Woman Last Seen(31)

13


Kai


Twenty-eight years before she met Daan

I like the station waiting room. When I’m in it I think of that TV program that I used to watch when I was little about Mr. Benn. Mr. Benn was so lucky. He could just go into a changing room—okay, so admittedly a magic one—and then come out a totally different person, ready for an adventure, just because he changed his clothes. I think that must be really good, although impossible, and Dad says hoping for things that are impossible is pointless and stupid. “You don’t want to be pointless or stupid, do you?” he asks. I shake my head. He asks those sorts of questions using a particular voice. I’ve thought about the voice a lot. It’s kind of fake cheerful. A mix between something like the voice girls at school use when daring you to do something and a telling-off that a teacher might fling out. It’s not nice.

Still, I find I do. Hope for impossible things.

I still wish really hard that this station waiting room is like Mr. Benn’s changing room for me. Even though wishes, even those you make on birthdays, never come true. I have to be a different person when I end my train journey from the one I was when I began it. The waiting room has two doors and I always make sure I go in one and out the other. I don’t have to, it’s nothing to do with which platform the train pulls in at, or anything logical, it’s just a thing I keep doing. To see if things change. To see if I am different. To see if everyone is. I haven’t told anyone about my waiting room habit, Dad would be very angry about it. Dad likes me to think rationally. “Like a boy, not a hormonal or superstitious woman. You don’t want to be a hormonal, superstitious woman, do you?” I knew to say no, even before I had to look up both words. Neither is a compliment. Compliments are words like beautiful, reasonable, intelligent. He was not clear about which woman he thinks is “hormonal or superstitious.” I don’t think he means his new wife, Ellie. Most likely he means Mum, although he doesn’t directly talk about Mum to me. Not ever.

He once told me that Ellie “doesn’t make a fuss,” which I could tell he thought was a really good thing because he said it in his kind, content voice. I guess this must be true because she had my baby brother, Freddie, before she even married my dad and she did it so quietly no one knew anything about it, except presumably Dad. I guess he must have known. He just didn’t tell me.

Freddie is very cute, although a bit annoying at times when he doesn’t know I’m bored of a particular game and he just wants to keep playing, “again, gen, gen” is like his war cry. The games he plays aren’t proper games, obviously, as he’s only two. He likes being swung around in circles, which kills my arms after a bit. He likes kicking a ball backward and forward, not exactly between us, because his aim is terrible. And when he’s in the bath he likes me pouring a cup of water over his head. He thinks that is hysterical. But once he laughed so hard and kicked his chubby little legs so much, he slipped and then banged his head on the tap and Dad went mad with me. He was really angry. He made a big fuss, but I think it’s different with men. If they make a fuss it is not hormonal, it’s because they are cross with their stupid wives or stupid daughters. True, Ellie did not make a fuss, but she didn’t really speak to me properly for days and kept giving me bad looks. Like the girls at school sometimes do if you wear the wrong jeans.

Ellie must be hormonal though because she is actually pregnant again (gen, gen? how many babies are they planning on having?! I wonder). Mrs. Roberts, my science teacher, said pregnant women have a lot of “hormonal changes.” This information was given during the lessons on reproduction education. I wish that had not been taught this year. It is really embarrassing that Dad and Ellie keep having babies because everyone in my class knows they must be having sex when other parents are obviously not. I wish I had parents that just did the same as everyone else’s parents. Like telling them off about their untidy rooms, getting a takeaway from the Chinese on Saturdays and complaining about the cost of school trips. To be fair, my dad does do all these things, but he also has sex with his new wife. He has a new wife.

Ellie’s belly is so weird. I can’t keep my eyes off it. She is really skinny everywhere else but now has this mound to carry around in front of her. She doesn’t like me staring, though. She says I am “unnerving.” I looked that up too. Also, not a compliment. She says I’m weird. Me?! I’m not the one with a Space Hopper up my jumper. I try not to get caught staring, though, because it makes Dad cross if I upset Ellie. “She’s very good to you,” he says all the time. As though saying it all the time makes it more true.

There is a kiosk in the waiting room that sells teas and coffees and breakfast to people rushing to work in the city. There are no tables, though—the place is too small. People have to eat their breakfasts standing up or take them onto the train and hope to get a seat. My favorite breakfast is a bacon buttie. I love the smell of warm fat sizzling and white bread frying; it reminds me of my granddad cooking breakfast for me when I was little. It’s usually a woman who serves behind the counter, but sometimes it’s a man. They are from Taiwan. I know because I heard the man tell a customer once. I didn’t know where Taiwan was, and it took ages to find it on Dad’s globe. Most of one Sunday afternoon, but I didn’t mind really, because it was something to do.

The Taiwanese couple tune their small radio in to a classical music channel which seems to be surprising to the passengers, who always look astonished as they soak up the pianos and violins along with the smell of coffee and fried bread. It is certainly a change because in most shops and cafés only pop songs are played. I like the classical music because that also reminds me of my granddad who had old records of composers that have been dead for ages. I remember him telling me their names—Beethoven, Bach and Chopin—but I don’t really know which was which. My granddad died when I was eight, which is so sad. If he was still alive, I think I would know which composer was responsible for which bit of music and maybe I wouldn’t even be sitting in this waiting room. I’d be sitting with him, most likely. In his lovely warm front room that had too much furniture for its small size but always smelled of sunshine and polish. Which was nice.