All the Little Things by Sarah Lawton (the best books to read txt) 📕

‘That looks really sore, darling – there’s some arnica cream in the bathroom cabinet you can put on it—?’

‘I’m sure I’ll live, Mum.’ She rolled her eyes. I gritted my teeth and took a breath to smooth away the irritation. Why did Vivian always have to make her disdain so clear? I’d literally given up everything I’d ever worked for to keep her safe, and she treated me like I was just some nuisance. The lack of respect – gratitude, even – was beginning to grate more each day.

‘I need to go to London today, babe, so make sure you take your keys to school. I probably won’t be back ’til late so you’ll have to fend for yourself. Maybe have Molly over or something, keep you company? She can stay over if you like, I don’t mind. There’s stuff in the fridge.’

‘I’m sure I’ll cope. Why do you have to go to London?’ She looked uncomfortable at the thought, and I understood how she felt. Bad memories. Police. Hospital smells.

‘I have to meet with the author of Wings.’

‘Sounds boring.’

‘Probably. We can do something this weekend, if you want? Maybe we could go to the cinema or something, go for dinner in the city?’ I felt bad that I had been seeing so little of her; I could feel her slipping away from me and it frightened me. She just shrugged.

We finished breakfast and I dropped her off at school on my way to the station. As she went in I noticed Serena and Tilly by the door. They looked at her walking up and turned away. I couldn’t see if Vivian had noticed or not but I felt another small pang of concern, and really hoped that everything was okay in her group. Vivian didn’t cope well with changing friendship dynamics. I worried at the thought like a bone all the way to the station, and through to London. I was already suspicious about her behaviour over the weekend, how she had holed herself away brooding over something. I remembered how badly she had been bullied before, how eventually even her best friend had deserted her. Not that I had known what was happening until it was too late to do anything about it. The ever-present guilt – how badly I’d let her down – it stung.

The sights and smells of my abandoned home town pummelled me as soon as I got off the train at Paddington. The heat amplifies London. Emotions run higher, happy laughter outside pubs can turn to violence in a flash, temper running just beneath the surface, an undercurrent of disquiet. The stink of bins catches at you just as you breathe in, turning your stomach. How had I ever loved this place? Already I was longing for the clean scent of the fields and woods, of new-home. A rash of sweat broke out under my arms and on my back. I was going to be a complete mess by the time I turned up at the publishers.

The meeting was near Euston, a stone’s throw away from where I had worked as a campaign manager before we left London. I’d been so happy in the huge ad agency. Every day was different, fast, clever. I’d felt important, an important cog in a top-class engine. I had worked so hard, given up so much to get to where I did. No one had even called me after I left. No one had cared. I wasn’t important at all. I spent every second on the way to the meeting praying that I wouldn’t bump into anyone I knew. Not that they would likely remember or even recognise me, after six years in the wilderness.

Walking into the offices of the publishers I felt light-headed, almost out of my body. I was worried about the meeting, about conversing with people. I had cloistered us away from situations where new people might be. I wasn’t anxious that my work wasn’t good enough, more that I wasn’t. I didn’t feel like a fully formed human being any more, there were so many parts of me missing, gouged out of me. I could barely breathe; all the fear we’d run away from rushed back. I knew the danger was no longer here, but my body thought otherwise. I managed to present myself at the desk in reception and the trendy, bespectacled man behind the desk, whip thin, offered me a cold drink of water. It felt amazing, that first cool sip. That, and the blissful air conditioning helped me pull the fractures back together.

I made it through the meeting, long and boring as it turned out to be, without collapse; I left the building to start my journey home on a high. I had done it. I’d come back to London and survived the experience. I almost enjoyed the walk back, weaving through the crowds, slipping through easily like the native I had been, descending into the underground. It wasn’t until I’d been on the tube for twenty minutes that I realised, pulling my head out of my book, that I’d gone the wrong way. In unthinking relief, my feet had taken an old, well-trodden path from Euston. I had got on the Victoria Line; I was heading back to Walthamstow.

I couldn’t stop myself in the end. I got off the tube at Walthamstow Central, stepped out onto the road opposite the bus station, my heart fluttering. I wanted to see. I wanted to see again where I had lived, all those years of my life after my father died and my mother was broken, and after Vivian was born. I wanted to see my old house. I slowly walked up St Mary Road, cutting through on East Avenue to Orford Road. So slowly. Would anyone recognise me now, out of my sharp suits, my straightened hair and those pretentious horn-rimmed glasses that I hadn’t even needed? I was such a