Thirty-One Years Ago
The bus pulls in and settles with a hiss. Shelley steps down and off.
The night is cold, with a mist that clings and swirls. Miserably she pulls her creased and filthy jacket tight around her. Shivering and numb, moving awkwardly in her outsized trainers, she looks around at dark streets.
She has never visited the City before, does not know where she is, has no friends here. Late though it is, people move around her going this way and that way. None of them looks at Shelley. A group of rowdies spill from a bar, yelling and pushing and singing obscene songs.
Cars drive past, splashing through ice-rimmed water and over anyone incautious enough to walk too close to the road. Neon signs dazzle in the darkness and in the distances, sirens wail. The night smells of fog a
