The Practicalities of Freezing Time: Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The wind nipped at Naledi Jameson’s hands as she pulled her fingerless gloves tighter and turned the page of her book.  An announcer mentioned delays to the trains and, not even bothering to look up and check the adjusted times, she sat herself down on a cold, metal bench, still wet and nipping from snow the night before.

     She put the book down and pulled her scarf up until it covered her chin and bumped her glasses.  She pushed them up, still trying to get used to wearing them and wondering again if she should have opted for contact lenses instead.  She looked down at the book and absently ran her finger across its pages.  She was nearing the ending now, and it was the ending she wanted: simple, neat, happy, where heroes were heroes, villains defeated, and love saved the day.

     It wasn’t like that really, of course.  It couldn’t always be neat.  People got hurt and lies were told, however well intended.  Naledi thought of her mum and Clive and how long it had taken for her to be able to call him that.  She thought of doctors and crying and therapy and pills and that silly day a few years ago and more doctors.  She shook her head and gazed up now at the railway station’s clock.  Another three minutes until her train arrived.

     Things weren’t perfect, not at all, but everything seemed so very long ago and she tried not to think about them really as she couldn’t turn it all back and do it all again.  Still, moments played out when she closed her eyes: Miss. Schnabeltier leaving the school, pregnant, a couple of years after that day round the kitchen table; Clive moving in; the way that, slowly, somehow, she had started to talk to him properly.

     And then there had been Sam and the first time her heart had been broken, and Jo (“I’ve got the same name as your mum? Isn’t that… weird?”) and Taylor and, finally, currently, Jamie.

     Naledi’s phone started to vibrate so she looked at it: her mum.  They talked, of course, but not like other mums and daughters did; not like she felt she should.  People told her it was silly to think like that, but people hadn’t gone through what she had gone through, however good intentions had been.  There was so much to tell, but so little, too.  The details were just that, details, and most people just had the edited highlights: therapy, Clive in, weddings, Sam, ya-di-ya-di-ya-da.  What was it Miss. Schnabeltier had said about not worrying too much sometimes about the details and just going with it?  Her phone beeped again: an answerphone message.  Probably a snappy one from Mum.

     Again, not everything was perfect.  But it was okay, and she’d take that.

     She looked at her book and then up at the platform her train arrived.  Her mum would have to wait for now; she could always call her back.  There was never enough time to deal with everything, no matter how much of it she had on her hands.

     Time never stopped or froze, even when she wanted it to.  It all just kept going, however hard that was, but Naledi went with it, largely because she didn’t have any choice.  Sometimes, her fingertips would lightly brush together, link in a moment of stress, but she didn’t notice she was doing it, and nothing ever happened.  Nobody ever became a hero by stopping and taking the scenic route.

     She shoved herself into a seat, still warm from the person sat there before.  The train jerked out of the station and Naledi tugged at her scarf so her mouth was free again, her breath catching in the relative warmth of a snow-free train carriage.  She got her train ticket out, ready for inspection, put her phone into her pocket, and turned to her place in her book.  A superhero in it did a superheroic thing, and Naledi carried on reading.