Page 10 of The Last Train Home
‘Don’t worry about it. Don’t go to work today, will you?’ he says softly and my dad agrees. ‘Get your head looked at. Give yourself the weekend to recover. I’m sure your boss will understand.’
‘Maybe.’
And then he pulls his phone from his pocket. ‘What’s your number? I assume you can remember your own, if not that of your immediate family,’ he says with a knowing smile.
I tell him and he saves it into his phone. I don’t take his because my phone is still in my bag in shattered pieces.
‘Get some rest,’ he says.
I look up at him and smile, despite the wave of all-out exhaustion that washes over me. ‘Thank you,’ I say, as my dad heads towards the driver’s side of the car.
Tom opens the passenger door for me. ‘It was nothing,’ he replies. ‘Anyone would have done it.’
And then I’m inside the car and Tom closes my door. I raise my hand to wave goodbye and he does the same, and then the car moves off. I turn round to glance at him through the rear window, but he’s already looking away. Just before I face the front, I notice him stoop, pick up the cigarette end that he dropped from his window and then head back inside.
Chapter 7
Abbie
Safely at home, later that day, I wake from a nap, curled up in a little ball. My sheets and pyjamas are soaked with sweat and I shower immediately. I’d showered at Tom’s, I showered when I got home. I can’t stop showering – it’s as if the grime and blood and dirt engulf me the moment I’ve finished washing them all off. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. My dad took me to A&E on the way home and we sat there for hours this morning until he adopted his best headmaster’s voice, explained to the receptionist that I’d been on the derailed Tube and probably had concussion. I was triaged, examined and then sent home with a relatively clean bill of health, which is what I had assumed would happen – but it gave my mum and dad peace of mind. I’m sure it’ll make Tom happy to know I went too.
I wonder how he is today. I don’t have his number to call him – and I don’t think I have the strength to yet, in any case. Yesterday was awful and I’m not ready to confront it all again by contacting Tom. I probably should try to track him down at his office after the weekend, to give him back his clothes and check he’s OK. I wonder if he’s a stronger person than Iam and has woken up, got dressed and gone to work without a second thought.
There’s no way I could have done that today. When I told my boss what happened, there was no question of me returning to the office this afternoon. And she was surprised when I volunteered to work from home for the rest of today because I need something to keep me from thinking about it all. Although I’m fairly junior, I have an article to finish editing – I’ve been working on it for about a week and I am so close to filing it. I asked if she could log into my computer to email me my notes and what I’ve written so far, so that I could do something productive this afternoon. I’ve had enough of napping. At first she said no, but relented when it was clear I needed to be busy. But I’m jittery and I can’t type anything coherent, so I give up, and Mum and I head into town, find a phone shop and sort out a replacement mobile.
And then we come home and I turn on the news. The focus has moved on to other matters now. I wonder what Tom saw last night that he didn’t want me to see. I really wish I had his number.
I bin my clothes that had sat in the footwell of my dad’s car on the journey home last night. They’re black with dirt, and even if I could get them clean in the wash, I don’t want them any more. I don’t know why. I just don’t.
I take the SIM card out of my old phone, lacerating my fingers in the process, and bin the remnants, before popping the SIM in the new one and charging it up. Then, when it’s got enough juice in it, I call my best friend Natasha.
‘Finally,’ she says when I ring. I texted her from my mum’s phone and gave her a debrief earlier today, and she’s been patiently awaiting my call so that we can havea proper chat. She works in the head office of a major bank over in Canary Wharf, and I can hear the hustle and bustle of people shouting and swearing in the background. It’s a stark contrast to my office, where we all type away quietly and where the silence is often broken only by a phone ringing or someone asking if anyone wants a coffee. Every time we skive off work for a few minutes to talk to each other in the working day, her office always sounds very … masculine.
‘How are you?’ she asks. ‘Or are you already sick of people asking you that?’
‘I’m fine,’ I fib. Although I am, I guess. I tell her everything that happened, although I’d passed out for most of it. I mention Tom, because how could I not? His role in it, how we ended up at his flat for the rest of the night, how we work across the courtyard from each other. She’s silent at that, obviously restraining herself from asking, ‘Is he single’, because I know how her mind works. She’s forever trying to hook me up with people from her office. And because Natasha says nothing, I circle back, finish with, ‘I’m not exactly laid up in hospital like so many others are. And I’m not dead, so I should count my lucky stars.’
‘Sweetheart, it’s not only about that, you know. It’s big, what you went through. You and that guy, and everyone else on the train. Don’t try to brush it off. Give it the time it deserves.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is your mum pacing like she normally does when there’s big stuff happening?’ We’ve known each other since school, and my parents love Natasha, treating her like she’s another daughter whenever they see her.
I glance over to my mum in the kitchen. She’s waiting for the kettle to boil, pacing up and down the kitchen and issuing me worried glances.
‘I think she believes I’m going to pass out again suddenly.’
‘It’s her job, as a mum, to worry.’
‘She’s taken the day off work to look after me, but I don’t need it and I worry about the kids she’s abandoned to the supply teacher.’
‘Is your mum worried about the kids she’s left with the supply teacher?’ Natasha asks.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then why are you?’
‘Fair point,’ I say, before signing off and agreeing that we’ll catch up again properly later.
