were all the people who worked here? Why couldn’t she talk to an employee? Through the sea of heads, she came across a line, a huge bank of ticket sellers beyond, but between her and the cashier was a queue five rows deep. It made her think of rock concerts she had seen on television. Things Kate liked when she was young. Her fingers brushed her purse, the phone just inside. Should she send her daughter a message, tell her what she was doing? No, she decided. There wasn’t time for that right now. Hoping her legs would see her through the wait, she headed toward the line but was stopped by a young man in the queue.
“Do you need some help?” Elizabeth looked up. His face was round, his beard a fluffy auburn mass that seemed strangely familiar. What a relief he seemed, appearing like an angel, and she wanted to reach out and hug him for suddenly making her feel that her inexplicable decision to come to London was not only right but necessary. “You look a bit lost,” he said.
“I am. I have no idea how to work those machines, and I’ve come all the way from Cornwall and now I don’t know what to do or where to go.” Emotion was building, a mix of relief and anxiety, all of which seemed to work together to form a lump in her throat.
“Where are you trying to get to?” the man asked.
“I don’t even know that,” she said before reaching in her bag and rummaging for that slip of paper with the address from years before. The address she could only hope Tom was still living at. “A place called Hampstead,” she said, reading the paper.
“Sounds like you’ve had quite a journey,” he said, reaching for her suitcase, pointing toward the machines. “Come on, I’ll help you. It’s easier than it looks.”
Perhaps it was the exhaustion, the anxiety, or just absolute relief, but she reached out and took the young man by the arm. “Thank you,” she said, blinking a tear away. “I would have been here all day in that queue, and I don’t have the time to waste.”
“This is London.” He laughed. “Nobody has.”
* * *
Less than half an hour later she found herself in the relative calm of Hampstead Tube station, and thanks to the young man’s help, only minutes from where she believed Tom’s house to be. Feet drummed the corridors, and the smell of oil and food hung thick in the station, but the assistance from the stranger had bolstered her. This was doable, she told herself as she stepped outside into the heat of the city. It struck her that there was no breeze, no saltiness to the air, yet life continued; mothers with strollers, men and women in suits. The little slip of white paper that she had kept for over forty years shook in her hand with the rhythm of her nerves as she tried to remember where to go.
“How have you spent your whole life here?” she said aloud, talking to Tom despite his absence, as she often did as a way of imagining him alongside her. “So far from home.” It seemed impossible to think Tom had lived in this place for close to fifty years, but she hoped for her sake he had. This was the only way she was going to be able to find him.
Only once had she made this trip before, the occasion when she first acquired Tom’s telephone number and address. The idea of a reunion hadn’t gone as planned that time, but her memory of that trip had left her with a certain sense that she knew where she was going. Still, years had passed since then, and life had changed. They had changed. Would he answer the door? Would his wife be there? She hoped not but felt guilty for even thinking it. Would they understand her arrival? With each step it became harder to breathe as she wound down the street, following the map of her memory. It was exhausting, and her fingers were sore from wheeling her case. And then, in the window of an expensive-looking bakery the sight of herself—hair all limp, her face red and shiny with sweat—held her back. Throughout the whole journey, her mind had been focused on how Tom might have changed. But what about how she had changed? What in the hell was he going to make of her in the state