Page 55 of The Last Train Home
Chapter 37
Tom
April 2007
I lift Teddy’s little hand up into the air and place my palm against his. ‘High five,’ I say as he splashes in his baby bath. I’m seated on the floor next to him. ‘We did it. We can tell Mummy that Teddy and Daddy moved house and sorted boxes into all the right places, found all your little onesies and nappies, and everyone’s clean and bathed and it’s all under control.’
Teddy smiles up at me and makes a noise that I take as total agreement. I pick him up when he’s done, wrap him in his hooded towel and carry him to his new bedroom, which is twice the size of the little boxroom he used to be in.
‘I know,’ I say to him. ‘This place is a palace compared to our last home, and our last place was awesome. Daddy has to work like a dog to pay the mortgage, but it’s all good. Mummy too,’ I say, remembering that Samantha’s not here today for a perfectly good reason, which I’ve almost come to terms with. ‘Mummy also works like a dog.’
I make a barking noise like a dog and Teddy laughs. ‘You’re a good audience, Ted. Never change.’
I give him his night-time bottle once he’s in his onesie for bed and we settle in downstairs. Teddy’s sitting up against the back of the sofa. ‘Boys’ night,’ I say, clinking my bottle of Peroni against his Tommy Tippee bottle. ‘Cheers.’
He holds his bottle out to me to do it again. And then again. He loves this. I love this.
‘Ted, you’re awesome,’ I say, taking a sip of my beer. He sucks his milk down greedily while I fiddle with the TV remote. ‘We can watch children’s TV or …’ I flick through the channels, ‘Star Wars.’
He looks at me, his mouth never leaving his bottle.
‘Star Warsit is,’ I say and settle back in, cosying up to my son. ‘I won’t tell Mummy you went to bed late, if you don’t. We can have a lie-in tomorrow to make up for it.’
Teddy pulls his bottle away from his mouth and holds it out to me. We clink bottles.
‘Cheers,’ I say, putting my feet up on the coffee table. ‘This is the life.’
My phone beeps. It’s an invite from Abbie. Even though I gave her my address, she’s emailing them out. It looks like a generic copy-and-paste job that’s gone out to everyone in her phonebook: Leaving Party! Sean and Abbie are leaving for Singapore! Celebrate with us at Coq d’Argent, Friday 11 May. We’ll be there straight after work at 6 p.m. and have an area reserved on the roof terrace.
So she’s going then. It’s actually happening. It had been a few weeks and I hadn’t heard anything, so I assumed either she’d had the party and gone without saying, which I wouldn’t have put past Abbie, or she wasn’t going at all. I was hoping for the latter.
I was wrong.
Chapter 38
Abbie
May 2007
It has taken ages to sort moving overseas. Sean’s new job provides him with a relocation specialist and so we’ve done our flat-hunting practically blind, with someone called Amanda being our eyes and ears on the ground. She’s been sending us specs of flats, sorting out visas for us. It’s like having a PA we’ve never met. Thankfully, Sean, who is very used to having a PA, took charge of Amanda’s demands – paperwork being his forte. We are finally going at the end of the month.
I’m in the flat with Natasha and we’re on our balcony, for what is going to be one of our final nights in together. I’m packed. I’ve sent a lot of things back to my mum and dad’s, including my winter wardrobe. The average temperature in Singapore is twenty-seven degrees and it changes only one degree up or down mostly throughout the entire year.
I have two suitcases of summer clothes, and all the items I couldn’t bear to part with, ready to go. My suitcases are in my room and it’s odd, walking past them every day and knowing my life is packed up in them.
‘I won’t replace you,’ Natasha says.
‘That sounds businesslike,’ I tease.
‘I don’t want another flatmate. If I can’t have you, I don’t want anyone else.’
‘Now you’ve gone from businesslike to child.’
She laughs. ‘I still dread a murderer moving in, and I don’t need the money, so I’m leaving your room empty.’
‘A tenner says you’ve got someone else living here within the month.’
‘You’re on.’
