IN THE HOURS BETWEEN • TC

30. Bao

When Una wakes up the next morning, she blinks groggily, shoving her head back into the pillow.

Twenty minutes later, she can no longer deny the fact that she's awake, and she rolls over onto her back, staring at the finger of daylight streaking across the popcorn patterned ceiling.

Una lies there for a while, holding her old teddy close to her under the covers as she runs her finger over one of the tatty ears. She's had Bao since she was tiny, not much bigger than him. He sits droopily on top of the covers most days.

(After years of hiding him under her pillow when acquaintances came round, Una is no longer ashamed of him. He sits in pride of place, watching the world go by the window with those same soulful eyes.)

For a moment, Una curls her knees up to her chest and closes her eyes, willing herself back to a time where she didn't know Timmy. A time where she didn't know anything, or at least anything other than a few basic words.

But thinking about Timmy makes her eyes jolt open. She chucks Bao to one side and slides out of bed, her feet brushing something tickly on the floor.

The stupid drawing.

Una bends down and picks up the halves, uncreasing them and smoothing them out flat against the thigh of her plaid pyjamas. She might have to press them under a heavy book to get them closer to what they once were, but there's no easy way to get rid of the huge tear down the middle.

Maybe she should just throw it away, but something is telling her to keep it. To try and repair it.

—

Una wolfs down her breakfast, having felt sick with hunger.

Now, she just feels sick.

She gets ready quickly, only bumping into her Dad once on the landing and managing to avoid everyone else. On her way to the train station, she blasts music through her headphones. She's going up to London to do some Christmas shopping for her parents. Una's budget is bigger than usual this year, with no one else to buy for apart from maybe Timmy. At this rate, Frank is getting a used tissue in a gift box.

Once in Oxford street, she regrets coming at all. The atmosphere is gloomy, the air thick with smog and clouds. Not even the glow of Christmas lights is able to cheer her up.

Someone steps on her shoe as she stands in front of Claridge's. A guy calls her a slag for not smiling. Her sandwich from Pret is soggy and all she can think about as she eats it is Timmy explaining what Pret A Manger means. The bread turns to paste that coats the roof of her mouth as she chews, and Una realises that she doesn't want to be here in the slightest.

She wants to be with Timmy. No matter where. He could take her on a field trip to the dump and she'd probably still be happy.

Una looks halfheartedly in TK Maxx, then pokes her nose into some charity shops, but they all sell once-worn designer dresses and suits. Nothing like the stuff you find in the ones where she lives.

She takes the train back after barely two hours, and buys some crisps from a vending machine to cheer herself up. (It doesn't really work.)

—

When she gets home in the early afternoon, Timmy is nowhere to be seen, but Frank is frying eggs in the kitchen, wearing joggers and a fleece that Una is sure belongs to Timothée. She goes to the fridge and stands there wordlessly, surveying the contents and willing him to say something. He stays silent and she leaves, taking an orange from the fruit bowl.

Una slumps onto the couch and flicks through the channels on the TV. She goes through her Netflix watchlist too, but nothing takes her fancy, so she ends up watching a documentary about a French singer she's never heard of, removing bits of pith from the orange and piling them on the coffee table. Five minutes go by and Frank walks in with a tray. He sets it down without speaking and promptly leaves.