Page 25 of A Midlife Marriage

Speechless, Christian nodded.

‘So.’ Again, she stood. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I must get going. I have a joint retirement and hen party to prepare for, and I’m sure you’ll agree that kind of celebration doesn’t come along very often.’ She didn’t see his face as she turned to go, she only heard him say quietly‘push’,because she was at the door, pulling on a door handle that wouldn’t give.

21

The train was already thirty minutes behind schedule, and now it had ground to a halt somewhere in Lincolnshire. Leaning back, Caro put down the seed catalogue she’d been trying to read and stared out across fields of what she recognised as cabbages. Perhaps now that she was so acquainted with the species, she would never stop seeing them. From behind she could hear the loud and tinny soundtrack of someone’s phone. Distracted, she picked up her own phone, opened Helen’s photo again and smiled, then scrolling through she re-read the message that had arrived twenty minutes after she had boarded the train, and which she had read at least six times.

This is me. If you’re in town. Spencer.

A screech pealed out, so loud and so close she jumped. Turning to the seat behind, she saw a young girl, one hand in a crisp packet, one hand holding her phone up. The screech came again, followed by raucous laughter. Someone, locked away in the infinity of this girl’s phone was either very amused or very frightened. ‘Excuse me,’Caro said wearily. Tomasz had bookeda standard-class ticket, something she never did exactly to avoid this kind of thing, but the noise had been going on for the last fifteen minutes, yelping and squealing and screeching, piercing her thoughts and rattling her nerves. ‘Excuse me,’ she said again.

The girl did not look up.

‘Excuse me.’

No response.

Now she hissed: ‘Excuse me!’

Still the girl ignored her.

Caro made a fist of her hand and tapped on the chair back, and finally the girl looked up.

‘Do you have headphones?’

‘What?’

‘Do you have headphones?’ She smiled. ‘Because if you do, I’d appreciate it if you put them on and listened to whatever it is you’re listening to, through them.’

‘TikTok,’ the girl said, a slow rise of hostility filling her eyes.

‘TikTok.’ Caro nodded. ‘Can you listen to it through headphones?’

The girl glared at her. ‘This ispublictransport.’

The stupidity of the response was like a punch; momentarily, it stunned her. ‘Exactly,’ she said as she came to her senses. ‘You’re onpublictransport, in apublicspace, subjecting everyone else to yourprivateentertainment.’

Scowling, the girl pulled her shoulders back. ‘And you’re knocking on the seat like I’m your servant.’

For a nano-second, not more, Caro closed her eyes. The intensity of the hostility, the suddenness of it had pushed her to a precipice. She could feel it, the currents of air rising from the drop in front, caution behind tugging at her sleeve, urging her to back away … Making a coward of her. She hadn’t been unreasonable; she hadn’t been nasty. To back down would be cowardly. Would make her a wholly different person from thewoman who had owned that stage in the sky. ‘An impressive woman,’ Spencer Cooper had said. What would he say now? She opened her eyes to see the girl staring, the scent of victory turning her lips up. ‘I tapped,’ Caro said. ‘I didn’t knock, and I did it to get your attention. I had already asked three times.’

The girl dropped her head to one side, raised her phone and began filming. ‘ThisKaren,’ she drawled, ‘is knocking on my seat, yeah, to get me to turn my phone down, yeah. Like she’s the train police.’

‘What are you doing?’ She was so angry, so astonished, her voice shook.

The girl laughed. ‘This is gonna go viral.’ And holding her phone higher, she whispered,‘Karen.’

‘Switch it off.’ The command, spoken by a man, came from above.

The girl looked up.

Caro turned. He wore designer sunglasses and an obviously expensive suit, and she recognised him immediately. ‘Emir!’ She hadn’t seen him in months. He had been an early investor in Eco-Innovate, and her persuasive skills had made him substantially richer.

Returning Caro’s smile, Emir leaned to the girl. ‘I said,switch it off.’

‘What’s it to you, bro?’ The girl sneered. ‘She’s just anotherKaren.’

Emir didn’t speak. He leaned in closer, so close his nose was inches from the girl’s nose. ‘Number one,’ he said, ‘I am not your bro. Number two, learn some manners, and number three, my mother’s name is Karen, and I don’t like to hear it disrespected. Now, turn your camera off, put your headphones on, and leave this lady in peace.’

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