Page 67 of The Last Train Home
Sean makes a face. ‘I really need a holiday,’ he repeats.
‘So not back to London?’
‘Sorry, Abbie. I need somewhere sunny, with a beach and champagne on ice. I need to relax. I can’t relax back at home. I’ll have to see my folks, you’ll have to see your folks, we’ll end up out with my mates, and then we’ll have to factor in Natasha and Gary and all your other lot and, before you know it, we’ve been in England for a week or two, sat down for twenty minutes total and I’ll be back at work, wondering why the hell I’m still drained of all energy.’
‘When you put it like that, it’s hard not to agree,’ I say.
He continues, ‘And where would we stay?’
‘A hotel?’ I say sensibly. ‘There are plenty of them in London.’ I don’t know why I’m trying, I’ve already lost this one, but I admire him for humouring me. ‘We could go back to that one in Trafalgar Square where we watched the fireworks?’
Sean makes a noise from the back of his throat, which goes some way towards saying no without actually having to. But I get the hint.
‘It’s fine,’ I say, touching his leg. ‘We’ll go another time.’
‘You could always go without me,’ he offers quietly. ‘If you want to?’
It’s my turn to make a face. ‘I don’t want to go home without you. It would be weird.’ I pull my cardigan tighter around me. It’s freezing in here.
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ he says, lifting his beer and drinking. I watch his jaw move as he drinks, his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. I want to kiss him. He looks knackered. He works so hard for us.
We didn’t go home at Christmas. I didn’t quite promise my parents that we would, but I think it was expected. I was a bit shocked Sean didn’t want to. That was only a few weeks ago, so I don’t know why I’m surprised that he hasn’t changed his tune. I was just hoping really.
Before that, there was September, and Tom and Samantha’s wedding. I’d told my parents I’d be back for that. Then I’d swiftly had to tell them I wasn’t coming home after all. I couldn’t. How could I sit in a church and watch him marry her, after what we’d said to each other?
I think constantly about that night I went to his house. Ihatethat I relive it in my head as often as I do. We told each other we loved each other and it was … wonderful, incredible and dreadful.
I hate myself for all of it: for going there, for telling him how I felt, for trying to play make-believe. I hate that we did that while his sleeping baby was in the room, in the house that Tom shares with the mother of his child. I hate that I did that a day before I got on a flight with Sean and started the rest of our life together.
I have a long list of regrets. They’re stacked like building blocks, one upon the other. I know now that it’s possible to love two people at the same time. I love Tom in a way that’s different from how I love Sean. I can’t explain it. I love them both, in such different ways.
That day on the train bound us together. But now we’re nearly 7,000 miles apart.
Sean’s waiting for my reaction; he’s said something and is looking at me expectantly. ‘So … you OK with it?’
I don’t know what he’s just suggested. I nod all the same.
‘Good,’ he says, sitting back and closing his eyes. ‘Dubai it is, then. I’ll book it tomorrow.’
And then I climb onto his lap again and kiss him seductively. Closing the blinds, be damned.
Chapter 45
Tom
March 2008
I didn’t realise how much I’d needed a fresh start. I just had to leave.
Now is a bit of a strange time to change jobs, given that we’re probably about to enter a recession. But the pay’s more and I desperately need the money. Our living expenses are out of control and the mortgage on our house is a killer. I was offered the job eight weeks ago, after I received my bonus – I timed that right. And now I’m on gardening leave. A shame the weather’s been so bad that I’ve not been able to actually sit in the garden. I’ve played a lot ofCall of Duty, though. And I’ve been able to take Teddy to and from nursery every day, allowing Samantha to put in the hours at work. I’ve snuck him off for the odd day here and there but, as Samantha points out, if we withdraw him for the eight weeks to save some money, they’ll fill his space up with another kid on the waiting list almost immediately.
We go to the park most afternoons when the weather’s not totally dire and I’ve met a few of the nursery mums and their children.
I cannot stress how relieved I am that Teddy is a happy little kid, that he’s not going to be shipped off to boarding school, as I was; that he’s going to make local friends at the local school – which has an excellent Ofsted track record, so Samantha tells me. Apparently this is why we moved to this neck of the woods. I did not know that until a few weeks ago.
Teddy toddles up to me and hands me another stone he wants to take home. This is his new thing – stones. Samantha thinks he’s going to be a geologist. Last week he collected leaves. I think Samantha’s getting ahead of herself in predicting job prospects for a child who’s nearly two.
My pockets are full of stones and I feel my new iPhone screen paying the price of Teddy’s environmental interest. I wonder if I can sift out a few and drop them when he’s not looking. I move my phone to my back pocket.
