardens, neat squares with clipped rose trees next to wild wastelands of bindweed and dandelion, rusting swings and half-dismantled motorbikes. On the outskirts of Ashton the bus lurched along a pot-holed road to a row of houses near the old gas works.

Mia’s heart skipped a beat – a small girl was sitting on the low wall in front of one of the houses. Lainey? The bus had gone past the stop, but Mia was sure it had been her. She craned back to get another glimpse. The child had turned too, gazing back at Mia. She saw Lainey’s dark eyes, her halo of fair hair, the thin cotton dress she’d worn that first time Mia’d seen her on the bridge. Impulsively, Mia pressed the bell. The bus driver swore, braked, barked something at Mia as she clattered down the stairs and out of the door. She didn’t care.

The figure had disappeared from the wall. Now Mia couldn’t be sure on which wall exactly she had seen Lainey; the walls and houses all looked exactly the same. She hovered on the pavement, suddenly uncomfortable. A woman stared at her through one of the windows opposite. Now she could hear a baby crying. Perhaps it was Lainey’s baby, the baby who was sick. But there was no sign of Lainey. What was she playing at? She’d definitely seen Mia, the way she’d turned and watched the bus. But maybe she hadn’t realized Mia would get off the bus to find her. Should she knock on one of the doors now she was here? If only the woman didn’t look so hostile, standing there watching her.

A car careered past, splashing right through a puddle and drenching Mia’s legs. Two youths hung out of the windows and laughed. The woman at the window turned her back on Mia. In the house next door someone was playing music. A light was on upstairs. She’d nothing to lose, had she? She’d knock on the door and ask which house was Lainey’s.

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