Among Others

I saw Moira and Leah and Nasreen after they got out of school this afternoon. They asked me what Arlinghurst was like, and I didn’t tell them, except for superficial things. Leah has got a boyfriend, Andrew who used to be so good at maths in Park School when we were all little. I said that and Moira said some of us were still little. She’s had a growth spurt. I wonder if I will. I’ve been the same height since I was twelve, when we were the tallest in the class, but now almost everyone has passed me. They told me all the gossip. Dorcas, who always used to be top in French and Welsh and whose parents are some kind of nutty religion, Seventh-day Adventists or something, has got pregnant. Sue has left because her parents were moving to England. It felt really normal, but also really weird, as if I was just pretending.

Back to Shrewsbury tomorrow, just when they’re going to be out of school and we could have done something together.

Saturday 3rd November 1979

The Crewe train is much smaller than the London train. It has a corridor and little carriages that seat eight, on sort of benches across from each other. There’s a luggage rack up above, and black and white photographs of places—in my carriage Newton Abbot, which I’ve never heard of. I wonder where it is? It looks nice. For most of the way I had the carriage to myself, though a middle-aged lady and her two children got on in Abergavenny and off in Hereford. They didn’t bother me much. Most of the time I alternated looking out of the window and reading, first my Destinies and then I started Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, which I also bought in Lears.

The train runs up the Welsh border. Once it gets away from Cardiff and Newport it’s all hills and fields as it goes up through the borders. The sun was in and out, in a fitful autumnal way, with that odd autumn afternoon light that looks almost like an underwater colour. The clouds made patches of darkness on the mountains, and when there was a patch of sun the grass seemed almost luminous, as if you could read by it. You can see the Sugarloaf from the train. Well, it’s a very distinctive mountain. We used to go to Abergavenny sometimes, and there was a song we’d sing in the car, “Over the hills to Abergavenny, hoping the weather’ll be fine.” It gave me a warm feeling to see it, even just the railway station and the hills behind. I’ll mention going through it to Grampar when I write. After Abergavenny the train crosses the border into England somewhere, because Hereford is in England, and Ludlow definitely is. Ludlow is a little market town. It looks a lot like Oswestry, from the train, but a bit warmer.

The last stop before Shrewsbury is Church Stretton. A lot of people came into my carriage then, and my beautiful corner where I’d felt so comfortable all the way became a bit crowded. My heart sank a bit too. I’d managed to enjoy the journey up to that point without thinking about where I was ending up.

Daniel wasn’t waiting in Shrewsbury station. I’d thought he’d be on the platform, but he wasn’t. I went out through the barrier and stood in the car park. I thought about getting a bus but I didn’t have the faintest idea what bus I’d want or where it would go from. That’s another thing, in the Valleys I know where all the buses go, and their routes, and which ones are useful to me. Red-and-whites go to Cardiff, and the dark-red ones are locals. It’s easy to think about knowing the dramroads and the way things fit together, but I’d never thought how useful it is to know buses, until I was standing there and felt so stuck. I had my bag, and a bag of books too, and I wasn’t exactly weighed down with luggage but it wasn’t nothing.

I had two pounds ten left of the ten pounds. (That might not seem like much, but I had bought a lot of books.) I went back into the station, where there’s a W. H. Smiths and bought a map, a pink-covered one inch to the mile Ordnance Survey map of Shrewsbury and district. (I always thought it was “ordinance,” but apparently not. Ordnance. What a funny word, and what a funny concept too. They surveyed the whole country for military logistics, and now they sell anyone the maps. Well, I wasn’t planning to invade.) I went back out into the car park and sat down on a bench. I found Mickleham, where the Old Hall is, and thought that a bus to Wolverhampton would probably go near there, when Daniel got there after all. I was relieved to see the black Bentley draw in. I folded the map up and put it away, but he saw it.

“I see you’ve bought a map,” he said.

“Maps are very interesting, really,” I said, embarrassed, though it was him who ought to be embarrassed, being late. I got into the car. He threw a cigarette butt out of the window and drove off. He shouldn’t do that, even in a car park. It’s a bad habit. It could start a fire. I felt thoroughly disapproving of him.