Page 4 of When We Are Old

I watched her face. Her nose had a little upturn, her lashes long but pale.

“Maybe I’m not either.”

She batted a hand at my stomach, but the colour drained from her face again and she became an unclassified shade of grey. “You should go.”

A red bus careered around the corner. “This yours?”

“Oh, yeah.” Pushing a hand into her jeans pocket, she pulled out a pound coin. “Thanks.”

The bus stopped and she climbed up the steps. She didn’t talk to the bus driver, her head down.

It took a split second.

I patted my pocket to see if I had some loose change and jumped up the stairs after her.

She watched me warily as I walked along the bus, hanging onto the backs of the seats as the driver pulled away from the curb. My first trip on a red London bus.

“What are you doing?” she hissed as I slipped into the seat behind her and stretched my right leg out into the aisle.

“Walking you home.”

She paled further. “But you don’t know me.”

I shrugged. “I told you, I’m a gallant kind of lad.”

She sighed and it ran through me. “Thanks, Matthew.”

My name had never sounded more foreign. Here in London, I was Matthew, not Matty or Matt. Not a harrumph or a glare of dismay instead of any name at all.

She gave me that. My first Matthew.

Turning, she blinked up at me, “Are you Irish?”

I laughed loudly. “Guess again, Veronica.”

“Welsh?” She winced with a shrug.

“I’m bleeding here. Welsh? “I clutched at my chest and pretended to die on the red and grey seat, groaning a death rattle that Shakespeare would have been proud of. “You don’t get these rugged good looks being a Welshy I assure you.” I poked my head up from my dying position to meet her gaze.

She laughed and strawberries ripened into a full crop. “Sorry.”

I straightened up, leaning over the back of her seat. “I’m Scottish, lassie.” My stomach dropped as I heard my dad in my words.

“Sorry, Braveheart.”

“For freedom, Veronica.” I winked and she bit her lip.

“Ronnie. I prefer Ronnie.”

“Ronnie.” I rolled it around my tongue.

“And you?” she asked. “What do you prefer?”

I leant closer to her, leaning over the back of her seat. “Matthew, from you, I think.”

“Matthew.” She tasted my name the way I tasted hers.

Then she shifted so her back was against the window, and tucked her legs up on the seat, linking her arms around her knees.