Page 7 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘I anticipated that,’ said the policeman,holdingup a fresh pad of dockets. ‘Where are you headed?’
‘Scotland,’ said Mirren.
‘Och, lovely,’he said. ‘On the sleeper?’
‘Will you stop trying to pretendeverything’s fine?’said Mirren. ‘I’ve been robbed, I’m on my way to a new job, and it’s allterrible.’
‘Nobody died . . . ’said the policeman.
‘That’s because nobody will listen to my tripwire idea!’
‘ . . . andyou’re off to Scotland at Christmastime,’ said the officer, with a friendly smile. ‘Could be worse.’
The nice policeman waited while she cancelled everything with her bank on a landline phone they kept for this exact purpose, with all the bank telephone numbers sellotaped on it and everything.
Now, stuck in this filthy, miserable room in Euston, Mirren just wanted to go home. Her studio might be tiny and have no sound insulation and be lying about its mezzanine pretensions, but it was hers. She could lock the door and be alone.
Then she remembered. Her Oyster card and all her contacts and her details and her life and her Uber and everything –everything–was on her stupid bloody, bloody phone. She’d outsourced her entire brain in about 2009, and now she didn’t even know her brothers’ mobile number, or anyone who could help her out.
But she had a job to do. They were expecting her. She’d better carry on.
‘Okay?’ said the policeman. ‘Your train is going soon.’
‘And I’ll be alright without a ticket?’ She held up the thin paper docket again.
He nodded his head. ‘You’ve got ID, haven’t you?’
‘They didn’t get my wallet, just my phone. As you’d know because, if you wanted, you could just go and find it on Find My Phone.’
The policeman cleared his throat. He’d had a very long day and had saved an errant buggy from rolling on to the tracks and arrested a flasher, so he didn’t feel entirely useless, but there sure were a lot more disgruntled victims of cycle-by muggings these days.
‘Well, let’s go down to check in on Platform 1, miss; they’ll sort you out. Then you can get picked up the other side, get a new phone, Bob’s your uncle. Get a cup of tea on there too. Or maybe a wee dram?’
‘Okay,’ she said, feeling cold and depressed and wretched. ‘I’ll try that.’
The sleeper was tucked away in the far corner of the station. She looked with envy at the promotional posters of people tucking themselves up in clean white duvets.
The train was petrol blue and stood in its own corner as passengers made their way down the wide concrete gangway. The very first carriage, she saw, was half for seating and half for bikes and luggage. It looked reasonably comfortable as these things went, but she’d still be sitting upright all night, next to a total stranger – the train was always sold out. There were people already in there, mostly men, a pair of women knitting, men with large kit bags next to them, already fast asleep. A family were trying to wrestle a two-year-old and a baby into their seats and Mirren felt sorry for them and then, also, for herself. Whatever was up in Scotland, she was absolutely not going to be in the best state to get into it in the morning. She realised she hadn’t checked to see if there was any information about when she was getting picked up. She was getting picked up, yes? Shecouldn’t even remember the name of the stop . . . no, it would be okay. It would come to her, would be a new day. Someone would have a laptop, wouldn’t mind her logging in. Perhaps even an adventure, she told herself, rubbing her arms to keep warm.
But nothing felt like an adventure right then. A group of clearly quite inebriated men clambered into the seated carriage and started to unpack cans and clinking bottles from thin plastic bags. Oh, God. They were obviously planning a party.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the policeman.
‘Good luck,’ he said, and gave her a wink. ‘You’ll like Scotland, I promise.’
‘Ma’am?’
The train attendant was in a smart green-blue uniform, with a tartan waistcoat and a box hat.
‘Do you have a berth?’
‘No,’ said Mirren, sadly, watching the men marching up and down the aisle. She could already hear the baby screaming through the glass. ‘Just seated, I think.’
The attendant took her docket, looked at her driver’s licence and looked down their clipboard for a long time while Mirren shivered. It was utterly freezing on the platform, and she was five hundred miles south of her eventual destination. She wondered if she should have brought a thicker coat than the green pea coat she liked so much.
‘Ah, yes,’ they said eventually. ‘Here you are. Follow me.’
And they nodded to the other attendant and set off up the end of the train at quite a clip, Mirren moving quickly to keep up, the air getting colder and colder as they moved towards the outdoors, the train releasing gouts of steam, like a dragon warming up.
