Page 16 of The Last Train Home
We’re two drinks in and having a conversation about life goals. I wonder if I should want more or if that would be greedy. I’m not yet thirty. I’m not sure I should be stressing about career goals yet. Maybe if I don’t see any progress over the next year or so, I’ll engage panic stations.
‘I think right now I’m just happy to be alive,’ I tell him honestly.
‘Amen to that,’ he says and clinks his glass against mine.
A few hours later I’m glad I bought a round in the pub, because drinks in the club are treble the price. I’m so shocked when full bottles of Grey Goose vodka turn up in ice buckets at our table that I turn to Tom, seated next to me on the leather banquette. ‘This cannot be a standard night out?’
He laughs. ‘Sort of is, so far. Although normally the bar staff bring the bottles over with those attention-seeking indoor fireworks stuck in the top. I think they’ve run out tonight. Thank God.’
‘Oh, that’s so awful,’ I cringe.
‘I know,’ he agrees. ‘This is actually pretty low-key.’
I’m not sure how I feel about being here. This isn’t veryme. But then not long ago I almost died in a Tube crash. Perhaps I should live a bit more. I accept a shot of vodka from one of Tom’s friends whose name I’ve already forgotten. My short-term memory is suffering since I bashed my head. I can’t ask his name a second time and I just say, ‘Thanks’ while wondering how hungover I’m going to be tomorrow.
‘Remind me where you live?’ Tom asks after we’ve downed our drinks.
‘Enfield,’ I say.
‘Have you always lived there?’
I nod. ‘Where’s home for you? Other than your swanky flat, I mean.’
‘Nowhere else. Just my swanky flat,’ he says teasingly.
‘No, I mean where do you call home? Where do your parents live?’
‘I don’t really call anywhere home,’ he says after a pause. ‘Mum and Dad live in the British Virgin Islands. They own a small hotel out there. And before that Dad was a troubleshooter for a hotel chain and they moved around alot, depending on which hotel he needed to go and spend time saving.’
‘So where did you live?’ I ask.
‘School,’ he says. ‘Then university. Then I flat-shared for a bit.’
I look at him as another vodka is handed in my direction. I cannot do shots all night, and Tom sees this. ‘You want a Coke or something to go with that?’
‘Yes, please.’
He flags a passing waitress and orders me a mixer.
‘So you never really lived with your parents?’ I ask.
‘Until I was about seven, I did. Then I was sent to school over here.’
I process this. Tom stopped living with his parents when he was seven years old. That must have had a massive impact on him.
My face obviously reflects this and he says, ‘It’s perfectly normal, you know, to go to boarding school.’
‘At age seven?’ I ask in horror.
‘At age seven,’ he says somewhat tersely.
‘And you’ve not lived with your parents since?’
‘Christ, now I can tell you’re a journalist. Dig, dig, dig.’
I laugh and my drink arrives. I thank the waitress and decide to leave questioning Tom about his childhood. I feel a bit sorry for him, sent off to board at seven while his parents swanned around, doing God knows what. Poor Tom.
‘So how often do you make it out to the Caribbean?’ I ask.
