Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner (primary phonics .TXT) 📕

the pub, I throw the door open and feel the warmth on my face. I see Katie at a table on the far side, and she shoots me a relieved smile, rushes to help me sit down.

‘I’m fine,’ I mutter. I wipe the melting snow off my trousers and sink into the green leather of a booth seat. I feel enormous, eclipsed by my baby. A man reaches to help me move the table back so I can fit into the seat.

‘I’ll just grab the drinks.’

As I wait, I look around the pub, wondering how long it will be, after this, until I’m in a pub again. It is a nice pub, cosier than I remember. There is a fire crackling in the hearth, the chimney breast is covered in horseshoes, the wonky shelves squashed full of silver tankards and dusty old bottles with models of boats inside. There is a low hum of chatter, a smell of mulled wine and cider. There are decorations over the bar, in gaudy green, red and gold. I guess it is nearly December. I haven’t even thought about Christmas. It is as if the time has gone ahead without me. I’m stuck on the night she disappeared.

Katie returns with a soft drink for me and a large glass of red wine for herself. She places them down and hugs me, her arms barely reaching around me over the bump. ‘So close now, Helen,’ she says.

Katie looks worried, her shoulders are tense, her brow low over her eyes. She has already drunk one glass of wine; the empty glass sits between us next to the pieces of a cardboard beer mat that she has torn to shreds. Her hand keeps flitting to her right ear to tuck a strand of hair behind it.

‘Thanks for coming,’ she says vaguely. ‘I’ve been here for ages – I hadn’t noticed it had started snowing.’ She grimaces. ‘I hope you were OK getting here.’

She glances at the door, takes a sip of her wine. She has shadows under her eyes.

I shift in my seat. ‘What is it? You said it was important.’

Katie sighs.

My heart sinks as soon as I see the look on her face, and I know what the next words will be, even before she says them.

‘It’s about Rachel.’

HELEN

My train pulls in and out of breeze-block tunnels through the alien city landscape, the huge ghostly towers of blue and green glass. The waters of the docklands are grey and flat. There are endless apartment blocks around the water, backing onto the railway line, outdoor furniture cramped onto tiny balconies. One has a plastic car and a child’s tricycle. In the giant glass office blocks, the lights are still on, the glow of computer screens, people working, even late on a Friday night.

I hadn’t planned to come here. I had planned to hear whatever it was that Katie had to say then head home, have a long bath, get into my pyjamas, see if Daniel wanted to order a takeaway when he finally got home. But I ended up staring at the photo, the one Katie had found in the club. And before I knew it, I was here. On my way to Charlie’s. Texting Daniel to tell him not to wait up.

At South Quay the track starts to bend, taking my stomach with it. I haven’t done this journey in a while. I can’t say I enjoy it much. Reflected in the wobbly mirror panels of a skyscraper, the train looks like a toy in its primary colours. It shudders past the no man’s lands of Mudchute, Westferry, Limehouse. There’s a change at Shadwell, a steep flight of stairs. I can feel sweat under my arms.

On the Overground to Dalston, the landscape changes. Scrappy allotments, low-rise housing estates with long brick balconies. Parks with playgrounds in garish colours, hooded youths lingering among the swings. Teenagers, BMX bikes, dangerous-looking dogs.

Finally, we reach Charlie’s stop. There’s no way I’ll get a taxi here. I try Uber, but it says fourteen minutes. I might be able to find a bus, maybe, but I think better of it. The last time I did that, I went the wrong way, wheeling round and round the estates, one indistinguishable from another. I decide I’ll have to walk. My feet are sore, my ankles swollen. I can feel the pressure at the bottom of my pelvis, hard now, sometimes like a shooting pain. Don’t come now, I tell the baby silently. Not tonight.

I wonder if Charlie will have Ruby this evening. I find myself hoping he doesn’t, and immediately feeling guilty at the thought. I think back to the last time I saw my little niece, in the spring, when Charlie came to see us in Greenwich. Charlie and I sat in the foyer of the Maritime Museum having an awkward coffee while she bounded around with the other children on the Great Map, her little spotty tights on, pink shoes going slap, slap, slap across the continents, her footsteps echoing around the high ceilings. She made her rabbit bounce from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Nova Scotia.

She hadn’t been that interested in the Cutty Sark, despite Charlie’s attempts. He lifted her under her arms so she could steer the ship’s wheel, pretended to throw her overboard, which made her giggle. But when I tried to show her the storybook of the legend she squirmed in my lap, asked if we could play zombie ships instead. I didn’t know how to play zombie ships, or any of the other games she liked. I would never admit it to Daniel, but I dread the thought of having a child like Ruby – loud, boisterous, with the sort of confidence I have never had. I haven’t the first idea what to do with her.

I walk past discarded McDonald’s cups, their straws sticking out at angles, burst Happy Meal balloons. Mobile phones behind glass cases, neon signs flashing – MOBILE