Page 3 of The Last Train Home
‘I think so, yes.’
‘I can’t believe I’m twenty-seven and I’ve never been the weirdo on the train before,’ he says, opening his bottle and taking a sip. He sounds quite plummy, sort of posh, now that I’m paying attention. Although that might just be his slurring confusing me.
‘Congratulations,’ I say. ‘I’m twenty-four and I think this is my first time too. Or maybe wehavebeen the weirdos on the train, but we never realised it.’
‘Profound,’ he says with a mock-serious face.
‘I know,’ I return with a matching expression.
He drops his newspaper as he drinks and I bend to pick it up for him, passing it back. I look at the front page for a second as the train speeds up. The headline’s talking about plans for the Olympics, now that London has won the bid to host them in 2012. That’s for ever away.
Seven years.
A lot can happen in seven years.
A lot can happen in seven seconds.
At that moment there’s an earth-shattering bang, followed by creaking and the noise of metal twisting. It’s a sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. The man in front clutches the handrail and I do the same. There’s confusion and crying and I reach up to touch my head and I’m sure there’s blood, but the lights have gone out in the carriage and I can barely see anything. A few people issue a shocked kind of scream. And then there’s crying. I think it’s me. I think it’s everyone.
And then there’s nothing.
Chapter 2
Abbie
I’m half walking, half leaning against this man as he holds me, walks us over the tracks far away from our train, assuring me the live rail is switched off. How does he know that? Has someone told him? Have I blacked out? I must have, because I don’t even know how I got out, how I’m on the tracks, walking. He must have pulled me from the carriage. I lift my head up and find I’m still looking down at the tracks as we walk. It’s easier to look down. It hurts to lift my head. My legs are leaden, just about starting to work again, and for some reason I trust this man to take me out of here. I look up at him. He’s staring intently straight ahead, while I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. I’m finally an active participant in my own rescue.
Someone in hi-viz runs towards us. Ahead of us the men from the stag-party lean against each other, walking in the same direction as us towards the next train platform. It’s getting lighter as we walk through the tunnel because the station lights ahead glow like a guiding beacon. We don’t have far to go. We stumble along, arm-in-arm, and he turns, pulls my hand to help me, and instinctively I walk with himas we climb up the little steps at the platform’s edge. Station workers are there to check we’re OK. The man next to me tells them that we are, even though I’m not sure I am. He’s still having to hold me up and then he asks, ‘What happened?’
‘Train derailed,’ someone answers.
The train derailed? How does that even happen?
‘There are other people still in there,’ the man holding me tells them, and I watch the station workers as they run towards the stricken train.
‘Where are the paramedics?’ I ask. Only a whisper comes out.
‘What?’ he asks, still holding me.
I can’t remember what I’ve just tried to ask.
‘Actually you’re not OK, are you? We need to get you looked at,’ he says.
Everything is fuggy and I’m only aware of the pain in my head, shooting into the back of my eyes.
‘You were out for a while,’ he says.
‘Out?’ I turn round and see a steady stream of passengers behind us making their way slowly along the tracks, climbing up onto the platform.
And then we’re up the escalator at St Paul’s station, at street level, into the open air, where lights from empty offices punctuate what passes for darkness in this city. Every street looks the same like this, littered with offices and coffee shops, pubs and bars. There’s hardly anyone about at this time of night and something tells me we should probably go back and wait for the paramedics, although if people are still inside the derailed train, they presumably need help more than we do.
I look up and see the recognisable white Portland stone of St Paul’s Cathedral up ahead. I’m back in the City again, vaguely near where I work, off Ludgate Hill. A late-night jogger pays little attention to us and I realise we’re properly alone now, me and the guy from the train. We stop walking, unsure where we should go, what we should do. Paramedics rush past, blue lights swirling, sirens whirring. My clothes are dirty with train grime or something like it. His are the same.
‘Come on,’ he says. But I don’t think he knows where we’re going. Is he in shock? Am I in shock? What just happened? We pass the locked gates of St Paul’s Churchyard and turn further down the road and soon we’re on the patch of grass to the side of the cathedral, a quieter green space with the odd taxi driving past us. I’ve been across town tonight with a friend and have ended up back near where I work. I must have said it out loud because he replies, ‘Me too.’ He continues, ‘I’m not even normally on the Tube.’ His tone is quieter now, contemplative.
My head is thumping and I sit down on the patch of grass where I sometimes come in the summer and eat my lunch, and he crouches in front of me, sweeping hair back from my face.
He grimaces. ‘That looks nasty.’
