Page 39 of The Last Train Home
‘Oh God, I don’t know,’ I say. I push my hand through my hair and I think it’s now a bit of a mess. She’s waiting for something more concrete. ‘Actually I do know. I’ve fucked everything up,’ I confess.
‘Everything?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, pretty much,’ I tell her.
‘Go on,’ she says. ‘Tell me.’
I look into the depths of my pint. I could tell her how much I miss her, how I should never have pulled any moves on her in my flat, because I ruined everything. I could tell her how being with her felt like the most wonderful thing I’d ever done, how it made perfect sense – the feel of her skin on mine – but that I panicked and said all the wrong things because I didn’t know the right thing to say; because I’d glimpsed a text message that I wish I’d never seen, and it threw chaos at me, and chaos keeps coming. It just keeps coming. I could tell her how I am an expert at believing I’m doing the right thing and it always,always, turns out to be the wrong thing, with the exception of carrying her off that train. I could tell her that the day I met her was both the worst and the best day of my life. I could tell her how I have fears that she’s dating Sean, and how I’m scared that after today I’ll never see her again.
But I don’t. Instead I tell her the thing that’s eating me up the most, the thing that’s going to impact on my life more than any of this.
‘I’m going to be a father.’
Chapter 27
Abbie
I stare at him, open-mouthed. He’s just said words that make no sense. Is it the order of the words that make no sense or the sentence itself?
‘Say that again,’ I say slowly.
Tom repeats himself. I’m waiting for the punchline. But if there is one, it’s well hidden.
‘You’re going to be a dad?’
He nods.
I sit back, lean forward again. I need to do something with my hands, so I lift my wine glass and drink. I really need a water and so I rifle in my backpack for my bottle. This is a lot to take in.
Tom’s squirming in his seat. I think he expected me to take charge of this conversation, but I’m too stunned to think or speak.
‘It’s Samantha,’ he says in answer to a question I haven’t asked.
‘The girl you broke up with the week we met?’ I ask, dumbfounded.
He nods, reaches for his pint. ‘We’re back together. We’re having the baby together.’
I look down at the table, trying to process this. My stomach hurts.
‘How?’ I ask and then realise that’s not what I mean at all. I don’t know what I mean.
‘The usual way,’ he says and smiles, but it’s a sad smile.
‘I don’t know what to say. Are you happy?’
He blinks as if he’s never asked himself this.
‘I don’t have much choice,’ is the surprising answer he settles on, but he hasn’t answered my question. That’s a no. ‘I’m doing the right thing,’ he continues. ‘It’s important I do the right thing.’
I nod. ‘I suppose it is, yes,’
‘I’m going to marry her.’
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Marry her?’
‘It’s the right thing to do,’ he says simply.
I’m incredibly still, working out how to phrase this next bit. I think it is the right thing to do if you’re in the 1940s. But he’s not. He’s Tom in 2006, and people don’t simply get married these days if they knock someone up. ‘Both parties have to be in love, to be married,’ I say. I wait for him to confirm or deny if he’s in love with Samantha. I’m not sure I’m going to like the answer, either way.
