Page 35 of The Last Train Home
‘Because I … didn’t want to.’ I sound like a child. I know this. I might as well have stamped a foot on the ground to illustrate my point. ‘It seemed best all round to leave it there.’
‘I see,’ she says quietly. But I can see that she doesn’t see. Abbie doesn’t see at all. She goes to get back on her bike, but she’s here and I’m here, after all this time, so I can’t let her go. Not yet.
I walk in front of the bike. ‘Abbie,’ I start. ‘I really miss you.’
She ignores this. ‘Have you toldanyoneat work what happened that night? Not mentioned it in passing to anyone: “Oh, by the way, last night I was on a train that derailed quitebadly – you know, the one that was all over the news – and I helped a girl off the train …”?’
‘No.’
‘Have you told anyone other than your parents?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ she asks. ‘Sean said you were acting really odd before he left, and I thought to myself,Of course Tom’s acting really odd, Tom almost died on a train. But it turns out Sean didn’t know.’
‘Did you tell him?’ I ask in a far-too-snappy voice if I want her to hang around here a bit longer.
Her voice is soft. I think I might be getting somewhere. ‘No, I didn’t tell him.’
‘Do you speak to Sean?’ I ask, suddenly working out the finer intricacies of this chat.
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Regularly?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says again.
‘Why?’ I’m incredulous. Why are the two of them talking to each other and yet neither of them is talking to me? It was as if the very moment Sean went on gardening leave, I didn’t exist to him any more. I’ve texted a few times and received short replies, but they’ve dwindled to nothing.
Somewhere in the depths of her backpack her phone rings. ‘Hang on,’ she says and pulls her bag round to get to it. She answers it, tells someone she’s round the corner. ‘I have to go,’ she continues to me when she hangs up. ‘It’s press day and we’re supposed to be in early, to proof pages and—’
I have to get in before she goes. ‘Can we go for a drink or a coffee or something? I could really do with a friend right now.’ That last sentence was a manipulative low blow, and Ifeel a bit ashamed about it, but it achieves the desired effect because she looks at me sympathetically.
‘OK,’ she says after a while. She’s putting her phone in her bag. She’s going to leave.
‘Tonight?’ I ask.
‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘It’s Valentine’s Day.’
Is it? Bloody hell. I need to book a dinner reservation somewhere. And flowers. I need to arm myself with flowers if I’m going to make it through tonight alive.
‘I’m seeing Sean. But I’m free tomorrow,’ she suggests.
‘Yes,’ I say far too keenly. ‘Tomorrow. Six-ish? In the pub?’
She nods and then she’s gone.
‘Bye,’ I call to her retreating figure and she turns the corner in the direction of her office without even raising a hand to say goodbye.
It’s only as I’m unlocking my front door to shower and change for work that I start to wonder seriously why it is that she’s seeing Sean on Valentine’s Day. And then it hits me, and everything hurts. And it’s not because I didn’t warm up before my run.
Chapter 24
Abbie
We’re in the cinema watchingBrokeback Mountain. Sean looks quite puzzled for the first portion of the film and I suspect he had zero idea what this film was about. I’ve seen the trailer, he clearly hasn’t. But he did insist on planning the perfect Valentine’s Day, or so he told me, and that involved choosing a romantic film to watch. I keep glancing at him to see his reaction, but he’s expressionless, just watching it.
He perks up whenever Michelle Williams appears on the screen in the same way I perk up whenever Heath Ledger does. Afterwards he confesses he saw an advert for the film on the side of a bus, spotted Michelle Williams and made a point of booking it, the minute he was sitting back in front of a computer.
