How about crying? I am past caring and choose the first image, even though I look like a serial killer.
The clerk cuts one of the pictures off and places it on my application, giving me the old one. She hands Tom a receipt and clips everything together.
Outside, the wind funnels down the street, sharp and cold, making my eyes water. I zip my jacket up, stick my hands in the pockets.
‘I’ll see you Thursday,’ Tom says.
‘You need to be here before four o’clock tomorrow to collect the visas,’ I say.
‘Sure.’
‘Let me know if there’s a problem,’ I say.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he says, an edge to his voice. ‘See you.’ He walks off, the breeze blowing his hair, his coat flying out.
I make for the tram stop and, as I turn the corner, see one pulling in ahead. Running as fast as I can, I dodge shoppers and people in office clothes, the buskers and hawkers who fringe the square. Breathless, a pain behind my breastbone, I reach the platform just as the tram gives a mournful hoot and moves off.
‘Shit!’ I attract glances from other passengers.
It shouldn’t matter that I missed it, there’ll be another before long, but it feels like everything is stacking up against me. I stand there, fed up, sweaty and shivery at the same time, and tense with frustration.
Our flight is from Manchester to Chengdu with a change at Schiphol, Amsterdam. We leave at 17.40 and I’ve caved in to the boys’ pleas to be allowed to come and see me off. Of course they were less than happy when we told them I’d be going. They begged to come as well, and then Isaac, who had been kicking the chair leg harder and harder as we talked, finally kicked me on the shin and told me I was a horrible pig and added, ‘I hate you,’ as Nick jumped up to remonstrate.
Since then Isaac has stuck to me like a burr. Gazing up at me with a solemn sometimes sullen face while I sort the laundry, holding my hand too tightly when we take Benji out, hovering on the landing while I’m in the shower. I’ve tried to reassure him, tried to snatch extra time to sit with him while he draws, to watch the latest episode of Scooby Doo with him, to read an extra bedtime story, but it is never enough.
And there are endless questions – What if you can’t find Lori? What if the aeroplane goes wrong? The missing Malaysian plane has been all over the television. We rarely have the news on but they seem to imbibe it from somewhere. What if it rains? I’ll get wet.
