Page 14 of The Last Train Home
I stare at the fly as it gives one last attempt and then moves off to head-butt someone else’s window. I’m quite jealous for a few seconds. That fly, out there, and me in this hermetically sealed environment. I push my chair back.
‘I’m going for some fresh air,’ I say.
‘Fresh air or a cigarette?’ Sean asks.
‘Bit of both.’
The two of us were in early for a catch-up and we’re now killing time before a big meeting. He’s all right, Sean. We share the same sense of humour. In his interview he made me all sorts of promises about the kind of colleague he’d be. He’s failed to deliver on quite a few of those and I’m working out how to broach that. I might do it in the pub one of these days.
Across the courtyard I see Abbie on her way into work. She’s dismounting from a pushbike, removing her crash hat and clipping it onto her backpack. I instinctively cross the courtyard and say, ‘Hi.’
She’s got earphones in and they’re blasting music from somewhere I can’t fathom. She yanks them out.
‘Do you usually cycle to work?’ I gesture to the bike that she’s chained up on the bike rack.
‘I don’t cycle all the way from home. I get the overground train. I just don’t really want to get the Tube at the minute, so I’m cycling this little bit for now. It’s not far. And besides, it’s good for me.’
I put one hand in my pocket and give her a look. ‘You won’t want any of this then?’ I say, holding my freshly lit cigarette.
She takes it from me and inhales, closes her eyes, which makes me smile, although she can’t see me doing it. ‘One or two drags on your cigarettes every few days won’t undo the good work of my new cycling regime.’ Her eyes open.
‘It might. Cigarettes kill, remember.’ I gently lift the cigarette out of her fingers. She’s painted her nails some sort of pink. They look nice.
‘Two weeks ago I was almost killed on a train,’ she says. ‘The cigarettes can get in the fucking queue.’ And then she throws me a knowing smirk and strides off towards her office doors.
She’s smart and funny, which I realise kind of turns me on. You never know what she’s going to say next. Unpredictable. That’s what she is. But in a good way. I message her later on, because a few of us are going to grab drinks and then head to a club after. We never admit that’s what the plan is, but it goes in that order almost every time we head out. There arenormally seven of us who go, and sometimes Sean pops his head in, if he thinks he can find someone to take home. It’s brazen, I suppose, but he’s got this confidence with women that I’m sort of envious of.
I have no idea if drinks and a club are Abbie’s thing or not. I’m not really sure they’re my thing, but what else am I going to do tonight?
Ugh, no thanks, she replies when I ask her, which surprises me. And then she follows it up with,I can’t think of anything worse than a bunch of suits bumping and grinding in a club after work. So sad.
So sad?I suppose it is a bit, and I smile at her barbed response.
I can think of something worse, I reply.A bunch of suits who hardly know each other grinding at a conference after-party. I look across the courtyard and see her typing energetically on her phone.
I shift on my seat as I watch, entranced. Her shoulders are shaking and she’s obviously making herself laugh, which makes me laugh. I’m still looking at her when my phone beeps in my hand. I look down expectantly.
Oh, I’ve seen that, she says. Totally awful. But in a way that makes you stare non-stop, and you can’t wait to see who’s going to snog who, and you put money on it—
She’s obviously hit her 160-character limit per text message and I wait, because there has to be more. I’m still smiling when the next one arrives.
And then you see them the next morning, she continues. Full of regret, avoiding each other, knowing there’s another day of the conference they’ve both got to suffer. And then a final message.Oooh, it’s the best.
She looks across at me and we both laugh.
I’ll buy all your drinks, I type.Just come.
All my drinks?she asks. And then:I can really drink, you know. I’m a journalist. They send us on courses to learn how to do features writing, news writing and serious hardcore drinking.
Really? Oh shit, I type. I look across the courtyard and she’s not typing back, just looking at me, the humour evident in her face.
I’ll buy some of your drinks then, I retort, and I watch her look down at her phone. Someone’s standing next to Abbie, and she puts her phone down and starts pretending to be busy at her desk, knowing she’s been rumbled, engrossed in her text messages. Then she gets up with a notebook and follows her colleague.
I’m left with disappointment that our conversation has come to a halt and I look back at my screen, still laughing to myself.
‘What’s so funny?’ Sean asks, looking across the courtyard and then back at me, trying to work out what I’m chuckling about and where the hell I keep looking.
‘Nothing,’ I say, trying to look serious again.
