The Girl on the Train

‘I should go,’ I say, and he doesn’t argue.

The rain has stopped. It’s bright outside and I’m squinting into hazy morning sunshine. A man approaches me – he’s right up in my face the moment I’m on the pavement. I put my hands up, turn sideways and shoulder-barge him out of the way. He’s saying something but I don’t hear what. I keep my hands raised and my head down, so I’m barely five feet away from her when I see Anna, standing next to her car, hands on hips, watching me. When she catches my eye she shakes her head, turns away and walks quickly towards her own front door, almost but not quite breaking into a run. I stand stock still for a second, watching her slight form in black leggings and a red T-shirt. I have the keenest sense of déjà vu. I’ve watched her run away like this before.

It was just after I moved out. I’d come to see Tom, to pick up something I’d left behind. I don’t even remember what it was, it wasn’t important, I just wanted to go to the house, to see him. I think it was a Sunday, and I’d moved out on the Friday, so I’d been gone about forty-eight hours. I stood in the street and watched her carrying things from a car into the house. She was moving in, two days after I’d left, my bed not yet cold. Talk about unseemly haste. She caught sight of me and I went towards her. I have no idea what I was going to say to her – nothing rational, I’m sure. I was crying, I remember that. And she, like now, ran away. I didn’t know the worst of it then – she wasn’t yet showing. Thankfully. I think it might have killed me.

Standing on the platform, waiting for the train, I feel dizzy. I sit down on the bench and tell myself it’s just a hangover – nothing to drink for five days and then a binge, that’ll do it. But I know it’s more than that. It’s Anna – the sight of her and the feeling I got when I saw her walking away like that. Fear.

ANNA

Saturday, 10 August 2013

Morning

I DROVE TO THE GYM in Northcote for my spin class this morning, then dropped into the Matches store on the way back and treated myself to a very cute Max Mara mini dress (Tom will forgive me once he sees me in it). I was having a perfectly lovely morning, but as I parked the car there was some sort of commotion outside the Hipwells’ place – photographers are there all the time now – and there she was. Again! I could hardly believe it. Rachel, barrelling past a photographer, looking rough. I’m pretty sure she’d just left Scott’s house.

I didn’t even get upset. I was just astounded. And when I brought it up with Tom – calmly, matter-of-factly – he was just as baffled as I was.

‘I’ll get in touch with her,’ he said. ‘I’ll find out what’s going on.’

‘You’ve tried that,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘It doesn’t make any difference.’ I suggested that maybe it was time to take legal advice, to look into getting a restraining order or something.

‘She isn’t actually harassing us, though, is she?’ he said. ‘The phone calls have stopped, she hasn’t approached us, or come to the house. Don’t worry about it, darling. I’ll sort it.’

He’s right, of course, about the harassment thing. But I don’t care. There’s something up, and I’m not prepared to just ignore it. I’m tired of being told not to worry. I’m tired of being told that he’ll sort things out, that he’ll talk to her, that eventually she’ll go away. I think the time has come to take matters into my own hands. The next time I see her, I’m calling that police officer – the woman, Detective Sergeant Riley. She seemed nice, sympathetic. I know Tom feels sorry for Rachel, but honestly I think it’s time I dealt with that bitch once and for all.

RACHEL

Monday, 12 August 2013

Morning

We’re in the car park at Wilton Lake. We used to come here sometimes, to go swimming on really hot days. Today we’re just sitting side by side in Tom’s car, windows down, letting the warm breeze in. I want to lean my head back against the headrest and close my eyes and smell the pine and listen to the birds. I want to hold his hand and stay here all day.

He called me last night and asked if we could meet. I asked if this was about the thing with Anna, seeing her on Blenheim Road. I said it had nothing to do with them – I hadn’t been there to bother them. He believed me, or at least he said he did, but he still sounded wary, a little anxious. He said he needed to talk to me.

‘Please, Rach,’ he said, and that was it – the way he said it, just like the old days, I thought my heart would burst. ‘I’ll come and pick you up, OK?’

I woke up before dawn and was in the kitchen making coffee at five. I washed my hair and shaved my legs and put on make-up and changed four times. And I felt guilty. Stupid, I know, but I thought about Scott – about what we did and how it felt – and I wished I hadn’t done it, because it felt like a betrayal. Of Tom. The man who left for me for another woman two years ago. I can’t help how I feel.

Tom arrived just before nine. I went downstairs and there he was, leaning on his car, wearing jeans and an old grey T-shirt – old enough that I can remember exactly how the fabric felt against my cheek when I lay across his chest.

‘I’ve got the morning off work,’ he said when he saw me. ‘I thought we could go for a drive.’

We didn’t say much on the drive to the lake. He asked me how I was, and told me I looked well. He didn’t mention Anna until we were sitting there in the car park and I was thinking about holding his hand.

‘Yeah, um, Anna said she saw you … and she thought you might have been coming from Scott Hipwell’s house? Is that right?’ He’s turned to face me, but he isn’t actually looking at me. He seems almost embarrassed to be asking me the question.

‘You don’t have to worry about it,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been seeing Scott … I mean, not like that, not seeing him. We’ve become friendly. That’s all. It’s difficult to explain. I’ve just been helping him out a bit. You know – obviously you know – that he’s been going through a terrible time.’

Tom nods, but he still doesn’t look at me. Instead he chews on the nail of his left forefinger, a sure sign that he’s worried.

‘But Rach—’

I wish he’d stop calling me that, because it makes me feel lightheaded, it makes me want to smile. It’s been so long since I’ve heard him say my name like that, and it’s making me hope. Maybe things aren’t going so well with Anna, maybe he remembers some of the good things about us, maybe there’s a part of him that misses me.