The Girl on the Train

I want a drink and I don’t want one, because if I don’t have a drink today then it’ll be three days, and I can’t remember the last time I stayed off for three days in a row. There’s a taste of something else in my mouth, too, an old stubbornness. There was a time when I had willpower, when I could run 10k before breakfast and subsist for weeks on 1,300 calories a day. It was one of the things Tom loved about me, he said: my stubbornness, my strength. I remember an argument, right at the end, when things were about as bad as they could be; he lost his temper with me. ‘What happened to you, Rachel?’ he asked me. ‘When did you become so weak?’

I don’t know. I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it.

The train comes to an abrupt halt, brakes screeching alarmingly, at the signal on the London side of Witney. The carriage is filled with murmured apologies as standing passengers stumble, bumping into each other, stepping on each other’s feet. I look up and find myself looking right into the eyes of the man from Saturday night – the ginger one, the one who helped me up. He’s staring right at me, his startlingly blue eyes locked on mine, and I get such a fright I drop my phone. I retrieve it from the floor and look up again, tentatively this time, not directly at him. I scan the carriage, I wipe the steamy window with my elbow and stare out, and then eventually I look back over at him and he smiles at me, his head cocked a little to one side.

I can feel my face burning. I don’t know how to react to his smile, because I don’t know what it means. Is it Oh, hello, I remember you from the other night, or is it Ah, it’s that pissed girl who fell down the stairs and talked shit at me the other night, or is it something else? I don’t know, but thinking about it now, I believe I have a snatch of soundtrack to go with the picture of me slipping on the steps: him saying, ‘You all right, love?’ I turn away and look out of the window again. I can feel his eyes on me; I just want to hide, to disappear. The train judders off and in seconds we’re pulling into Witney station and people start jostling each other for position, folding newspapers and packing away Kindles and iPads as they prepare to disembark. I look up again and am flooded with relief – he’s turned away from me, he’s getting off the train.

It strikes me then that I’m being an idiot. I should get up and follow him, talk to him. He can tell me what happened, or what didn’t happen; he might be able to fill in some of the blanks at least. I get to my feet. I hesitate – I know it’s already too late, the doors are about to close, I’m in the middle of the carriage, I won’t be able to push my way through the crowd in time. The doors beep and close. Still standing, I turn and look out of the window as the train pulls away. He’s standing on the edge of the platform in the rain, the man from Saturday night, watching me as I go past.

The closer I get to home the more irritated with myself I feel. I’m almost tempted to change trains at Northcote, go back to Witney and look for him. A ridiculous idea, obviously, and stupidly risky given that Gaskill warned me to stay away from the area only yesterday. But I’m feeling dispirited about ever recalling what happened on Saturday. A few hours of (admittedly hardly exhaustive) internet research this afternoon confirmed what I suspected: hypnosis is not generally useful in retrieving hours lost to blackout because, as my previous reading suggested, we do not make memories during blackout. There is nothing to remember. It is, will always be, a black hole in my timeline.

MEGAN

Thursday, 7 March 2013

Afternoon

THE ROOM IS DARK, the air close, sweet with the smell of us. We’re at the Swan again, in the room under the eaves. It’s different, though, because he’s still here, watching me.

‘Where do you want to go?’ he asks me.

‘A house on the beach on the Costa de la Luz,’ I tell him.

He smiles. ‘What will we do?’

I laugh. ‘You mean apart from this?’

His fingers are tracing slowly over my belly. ‘Apart from this.’

‘We’ll open a café, show art, learn to surf.’

He kisses me on the tip of my hipbone. ‘What about Thailand?’ he says.

I wrinkle my nose. ‘Too many gap-year kids. Sicily,’ I say. ‘The Egadi islands. We’ll open a beach bar, go fishing …’

He laughs again and then moves his body up over mine and kisses me. ‘Irresistible,’ he mumbles. ‘You’re irresistible.’

I want to laugh, I want to say it out loud: See? I win! I told you it wasn’t the last time, it’s never the last time. I bite my lip and close my eyes. I was right, I knew I was, but it won’t do me any good to say it. I enjoy my victory silently; I take pleasure in it almost as much as in his touch.

Afterwards, he talks to me in a way he hasn’t done before. Usually I’m the one doing all the talking, but this time he opens up. He talks about feeling empty, about the family he left behind, about the woman before me and the one before that, the one who wrecked his head and left him hollow. I don’t believe in soulmates, but there’s an understanding between us which I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. It comes from shared experience, from knowing how it feels to be broken.

Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. All these things I know, but I don’t say them out loud, not now.

‘When will we go?’ I ask him, but he doesn’t answer me, and I fall asleep, and he’s gone when I wake up.

Friday, 8 March 2013

Morning

Scott brings me coffee on the terrace.

‘You slept last night,’ he says, bending down to kiss my head. He’s standing behind me, hands on my shoulders, warm and solid. I lean my head back against his body, close my eyes and listen to the train rumbling along the track until it stops just in front of the house. When we first moved here, Scott used to wave at the passengers, which always made me laugh. His grip tightens a little on my shoulders; he leans forward and kisses my neck.

‘You slept,’ he says again. ‘You must be feeling better.’

‘I am,’ I say.

‘Do you think it’s worked, then?’ he asks. ‘The therapy?’