‘There he is- I can see him!’
‘Where? I can’t pick him out’
‘Over there- by the barrier- look!’
And then he’s waving to us, and I spot him. He’s in his vintage 1980s Newcastle shirt, and the same second-hand sky-blue and pink tracksuit top (‘gaudy’ Charlotte calls it, and she’s got a point) he was wearing when we left him outside the halls of residence that sunny early Autumn Sunday afternoon. Possibly the same pair of shorts. Certainly, the same great big broad smile that we’ve been missing for these past eight weeks. He looks pleased to see us, I think.
One ungainly parental negotiation of the metal ticket gate later, and we’re clasped together in the tightest of hugs. His long-limbed frame feels slightly stronger than before, the thicket of dark hair covering his legs a touch denser. A municipal hire-bike, emblazoned with the logo of the Santander Bank, lies prone at his ankles. He yanks it up by the handlebars to wheel it out of the station. ‘Come on out this way’, he says. ‘I can take yous to this artisan bakery I’ve found; we can get some lunch’.
And from there- we’re off, on a Frankie-curated Saturday afternoon tour of the little university town he now calls home. The airy arts emporium where he picks up his 35mm camera film. The dusky bookshop-cum-coffee-lounge where he browses the yellowing paperbacks. The sidestreet greengrocer’s run by the trendy international socialist bloke in a flat cap and patterned neckscarf, where a bag of apples comes with a free pamphlet on Palestinian independence and a recommendation of a weekend jazz festival in nearby Glasgow. Commentating us through these sights at the standard breakneck pace we now quickly tune ourselves back into, his relentlessly upbeat stream-of-consciousness diverting us from the intermittent drizzle, he seems self-assured around the steeply winding streets. Our boy, all grown up.
Except of course- he’s still just a boy, with plenty yet to learn. As we’ve been reminded by the charmingly naive WhatsApp enquiries that have peppered our familial correspondence since early September, such as the one the other week asking whether it was advisable to freeze the extra-large bag of nearly-out-of-date potatoes that he’d picked up in Lidl for 10p. Or now up here on the Sunday, in the sportscreen-filled pub built into the city walls, where we’ve insisted on filling him up with a once-a-term roast dinner, and there’s just time before we go to rack them up for one last frame:
‘Diagonally from this corner, you see; like this: one red, two yellows, three reds, four yellows except the black- make sure it’s on its spot. Then this last row- you go two reds, then one each yellow, red, yellow. Just like that’.
‘Hell Dad that’s complicated! Hang on, I’m going to take a picture’.
As the black disappears into the left middle pocket, the seventeen silent screens showing the final whistle being blown in the Southampton versus Arsenal remind us that it’s high time we all headed back to the station. Hurrying with our weekend baggage through the fast-descending dusk, we arrive at the ticket barrier too soon- the board showing a twenty minute wait for our connecting train. Twenty minutes to hold off the tears.
‘I don’t mind hanging on to see yous off, mum- honest’.
‘It’s all right love, you get yourself going. No point in you missing your bus, eh’.
And so- with one last flash of that big broad smile that will now need to last us till Christmas, he’s off, over the pedestrian bridge and away. And presently, we’re installed in our moving carriage- pouring out carefully and with ceremony the last couple of plastic glasses we’ve saved for this moment, from last night’s bottle of hotel cava.
‘He’s doing OK, right Jonny?
‘You know what Charly- I think he’s doing fine. Just fine.’
And so, we raise our glasses to him: in happiness, hope and pride. Much like we felt right at the beginning, really- so now seems the right time for us to take our bow. Look carefully, and you might just catch a last glimpse of the three of us: his bus winding him uphill to the out-of-town campus; our train hurtling us Southwards, across the border home. It’s been a great journey we’ve all had together, these last eighteen years. I wish you luck in yours, wherever it takes you next.
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