any shouting or outright disapproval.
It was a good question. It gave Delia stomach snakes. It’d been her right to be vague with Paul, not with her mum.
‘No! I don’t know. It’s more to get away from things for a while.’
The parental relationship loop: fibbing to protect them from worry, and them sensing being fibbed to, and worrying. The truth – that she had no idea what she was doing – would be more worrying, so Delia had no choice.
On the train she sat next to a short old man in a bulky coat, who started a conversation about pollution, which Delia politely tolerated, while wishing she could listen to her iPod.
As they got to Northallerton, he pointed to the tracks and said: ‘See those pigeons?’
‘Yes …?’
‘Pigeons know more than they’re letting on.’
‘Do they?’ Delia said.
‘Think they carried all those messages and never read any of them?’ the man said, incredulously.
Delia said she was going to the buffet car and switched carriages.
Arriving in London, she taxied from King’s Cross to Finsbury Park and told herself she’d definitely economise from tomorrow onwards. It was late, she was tired, and full of Fondant Fancies, cheese toastie, acidic G&T and a mini tube of Pringles, all picked at in nerves and boredom.
As Delia left the station, the evening air in the capital smelled unfamiliar: thick, warm, petrol-fumed. She was hit by a wave of home sickness so hard it was in danger of washing her away.
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