Page 4 of The Last Train Home
I touch my cut and blood comes away on my hand. It’s sticky, the flow has eased off. ‘Do you think we should go back?’ I ask.
‘And do what?’ He runs his hand over his face. If anything, he’s moved dirt around rather than removed it. I never realised how filthy the Tube tracks must be.
‘We should go back to help others?’ I suggest.
‘No,’ he replies gently, still crouched in front of me. ‘I don’t think you’re in any condition to go back. I do think youneed to be seen, though. We need to make that a priority. Let’s rest for a minute until we work out which way’s up.’
‘The train derailed?’ I say, baffled. ‘Really? After everything that happened this summer, do we believe that?’
He knows what I’m talking about. I wasn’t in London the day of the July bombings. I was at home, sick. I woke up to frenzied calls from my boss checking I was OK, as I was the only person from the office not accounted for that morning. Is it happening all over again?
‘I saw it,’ he says. ‘I saw the other carriages behind ours. They must have … come off the tracks. I don’t know. Itwasa mess, though. We were lucky.’
I wince as a searing pain shoots through my skull, and he looks at me with concern.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say. ‘I want to go home. I need to ring my mum, let her know what’s happened, so she knows I’ll be home a bit later.’ Mercifully I’ve still got my cross-shoulder bag. I’m missing my jacket, though. I think it was draped over my arm when the train derailed. I open my bag and pull out my phone. It’s completely smashed, the screen unreadable, the buttons not lighting up under my fingers.
‘Here,’ he says, standing up and pulling his BlackBerry from his pocket. ‘What’s the number?’
I put the phone back in my bag and stare at the one he hands me. ‘I don’t know,’ I confess. ‘I can’t remember.’
He crouches down, concerned.
‘It’s not because of the head injury,’ I say. ‘We moved house a few weeks ago and it’s a new number.’
‘Do you have a boyfriend or … someone else whose number you know?’
I shake my head, which sends the searing pain behind my eyes again. ‘No boyfriend,’ I say. There’s never been anyone properly serious. Relationships have always fizzled out fairly rapidly, for various reasons.
‘OK,’ he replies distractedly, fiddling with his phone. ‘I think I’m just going to search and see if there’s any news about it.’
He’s got one of those new phones with the internet on. ‘Nothing yet,’ he says.
‘Don’tyouneed to ring anyone?’ I ask.
He shakes his head and sits down next to me. ‘My parents don’t live here. And they wouldn’t worry about seeing news of a Tube derailment. Never in a million years would they think I might be on it.’
‘Oh,’ I say, because what else can I say? My parents are total worriers, expectantly awaiting a text from me that I’m on my way home and then listening out from their bed for the late-night click of the front door when I come home from a night out, before ever allowing themselves to fully embrace sleep.
I take a tissue from my bag to mop my head.
We sit in silence and I try to process what’s happened – what’s happening now, here. This man’s presence makes me feel oddly safe. I turn to look at him but he’s staring straight ahead, frown lines temporarily on his face. I wish I’d taken that bottle of water from him when he’d offered. I’m so thirsty. He’s not holding it now. He must have dropped it in the confusion. My mouth is dusty and tastes tangy, like dirt and metal.
‘Thank you,’ I say eventually. ‘For getting me off the train.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘Were many people …’
He looks at me.
‘Badly hurt?’ I ask.
‘Some.’ He nods, looks at his hands, which only now do I notice are smothered in cuts.
‘Was anyone—’ I was going to say ‘dead’, but he doesn’t give me the chance.
‘Can you walk?’ he cuts in.
