Page 79 of The Last Train Home
‘Tom,’ he announces. ‘Tom’s bank has just gone bust.’
My hand is still over my mouth. I watch a close-up of Tom putting a box down, taking his phone out of his pocket. He looks stricken, says a few words, puts his phone away, picks up his box and quickly walks on. It’s about ten or fifteen seconds of footage, max.
Tom.
‘I’ve been watching this play out since the markets opened,’ Sean says knowledgeably. ‘And do you know the most bizarre thing: our bank was approached to merge with them, to help bail them out. We said no, obviously. No one’s touching that bank with a bargepole.’
I turn to stare at him. I can’t work out what he’s saying. ‘You’re not actuallyhappyabout this, are you?’
‘No! I’m not happy but, you know, caught up in the excitement.’
‘The excitement of an entire industry collapsing? One of our friends has lost his job.’ I point to the TV, which is now showing the presenter again. ‘Publicly. He’s lost his job so publicly.’
Sean adopts a soothing tone, but says, ‘He’s not really my friend any more. Just someone I used to work with. And Tom’s not exactly the Second Coming. The world doesn’t know who he is, so … it’s notthatpublic.’ He has the good grace to look a bit ashamed now, but only because I’m so utterly disapproving. Until then he was only too happy to crow over this fifteen seconds of awful TV. I sit down on the sofa and watch the news.
Sean walks off. ‘Want a coffee?’ I shake my head and mumble, ‘No’, but he can’t have heard me, so he shouts back, ‘What?’
‘No, no, thank you.’
‘OK,’ he says and heads to the kitchen.
I stand up again. I don’t quite know what to do. I have to file an article and I’m nearly finished, so I retrieve my laptop from the bedroom and the last remaining notes I need and position myself on the sofa for the rest of the afternoon, watching, waiting.
Every now and again they show the same piece of footage. Each time they do, I turn to see where Sean is. The fifth time they show it, about two hours later, Sean is in the bathroom. Without him here to see me, I dare to move over to the TV.
Tom.
He looks good, physically. Despite the fact that he’s lost his job and everything has collapsed on top of him. I kneel down. I have only a few seconds left before they cut away from him again. I reach out and touch the moving image of a stricken Tom. I want to comfort him and tell him everything will be OK, the way he did to me years ago.
As he picks up his box onscreen, my eyes are drawn to its contents. My gaze locks onto something I recognise sitting on top. It’s the grey Beanie Baby. My heart somersaults, my stomach too. He’d taken it with him from his last job to his new one. And it’s with him now. What does that mean?
And then he’s gone and they cut live to the roving reporter, outside the very same building, although there’s no one coming or going now. It’s all so still. It feels strange to think of Tom being anywhere other than across the courtyard from my old building, in the office window.
He got a new job. Although that’s ended today, clearly. What else have I missed? Has he moved house again? How has he spent his birthdays? His Christmases? Are he and Samanthaactuallytrying for a baby, after all? I didn’t want to know any of this, and now I need to know everything.
‘I didn’t know he worked there. I didn’t know he’d got a new job,’ I say out loud as Sean re-enters the room and I move back towards the sofa. But it’s too late. Sean’s alreadyseen me kneeling in front of the TV. He must know it was in order to get a better look at Tom. I wish I’d stood up quicker and not let him catch me.
‘Howwouldyou know he’d moved job? You don’t talk to him, do you?’
‘No,’ I say, purposefully staring at the TV, although I’ve no idea what’s being said. More of the same, probably.
‘I thought – you know – you might be chatting to him, in the background,’ Sean says.
I turn to look at him. ‘In the background?’
He nods. ‘You two … did for a while. Emails or whatever.’ He sounds lost.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you.’ I think back to that night in Tom’s kitchen after the leaving party, when I did far, far worse than simply chat in the background. His words – ‘I’m in love with you’ – echo over and over.
It shouldn’t have happened. We shouldn’t have said these things to each other, not when I’m with Sean and Tom’s with Samantha. It was wrong. I turn away.
‘It doesn’t happen any more: no emails, no texts, nothing. Not since before we came here,’ I say.
Sean seems content with this and then rounds off with, ‘I feel sorry for him. Losing his job like that.’
‘I think I’m going to message him,’ I say. It’s not a question, it’s not a request for permission. It’s a statement. And I’m telling Sean because it’s the truth – I want to talk to Tom – and because I don’t want to hide this from him.
Sean seems immediately stressed. ‘Why?’
