Ihead out. Inside the house things are too quiet and too small. Mum and Dad and Poppy, Aunty Leena and even Sam are just sitting there watching the news, no one speaking, everyone sucking the air out of the place. I swear every time I exit and enter the living room it looks like the walls have inched themselves closer together. I don’t even think anyone notices when I walk out the door.
I go down the stairwell past Esther’s apartment, with its weak stream of TV light seeping out through the door and I head into the big biting wind. It’s like I’m more awake than I’ve been in a long, long time. I don’t know what to do with it sometimes; all this emptiness, so I walk. The apartment blocks have their own steady rhythm, their white glow. There is a comfort in walking, for almost a dozen blocks, I tell myself that I’m just getting some air. It isn’t until I pass Harris Park Station and then Clyde, that I have to admit where I’m going.
By the time I walk over the pedestrian crossing that hangs over Granville station, it’s late, real late, it’s drizzling rain and there aren’t that many people around. I watch these two guys leaning against the rail, sharing a cigarette, just hanging like they’re waiting for some action. I walk down the main street, past the darkness of shops closed-up for the night and I head towards the ‘Fruit and Vegetables’ sign flashing like roadwork lights urging me forward with caution.
In her room, in that space above this world, the light is off in her window. I pull up a milk crate I find outside the shop and I sit there watching the space between us and I listen to the cars in the distance humming down the motorway.