Page 9 of The Last Train Home
We stand in companionable silence, passing my cigarette back and forth until it’s finished and I stub it out on the windowsill, chucking it into the street. She gives me a look of horror. ‘I’ll pick it up later,’ I lie. ‘What do you do?’
‘Retail journalist,’ she says, returning to the sofa and sitting down slowly.
‘What does that involve?’
She launches into a vague monologue and then I interrupt her. ‘Actually, my brain can’t take it. Tell me another time.’
A cushion flies through the air and hits me. ‘Funny,’ she says and then her face drops and she looks sad. ‘It feels odd,’ she says, ‘making small talk after …’
I’m quiet and then, ‘Yeah, I know.’ At the bottom of the screen they’re confirming a new death toll. The numbers are mounting. ‘Fuck this. Are you hungry?’
‘I guess.’
We stand in the kitchen – she’s a bit steadier on her feet now – and make cheese on toast. It’s the only food I have in. And Crunchy Nut cornflakes.
‘Is all your food beige?’ she queries as she looks in the fridge for me.
I ignore her. I don’t really keep a rolling stock of supplies, because the corner shop and the canteen at work serve me well enough. And I’m out a lot.
She reaches for the cheese inside the fridge door, then spies two beers. ‘Can I have one?’ she asks.
‘Sure.’ I pop the lids on both and we drink while the toastie-maker sets to work. ‘It’s four a.m.,’ I tell her. ‘We should be closer to breakfast than to beer. Actually, do you think you should be drinking with your head inj—’
‘Fuck off,’ she teases, taking a deep swig.
‘Fair enough.’ I turn back to the toastie-maker and check it’s not incinerating our food.
We eat standing up in the kitchen, and I watch her every now and again to check she’s not about to fall over. Finally something clicks. ‘You work on the same floor as me.’
She pauses and narrows her eyes.
‘I mean … across the street, you’re on the same floor as me. I think I’ve seen you from my office window.’
‘Have you?’ she says, her food halfway to her mouth.
‘I recognise you, now I think about it. I recognise your profile. I see you laugh a lot on the phone. I didn’t realise it was you until just now.’
She shifts on her feet, unsure if I’m taking the piss about her laughing.
I tell her I’m not and that I meant it kindly. ‘Honestly,’ I say. She plays with her hair a lot when she’s on the phone, but I’m definitely not going to say that out loud. She’s looking over my shoulder at the muted TV as the breaking-news banner keeps on rolling.
She stares at it as the casualty figure increases. ‘Can we watch something else now?’
Chapter 6
Abbie
My dad arrives soon after. Tom and I have been cocooned in his flat and it’s only as I leave, stepping into the street to greet my dad, that I realise I’d felt safe there. Dad holds me tightly in the street, his estate car practically wedged in the narrow lane outside Tom’s. His tyres screeched against the edge of the kerb as he entered the road. Tom comes down, shakes hands with my dad, but my father swerves his handshake and embraces him as if he’s a man who’s saved his only daughter from a train crash. Which he has. I told my dad on the phone what Tom did because I had to, really. He deserves some recognition.
Tom and I had spent the last half-hour watching part ofThe Matrix. It was already in his DVD player and he just pushed play. It was easier to drift away watching Keanu Reeves save the world than think about the actual world outside.
At one point Tom drifted off to sleep and I watched his chest rise and fall, his head nodding to one side as he rested against the sofa. I thought back to the few times I’d seen him smoking outside his building before, laughing with his colleagues and intermittently checking his phone.
He has ‘hero’ written all over him. But that may be because of what he did for me today. He’s tall, dark and I want to say handsome, but he’s not traditionally handsome. He’s good-looking, but I think it’s because he looks a bit serious rather than Abercrombie-model handsome.
And now he’s standing barefoot in the cold, dark street saying goodbye to me and fielding gushing remarks from my dad. Tom looks embarrassed, but has the good grace to say, ‘You’re welcome’ in all the right places.
And then we’re saying goodbye, and it feels rushed after everything we’ve been through tonight. Almost as if it shouldn’t be like this. I have my clothes in a bundle under my arm and I’m still wearing Tom’s things. ‘I’ll work out a way to give these back to you soon,’ I say.
