I don’t turn into the estate after all. I carry on walking.

I cross over Huntingdon Street, gridlocked with afterwork traffic and choked up with exhaust fumes, and keep going until I get to Mansfield Road.

I head for the bench outside the big solicitor’s office on the corner and next to the Victoria Centre shopping mall.

Lots of people are swarming out of the centre, clutching bulging shopping bags. They all look happy it’s the weekend, but maybe I just think that because I’m dreading it.

I sit down. One of the wooden slats on the bench is broken and it sticks up like a bone, frayed and splintered. I move to the other side, sitting in a little pool of afternoon sun that illuminates me in its warm spotlight.

When Dad is working away I come here a lot after school. I can feel the buzz of other people’s lives. Everybody is too busy to notice me sitting and watching – sometimes I even pinch myself to make sure I’m not a ghost.

A double-decker trundles past. Somebody shouts and when I look up, I recognize the three jeering Year Nine lads from school. One sticks two fingers up through the open top window, and another curls his hand into a loose fist and makes a rude gesture at me.

When I do the same back, a woman with her hair pulled back in a tight bun totters by on skyscraper heels and tuts loudly.

‘He did it first,’ I tell her, but she sticks her nose in the air like I smell bad.

I watch an old bloke over the street shuffling up the hill. I’ve seen him before. He’s always on his own and clutches a massive blue-and-white plastic shopping bag that’s hardly got anything in it. Every so often he stops for a breather before he takes another few steps. His body is permanently bent over in a ‘C’ shape, even when he stands still.

I wonder what he looked like when he was younger. He might have been a soldier, stood tall with his shoulders back, striding about and giving out orders to his men.

It’s weird to imagine it, but one day I’ll be old like him. Like my Grandad was.

Instead of thinking about what film I’m going to watch later or counting the hours until Dad gets home, I’ll be worrying about how long it’s going to take me to get up that hill without breaking my scrawny neck.

It makes me feel like doing something gutsy and impulsive while I’ve got the chance, while I’m still young. Like, I don’t know – going to the Broadmarsh bus station and just getting on a coach that’s going somewhere hundreds of miles away from here, away from the estate.

If I really wanted, I could do it. I’m fourteen, not four – nobody would ask any questions.

I haven’t got enough cash on me today to buy a ticket, but that’s not the point.

Daydreaming is cool because you don’t have to work out a foolproof plan of how you’re going to do stuff or wrestle with the problems that might come up.

You can just flash-forward to the good bits.

★

EXT. NOTTINGHAM CITY CENTRE – DUSK

Broadmarsh Bus Centre, July. City is quiet in the lull after work and before people come out to the pubs and restaurants for the night.

BOY approaches ticket office.

BOY

(with confidence)

Ticket to London please, one way.

TICKET CLERK peers through Perspex counter screen at BOY.

TICKET CLERK

(suspiciously)

How old are you?

BOY

Sixteen. I’m going to visit my sick nan.

CLERK hesitates then shrugs and nods. BOY pays twenty pounds and gets a ticket. He turns to leave.

TICKET CLERK

(calls out)

I hope your nan gets better soon.

The bus is half empty. BOY chooses a seat at the back and falls asleep.

CUT TO:

EXT. LONDON CITY CENTRE – MIDNIGHT

BOY stands on Tower Bridge looking down into the River Thames. The river seems alive with reflections of the coloured lights from buildings on the skyline. The boy identifies The Gherkin, The Cheesegrater, The Walkie-Talkie and The Shard.

END SCENE.

★

‘Excuse me?’ A voice bellows in my ear.

I jump up from the seat to find a woman wearing a very short skirt and very long earrings standing next to me with her hands on her hips. Behind her is a pushchair.

‘Blimey, you were in a proper trance there – we’ll never get to the park at this rate. Our Brandon’s dropped his dummy under your seat. Can you reach it?’

‘Oh yeah, sorry.’ I reach between my feet, pick up the dummy and hand it to her.

She gives me a funny look.

‘Are you all right? You were on another planet then; are you on drugs or summat?’

I say, ‘No, I was just daydreaming.’

She shakes her head and manoeuvres the pushchair ready to set off again. Little Brandon’s face is smeared with chocolate ice cream.

I wonder if Mum pushed me around like that when I was a little kid, if she took me to the park and stuff.

‘Have a good time on the swings,’ I say to the toddler.

He holds up his half-chewed cone, waves it at me and grins.