The ABCs of Love by Sarah Salway Page B

too.”
    And then he started to cry.
    See also Horoscopes; Objects; Old; Tornadoes; Utopia;
Vacuuming
    quick
    John has no sense of time. In this he is just like my mother. A strange thing I have noticed is that people who have no sense of time are always talking about it. They say things like “in a minute,” “quickly,” or “I’ll get it to you soon,” but the lengths of their minutes, quicklys, and soons are very different from those in the rest of the world.
    I can’t help thinking it is deliberate. Leaving only five minutes to catch a train or bus gives the same adrenaline rush to some people as bungee jumping or walking along a high wall does to others. Whereas for most normal people being late is an inconvenience, for those like my mother and John it seems to give them a sense of power, in the same way as spending too much money or leaving a lover’s letter out where it can be read allows people to live dangerously but within the controlled limits they have set for themselves. This way, they are the architects of their own disasters.
    Once I realized this, I felt better about John. I tried to forgive my mother, too, for all the times she’d left me waiting at parties when all the other children had been picked up, but I don’t think that was the same thing. I think she really did forget about me when I wasn’t there.
    See also Illness; Utopia

R
    railway stations
    When you are in our position, you have to be careful in public in case anyone sees you. John and I meet in the next-door town, and afterward, I get the train home. He always walks me to the station, and we shake hands. It’s hard to explain, but when I get on my train after that, I feel a holy glow emanating from me. I walk to my seat as if I’m some kind of prim secretary who dreams of one day letting her hands touch her boss’s hair as she hands him the beautifully typed notes.
    But then I sit down and think of John going back home to Kate, and I curse.
    The other day, a couple got on just when the train doors were shutting. He was about fifty, close-cut gray hair, a business suit, the sort of boxer’s face you get on men who have made it to the top the hard way. She was beautiful. In her early twenties, with honey skin and lots of long dark curls. They sat back at first, puffed out from running and giggling, but then they started to kiss. After a while, I watched his hand delve into her lap. His breath became all catchy, his eyes blurry, but then just as the whole carriage started to watch, they pulled apart. Both looked out of separate windows for a bit, but then they were drawn together again. She stood up, and he guided her by the hips to sit on his lap. All us other passengers looked at one another and smiled. It was like being in the Blitz, with their lust careering round the carriage, hitting us like rifle-shot.
    Eventually, though, they went out into the corridor, and we lost sight of them. The only way you could tell they had been there was by the briefcase and newspaper left in the luggage rack above their seats. When the train came to my station, I left by their corridor because I wanted to catch sight of them. They were pinned up against the train door, wrapped in their coats, and moving so slowly and gently that it seemed they were in a dream. I thought about it all night.
    The next day at the station, just as John went to shake my hand, I pulled him to me and kissed him properly.
    When I got on my train and took my seat, I hoped everyone in the carriage had been watching.
    See also Marathons; Toys
    reasons ...
    . . . why Kate and John got married:
    She was pregnant.
    They’d known each other for years and years.
    Their parents were good friends.
    They liked the same food, the same books, films, music. It was easy.
    It seemed like a good idea at the time.
    The usual.
    (Imagine that—Princess Kate pregnant before they got married!! I tried not to look shocked for John’s sake. Just a bit prim, so he’d know that this was