I can hear her muttering things about me under her breath. She points again to the sleeping boy beside her. His yellow bobble hat has been pulled down over his face and he’s curled himself up beside her. The sight makes me think of Felix. ‘IS HE THE MISSING BOY?’ she mouths.
‘I thought he was your son?’
She lets out what can only be described as a frustrated wail. ‘HE IS NOT MY SON.’
‘Oh, I see.’
My response makes her cast me a deadpan expression.
Hang on, Felix is supposed to be the missing boy. ‘I think my girlfriend’s nephew is the missing boy.’
She lets out a heavy sigh at me. ‘HE LOOKS LIKE THE MISSING BOY.’ I watch her take out her phone. After tapping something into it she lets out another wail of frustration. ‘No bloody signal,’ she hisses. ‘Do you have a phone?’
I hold it up. ‘Out of battery.’
The woman plunges her face into her hands and mutters more things under her breath.
It’s a long anxious wait before her phone has signal again. Luckily for us the boy now looks like he's fallen asleep.
Her face lights up as she taps something into her phone. ‘LOOK,’ she mouths and points at the photo of the missing boy. ‘THAT’S HIM.’
A huge wave of relief crashes over me as I scan the news article and see that it’s not Felix who ran away at St Pancras station, but another nine-year-old boy called Jack. The woman is right as the sleeping boy does have the same yellow bobble hat as the lad in the photo and she claims he has luminous yellow laces on his boots which the article refers to when describing him.
‘Do you think we should call someone?’ she whispers.
I nod. His poor parents must be distraught.
The woman carefully gets up from the seat. ‘I am going to phone someone. Keep him here,’ she whispers.
I watch her walk away and to my surprise the boy opens both eyes. Sitting bolt upright he casts me a frightened look. ‘Where is she going?’
‘It’s all right, don’t look so worried.’ His face is ashen white and eyes are small.
He lifts his bobble hat. ‘Have you been in a fight?’
I shake my head. ‘I had an accident.’
As the boy studies my head I recognise him from the photo. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘It aches a bit.’
The boy nods and looks out of the window. ‘I don’t want to go home.’
‘Why not?’
I watch him cover his face with his hands. ‘My grandpa is sick in hospital. I don’t want him to die.’ His voice is thick with emotion. I watch tears roll down his pink cheeks.
‘Is that why you ran away?’
He nods, still behind his hands. ‘I tried to visit him in hospital but I got scared the nurses might call my mum. He’s going to die and I will miss him.’
Lawrence’s face is in my mind. The urge to do something new in my life and speak about Lawrence is strong. The old man in the graveyard was right. When grief has showed up at my door, I have tried to suppress my memories and thoughts about Lawrence. I remember the warm feeling I experienced in the graveyard after the old man explained Lawrence still lives on inside of me.
This little lad needs my help. ‘My little brother died.’
The boy removes his hands from his face. His cheeks are damp, and his eyes are pink. ‘Really?’
I nod. ‘Do you want to know something amazing?’
