Page 54 of The Last Train Home
‘What is?’
‘What happened between us. Or didn’t happen. And then it all sort of went weird.’
‘It went weird because you let it go weird. We met in the pub. We said we’d be friends. We had a lot of good banterafterwards – admittedly only by text. Then I had a baby and you went … cold. You didn’t want to come and see Teddy. You didn’t even want to come and see me after work one night for a quick drink. You never had time to meet for lunch or a quick coffee or a cigarette.’
‘I don’t smoke any more,’ she says.
‘Neither do I,’ I reply.
‘It’s one of those things,’ she says, moving the conversation on. ‘Friendships fall away sometimes.’
Neither of us speaks for a few seconds. She looks at me and then at the ground.
And then I say. ‘I didn’t think that would happen to us.’
‘We didn’t know each other very long,’ she fires back.
‘I didn’t think that mattered. It just felt different.’
‘Different?’ she asks.
‘Special, in some way.’
‘Because of the train?’ She frowns. But it’s not mocking. She’s being serious.
’Yeah,’ I say. ‘Because of the train.’
‘I don’t think you can hold on to that,’ she says. ‘People come and people go. You and I would never have been friends, or even met, in ordinary life. I’d have been a few people behind you in the queue in Gianni’s one day, or maybe even every single day of every single working week for years, and you’d never have looked at me or known who I was. If the train hadn’t derailed the night you and I both happened to be on it together, we’d have exited at our stops, merged into the crowd of people on their way home and that would have been that. We’d never have become friends.’
‘That’s not true,’ I say. ‘We started talking before the accident. It was … good – fun.’
‘For five minutes, and only because we were drunk!’ she hurls back at me. ‘None of it was real.’
‘This friendshipisreal,’ I say, moving towards her. Then I doubt myself. Am I deluded?
She doesn’t speak. She looks sad. There are tears in Abbie’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘You’re right.’ She’s not. She’s massively wrong. ‘We can leave it there, if you want. We don’t have to keep doing this.’ Although, really, whatarewe doing? We’ve not seen each other once in a whole year, but even so, all we seem to do is hurt each other.
‘You don’t understand,’ she says. ‘I do want to be your friend, Tom. I do. And I miss you. And I’m sorry I haven’t seen Teddy yet. I feel awful. And I want you to come to our leaving party. I don’t know when I’ll be back in London again, once I’m gone, and—’
‘OK,’ I cut in, because I can see she’s trying not to cry again. ‘I’ll come.’
She lifts her eyes to mine and her smile returns slowly. ‘Will you?’
I nod. ‘Yeah, I’ll come. If you do actually want me to. I don’t want to turn up and you just blank me.’
‘I wouldn’t do that, and I do actually want you there,’ she says, moving closer towards me. I can smell her perfume. I need to back away, but I can’t. ‘Promise me,’ she says. ‘I know I sound like a five-year-old, but promise me you’ll come, because yours is one of the last faces I want to see before I get on that plane.’
I inhale, exhale, look her in the eyes. ‘I promise I’ll come.’
Chapter 36
Abbie
I have to stand in the toilet cubicle at work for a few minutes, my back against the door. Why is seeing Tom always so painful? He’s right. We did let it go weird, or rather I did. I shouldn’t have given in so easily to Sean’s request for me not to meet up with Tom. I should have negotiated harder, so I could just have gone to see him. I’d be a part of his life now. I’d have held his son. I’d have known that he’d gone away at Christmas to his parents’. He was in the Caribbean, sunning himself with Samantha. My God, she’s stunning in that picture. I had no idea. But then Tom’s attractive, so of course he was going to end up with someone like her.
He’s lucky to have her. I’m lucky to have Sean. But I really wish he hadn’t been so jealous of Tom. I wish he’d let me see him, because it wouldn’t be so painful every time I do. It would have been normal – we’d have got used to seeing each other. Now, Tom’s coming to the leaving party. That’ll please Sean no end, but I meant what I said to Tom: I really want him there. I’ve missed out on so much of his life by keeping him at arm’s length. I regret every second of it.
