Page 8 of The Last Train Home
‘You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need. You know that, right?’ I say honestly.
‘Thanks,’ she says, hovering near the desk.
‘Do you … want to sit down?’
She smiles, sighs exhaustedly. ‘Yes, please.’
We sit and watch the news until we can’t bear it any more. There’s an injury toll and the numbers are rising. I think of what I saw on the train; what I wish I hadn’t seen.
There’s nothing new on the screen. It’s just regurgitated pictures of a scene I’m now very familiar with. I can’t watch this any more. And Abbie confesses that neither can she. We mute it and leave it running, in case of any new updates. Although what else they can have to say about this is beyond me. I wonder about people asleep, who have no idea what’s happened. When they wake in a few hours’ time will they beworried that friends, relatives, loved ones have been involved or will they simply get on with their day, wonder how their journey to work might be affected.
As if she can hear me thinking, Abbie says, ‘We’re so lucky to be alive.’
I pick at the cuts on my hand again. I’m sure there’s bits of broken glass in there. ‘Yeah.’
‘Thank you,’ she says, turning to me. She puts her hand on mine, stilling my action. It’s nice, soft, comforting. It’s something else as well – something I can’t identify. And then it’s gone, as she lifts her hand away.
I fumble for something to say. ‘You’d have been fine without me,’ I tell her. The emergency services and the train workers would have got her out. Or she’d have woken up and got herself out. She didn’t need me.
‘I’m not sure,’ she says. And then she surprises me by saying, ‘Do you work in the building opposite me?’
‘I don’t know. Do I?’
She smiles, ever so faintly. ‘The big new financial one, with all the glass. I’m in the little courtyard office. I’msureI recognise you. I’m sure you’ve been standing out the front, smoking, a few times when I’ve been on my way to get coffee.’
‘I’ve been trying to quit,’ I confess.
‘How’s that working for you?’ She smiles.
‘Not great.’
‘You’ve not had one all evening, unless you had a secret smoke when I was passed out with concussion on your sofa?’
‘I thought you didn’t have a head injury?’ I smile. ‘And no, I didn’t smoke at all today, but now you’ve mentioned it, it’s all I can think about.’
‘Sorry,’ she says.
I’m picking at the glass in my hand again, making it bleed, and she puts her hand back on mine to still me. Oddly, it is actually very calming, as if she’s cast a magic spell over me.
‘Just have a bloody cigarette,’ she says and follows me as I light up, hanging out of my window, looking into the lane below. It’s dark; only the dim streetlights shine in this dark space, giving the alley full of Victorian buildings a Dickensian glow that I’ve always quite liked, in this city of steel and concrete. It’s calm, quiet.
I hold the cigarette out of the window, which does no good at all because the smell is now filling my flat. I might as well be seated on the sofa with the windows closed. She gently takes it from me, holds it to her lips and inhales and I watch her, almost mesmerised.
‘Nope,’ she says, handing it back to me. ‘These are still disgusting.’
I smile, inhale again. ‘You’re wrong. They’re amazing. I’ve missed them this past week.’
‘A week? Is that how long you’d quit for?’
‘Sort of,’ I say, out of the side of my mouth as I exhale. I flick ash, checking there’s no one walking underneath the window as I do so. ‘Bit hit-and-miss really. Job’s been a bit stressful lately. And then … today.’
‘What do you do?’ she asks, taking the cigarette from me and trying again. She makes a face and I lift it out of her fingers when she offers.
‘Analyst.’
‘What’s that?’ I start to tell her and she interrupts me. ‘Actually, I don’t think my brain can take it. Tell me another time.’
I laugh. ‘OK.’
