The Neon Court by Kate Griffin

Author:Kate Griffin [GRIFFIN, KATE]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC009010
ISBN: 9780316123365
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2011-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

Waking Penny was a necessary guilt.

Finding a working Underground station was a struggle.

After two buses, we found our way to Bromley-by-Bow, a District Line station whose main function seemed to be servicing the Blackwall Tunnel flyover and a recycling centre. The gates were open, the blue-uniformed men and women at their posts. Their eyes were bloodshot, their faces addled. The sun was failing to rise, and humanity, with its finely tuned body clock, was beginning to pay the price.

We sat on the train as it ran west, clunking through stations of dirty ceramic tiling and general suburban neglect. Penny said, “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Falling asleep. Should’ve been… you know… butt-kicking and shit.”

“It’s fine. We’re all tired.”

“You’ve got this kinda fist-sized red mark…”

“To quote classic American foreign policy—stuff happens. It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

She sighed, shrinking down further into the criss-cross-patterned seat of browns and blacks. Her eyes began to drift closed again. I pinched myself to stop my own eyes following her course, focused on sitting upright, on staying alert. On the row of seats opposite us sat a mother, her face ash grey, her hair unbrushed, holding a briefcase in one hand and a child in the other. The child looked about five and was wearing a scruffy blue uniform. The child said, “I wanna go home.”

The mother said nothing.

“I wanna go home I wanna go home I wanna go home! Mummy!”

She didn’t even look down, but stared blankly into nothing. The newspaper on the seat of the train was the same newspaper I had read on the ride back from Heathrow, the same headlines, the same trivia, only more scuffed than before. Penny’s head bumped against my shoulder. I thought about chosen ones, about prophecies and all that they entailed. I had never known any good come of either.

On the concrete walls of Mile End, some wit had written:

WAITING FOR YOU

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