A Distant Shore Read Online Free PDF Page B

university, and who showed up penniless on my doorstep. Once I’d recovered from the shock of opening the door on Sheila and her lopsided grin, I asked her in. She left her rucksack by the door and sat down on the edge of my single bed.
    “Where have you been, Sheila? You look like a cat dragged you backwards through a hedge.”
    She stared at the Jean-Luc Godard poster on my wall and said nothing, so I made her a cup of tea and waited for her to speak. I had concert practice that evening, but I knew that I wasn’t going to make it. While the tea was brewing I quickly excused myself and dashed down the dormitory corridor. I slipped a note under my friend Margaret’s door. I didn’t feel like explaining anything to anybody, so a note was easier. I told Margaret that something had come up, which it had, and that they would have to manage without me tonight. I hurried back to my room and closed the door behind me, then locked it. Sheila didn’t look up. I felt guilty, but I couldn’t help but notice how much bigger on her chest she’d become. I poured us both a cup of tea and then sat next to my sister, ready to talk. But she wasn’t ready to talk, and her eyes began to fill with tears that eventually spilled out and ran down her gaunt cheeks.
    I must have lingered too long at the graveside, for it appears that I’ve missed the four o’clock bus. A woman of my age finds it both difficult, and a little undignified, to run. I sit on the bench by the bus stop and stare at the hordes of badly dressed schoolchildren milling about and shouting. I recognise the green sweatshirts, and the ties that hang down like cords that you might yank to turn on a light switch. Then I realise that I know some of the kids, so I look away and try to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. A doublechinned man, burdened with shopping bags, sits next to me. He was on the bus that brought us out from the village a few hours earlier, and he attempts conversation. “It’s still warm out.” I can’t help him, and so I smile and silently beg his forgiveness. He registers my reluctance and opens a copy of the evening newspaper. I look around and wonder how I ever managed to live in this noisy, filthy town. Mercifully, I now live in Weston, or in the “new development,” which the man next to me has no doubt already guessed. I’m sure that he sits at home at the bottom of the hill, probably by himself, judging by all the shopping bags, and considers me and everybody else in the new development to be interlopers. All of us, disturbing a pattern that has gone on for decade after decade until Stoneleigh came along to make them feel as though their shrinking lives, which were already blighted by closures and unemployment, were even less important than they had hitherto imagined.
    It’s a little after five-thirty when the bus rolls slowly into the village. There are those who don’t stir, for they will be alighting at one of the small towns or lonely villages beyond Weston. However, I watch as my bench partner gets to his feet and struggles with his shopping bags, and then two younger women make their way from the back of the bus and join him at the door. I bring up the rear. The driver is a polite young kid who seems to specialise in this route, and he wishes us all, individually mind you, a good night. Strange, I think, as it’s still bright out, but I appreciate the gesture. Usually I would turn to the left and begin the short walk up the hill, but having read some of the back of the man’s evening newspaper it occurs to me that catching up on the news would be a nice way to spend the evening. I wait until the bus has moved off on its way, and then I cross the main road. Carla sees me coming towards her and, at least to start with, she’s a little shocked, as though I were the last person she wanted to see. Then she catches herself and looks somewhat nervously at me.
    “Hello, Miss.” She is dressed to go out, with her eyes overly