Free A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman Page A

be such a surprise when I’m old, eh?
    Come here, said Freddy and he went to put his arms around her.
    No. I don’t need that, I’m all right, and she pulled away from him. You’ll have to get used to this. This is what you’ve come back to. Everyone here has a story and that’s just one of mine.
    A rocket screeched into the cold air.
    Oh, look! Let’s hope this one’s blue. I still love the blue ones! The rocket exploded and flared. Cascades of red and green.
    I wanted it to be blue.
    Maybe next one, he said. But there wasn’t a next one. Stragglers below wandered off and calm fell across the London sky.
    It did us all in, really, didn’t it? said Missy. We’re all a bit different now, aren’t we?
    And he wanted to tell her just how different he was, and he wanted her to hold that difference and for her to tell him he wasn’t so bad, and that’s just what war did to people. But he lit a cigarette instead and handed it to her. She took a puff as the first of her tears fell on his hand.
    Don’t look at me, she said, and turned away. Please don’t look at me.
    Freddy did as he was asked, looked away towards Truman’s chimney stack, and the roof tops, and curtained windows of bedrooms and bodies and warmth, and the stars, and the ever-obvious gaps more and more intrusive along the cityscape. This was his city once. He couldn’t even remember what was there or what should have been there any more. A bit like his life, he thought.
    They crept down to the strange quiet of her room with the sound of rockets still ringing in their ears. Missy bent down and switched on the fire. They sat opposite each other in the orange glow from the electric bars. The warmth made their cold faces flush. They were alone. Their bodies were alone. Freddy led her over to the bed and began to kiss her. She leant across and felt for the safety of the light switch. He took his trousers off in the dark. She began to touch him as if she were blind.

12

    S unday bells pealed across the clear dawn sky. Missy awoke abruptly. Her head throbbed and her breath stank and a man’s body was pressed much too close. She moved his arm away from her waist, his leg off her leg, mornings-after she just wanted space in her own bed, was it really too much to ask? She looked up at the ceiling and gently blew at the fine grey webs clustered in the corner.
    She got up and crept towards the sink. She ran the tap and cupped her hand, ran the excess across her face. She bent down to the mirror and thought she looked a horror, the early light being so cruel. She pinned her hair hastily and roughly and tied a scarf about her head. She reached for her pack of Players and drew a cigarette towards her mouth. She struck a match and took two pulls on the cigarette: one for sorrow two for joy. Better, she felt. The tightness in her head was easing. She drew back the curtains and squinted against the clear metallic light.
    She ran water into the sink, lifted her foot on to the narrow porcelain edge and soaped between her legs, down her thighs. She rinsed with a flannel, dried off with her housedress.
    Mornin’, sweetie, she whispered, as she lifted the tea towel away from Buddy’s cage. She poked a stale piece of honey bun into the cage. The bird stared at her. What is it? she said. What am I missing, eh?
    She ground out her cigarette on to the stubs of a dozen others and looked out over the eastern sky. She filled the window with her nakedness and it was an unconscious act, one that spoke softly, said, This is who I am, not This is what you’re missing. She watched the tide of life below. People doing their very best, trying so hard to make it better. And she took to wondering, like so many often did, what it had all been for. The triumph of two years ago hadn’t gained access to wallets or purses or homes. People were poor and the city was crumbling. She lifted the window and a blast of chill air blew in. The birdcage swayed. She shuddered. She wedged her thighs