She had their home address, and two telephone numbers in case some unforeseen emergency kept them from meeting her at the village bus stop as planned. She wondered what they were like, and if she'd be expected to babysit. So far, she'd only noted down her itinerary, and a few details about the long-lost relatives she was going to visit: Shona Walker (Daddy's first cousin daughter of Phemie's brother), her husband Graeme, their children: Jade (6), Ewan (10), Callum (12). She pulled out the cute, old-fashioned travel diary, which had been a present from her mother. Her parents wanted her to check in with them, but if she did that too often, they might start thinking she was lonely or something. And, anyway, who was she going to call? Her best friend was dead, and she'd split up with her boyfriend. She reminded herself that it was only for six weeks not worth changing to a more expensive contract. She missed her phone its absence emphasized how far she was from everything she'd ever known, in a foreign country where it wouldn't work. With a sigh, she sat up again and dug into her rucksack for some distraction.
Her nerves were jangling and her heart pounding, probably from that horrible coffee she'd had in the bus station, forcing herself to drink in an attempt to keep herself warm and alert while she waited. She should sleep.īut after so long awake-she'd been too excited and anxious to get much rest the night before she left, and too uncomfortable on the plane, sandwiched between two strangers-sleep seemed like a skill she'd lost. She'd made it to the last leg of her journey and there was nothing else she had to do, nothing to worry about for the next four hours and fifteen minutes until the bus delivered her to her final destination. She sank a little farther into her seat and shut her eyes as the bus grumbled and shuddered and made its slow, complaining way from one stoplight to another through the teeming city streets. The chilly air carried the scent of rain mixed in with traffic exhaust and fuel smells. At home, it was still summer, with everyone wearing shorts and tee shirts or bright summer dresses, but here it looked like winter already, with people on the streets all bundled up in coats and jackets.
She looked at it all as if from a very great distance, and wondered if what she felt-or didn't feel-was simply the effect of exhaustion and jet lag. Something about the quality of the milky light, the greyness of the streets, reminded her of old black-and-white movies made long before she was born-before her own parents were born-from a vanished, untouchable era. Although this was her first foreign city, she couldn't get excited about it she just didn't feel she was really here. Ashley Kaldis leaned her head against the cool glass and gazed through the bus window at the Glasgow streets.
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