Offcomer by Jo Baker

Author:Jo Baker [Baker, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7262-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

Mum and Dad had taken her to the Blackpool Illuminations. An autumn evening with a heaving dark sky. The gale had buffeted the little car. She had sat in the back gazing up at the coloured bulbs as they swung and rattled in the wind. She had felt safe and warm and proud of the brave, fragile lights that looked as if at any moment they might break themselves against each other, but always managed not to.

When they turned inland and the multi-coloured bulbs were replaced by orange streetlamps, white-lit windows, traffic-lights, Claire was melted by a vision of completion. The world, containing her, her mother and father, their little metal car, the bright lights, the dark, the wind, and Blackpool there every day of the year, seemed suddenly whole and meaningful. She felt expansive and alive, as if she could wrap herself around everything. She felt suddenly happy, and at home.

The sensation had faded gradually as they left the bright town and suburbs behind them, and began the long drive in the dark. She had woken as the car turned into the driveway and stopped, a vague and anxious ache all that was left of her revelation.

The ache, but not the memory, returned as she sat in the back of the black taxi, looking out at the new city. After the rural dark of home, Belfast seemed brilliant with light. The cab sped them through pools of music, gusts of noise. A fluorescent strip spelt out the name Dempseys. Red dots formed the letters of a message and scrolled away before Claire could read it. A car passed them, windows down. Claire didn’t hear the music but felt the visceral throb of the bassline. Along the pavements, underneath the brown-leafed trees, people were walking, talking, dressed as though this were Italy, and June. Ahead, high up, a giant telescreen flickered. They were past it before she could put the images together into sense.

Alan was staring out of the window. She could only see the back of his head, his pale neck as he leaned round, away from her. He hadn’t spoken a word to her since they left the bus station. He would tell her, sooner or later, what she’d done. She didn’t like the wait, but it was better than the row that would inevitably follow.

“How are you?” she asked tentatively.

“Fine.”

So he wouldn’t even speak to her. And she knew that if she spoke she’d only wind him up even more. She leaned back in the seat, caught herself mid-sigh. The engine’s rattle dropped as the driver slowed and shifted down a gear.

The road faded left, up a slight incline. As they passed, she glimpsed a Spar sign, a railway station, a Salsa club. There were trees. Some thick trunks, some slender, surrounded by a protective metal mesh. Lime trees, Claire guessed, by the shape of them. And more cafés, more bars. As the taxi slowed to turn she looked through the bright-lit window of a crowded restaurant and saw an elegant grey-haired woman sipping on a slender cigar.

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