Page 6 of The Last Train Home
‘I’m at someone’s flat. But I’m OK, honestly. Don’t worry. My phone’s broken, so I’ll ring you again soon, OK? I need to work out …’ I don’t know what I need to work out. How do I get home? Tom’s given me some privacy and I assume he’s gone to the bathroom, as he’s not anywhere else in this tiny flat.
‘If you tell me where you are, I’ll come and get you,’ Dad says.
‘I’m not really sure. It’s near St Paul’s. I can ask Tom what street he lives on when he gets out of the bathroom.’
‘Who’s Tom?’ my dad asks quickly, ever protective.
‘Guy I work with,’ I lie, because I don’t want my dad to think I’m in a stranger’s flat and I’ve no idea where it actually is. Which is what’s happened.
I say goodbye to my dad and promise to ring him back shortly with more detail on where Tom lives. When he gets out the bathroom I’m going to ask if I can have a shower. I feel so grimy. Also, I really want to sit down, but I’m aware that I’m filthy and Tom’s sofa is pristine white.
Chapter 3
Tom
I should ring my parents. I said I wouldn’t, but I don’t want the first thing they feel to be panic when they see messages on their phone from their friends checking if I’m OK, having seen news about the derailment. Their friends may worry, even iftheyprobably won’t. I pick up my landline and dial their number – working out the local time where they are. They’re living the kind of life I can only dream of, as part of a British expat community in the Virgin Islands.
The shower’s still running in my bathroom. The girl, Abbie, has been in there ages. I’ll go and knock in a minute and check she’s not slumped, passed out, drowning.
My parents don’t pick up immediately, so I ring again. ‘Hey,’ I say when my mum eventually answers. ‘I just want you to know I’m OK.’
‘Why wouldn’t you be?’ she asks.
‘When you switch on the news, you’ll probably see. But I’m fine. I’m at home. I’m OK.’
‘What’s happened?’ she asks.
‘The train I was on got derailed.’ Simple facts, no over-embellishment.
‘But you’re all right?’ So cool, calm, unfazed by the daily goings-on in my world.
‘Really. I’m good. I’ll call you later, OK? I’ve got to go and check Abbie’s all right.’
‘Who’s Abbie?’
‘She’s just a girl I helped get off the train.’
‘You’re a good boy,’ my mum says.
I make a face that I’m glad she can’t see. ‘Yeah, I know.’
When I’m off the phone I go to knock on the bathroom door as Abbie switches the shower off. Then the door opens and she appears in the towel I’ve given her, which is unexpected. I thought she’d get dressed.
‘Um,’ she says, ‘could I borrow some clothes? Mine are …’
‘Sure. Of course.’ I go to my bedroom and grab a T-shirt and some sports shorts that are far too small for me, but might be OK for Abbie, and hold them out to her. She takes them, mutters thanks and goes back into the bathroom to change. Her blonde hair is darker now it’s wet. I put my hand through my own dark hair and although I washed my hands the moment I got home, they’re grimy again.
I sit back in front of the TV and watch addictively. The news moves to and from the derailment, as other news from around the globe interrupts the cycle of doom on my doorstep that I can’t stop watching. How weird to be wrapped up in something so serious and then to be home moments later, watching live coverage of it.
Abbie appears wearing my clothes. Why do men’s clothes always look better on women?
‘I need to call my dad back and tell him where you live, so he can come and get me.’ But instead of doing that, she adopts the same look of pure bafflement as me as we watcha reporter on camera talk about how many derailments there have been on the Underground in the last few years. There are more than I’d imagined – three in 2003 alone. Three. And one last year. How did I not know this? Blue flashing lights are still showing on the TV. I’ll never forget what I saw. So many injured people, but I’d only had one pair of hands and Abbie was slumped on the floor, blood all over her head. It seemed natural that I’d help her. I turn to Abbie. I don’t think she saw all the injured.
‘How do you feel?’ I ask.
Her hand goes instinctively to her head. ‘I think it looks worse than it is,’ she replies.
It looks awful.
