The Girl on the Train

‘I’m just … I’m really concerned about this.’

He looks up at me at last, his big brown eyes lock on mine and he moves his hand a little, as if he’s going to take mine, but then he thinks better of it and stops. ‘I know – well, I don’t really know much about it, but Scott … I know that he seems like a perfectly decent bloke, but you can’t be sure, can you?’

‘You think he did it?’

He shakes his head, swallows hard. ‘No, no. I’m not saying that. I know … Well, Anna says that they argued a lot. That Megan sometimes seemed a little afraid of him.’

‘Anna says?’ My instinct is to dismiss anything that bitch says, but I can’t get away from the feeling I had when I was at Scott’s house on Saturday, that something was off, something was wrong.

He nods. ‘Megan did some babysitting for us when Evie was tiny. Jesus, I don’t even like to think about that now, after what’s been in the papers lately. But it goes to show, doesn’t it, that you think you know someone and then …’ He sighs heavily. ‘I don’t want anything bad to happen. To you.’ He smiles at me then, gives a little shrug. ‘I still care about you, Rach,’ he says, and I have to look away because I don’t want him to see the tears in my eyes. He knows, of course, and he puts his hand on my shoulder and says, ‘I’m so sorry.’

We sit for a while in comfortable silence. I bite down hard on my lip to stop myself from crying. I don’t want to make this any harder for him, I really don’t.

‘I’m all right, Tom. I’m getting better. I am.’

‘I’m really glad to hear that. You’re not—’

‘Drinking? Less. It’s getting better.’

‘That’s good. You look well. You look … pretty.’ He smiles at me and I can feel myself blush. He looks away quickly. ‘Are you … um … are you all right, you know, financially?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Really? Are you really, Rachel? Because I don’t want you to—’

‘I’m OK.’

‘Will you take a little? Fuck, I don’t want to sound like an idiot, but will you just take a little? To tide you over?’

‘Honestly, I’m OK.’

He leans across then, and I can hardly breathe, I want to touch him so badly. I want to smell his neck, bury my face in that broad, muscular gap between his shoulder blades. He opens the glove box. ‘Let me just write you a cheque, just in case, you know? You don’t even have to cash it.’

I start laughing. ‘You still keep a cheque book in the glove box?’

He starts laughing too. ‘You never know,’ he says.

‘You never know when you’re going to have to bail out your insane ex-wife?’

He rubs his thumb over my cheekbone. I raise my hand and take his in mine and kiss his palm.

‘Promise me,’ he says gruffly, ‘you’ll stay away from Scott Hipwell. Promise me, Rach.’

‘I promise,’ I say, and I mean it, and I can hardly see for joy, because I realize that he’s not just worried about me, he’s jealous.

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Early morning

I’m on the train, looking out at a pile of clothes on the side of the tracks. Dark-blue cloth. A dress, I think, with a black belt. I can’t imagine how it ended up down there. That certainly wasn’t left behind by the engineers. We’re moving, glacially though, so I have plenty of time to look, and it seems to me that I’ve seen that dress before, I’ve seen someone wearing it. I can’t remember when. It’s very cold. Too cold for a dress like that. I think it might snow soon.

I’m looking forward to seeing Tom’s house – my house. I know that he’ll be there, sitting outside. I know he’ll be alone, waiting for me. He’ll stand up when we go past, he’ll wave and smile. I know all this.

First, though, we stop in front of number fifteen. Jason and Jess are there, drinking wine on the terrace, which is odd, because it isn’t yet eight thirty in the morning. Jess is wearing a dress with red flowers on it, she’s wearing little silver earrings with birds on them – I can see them moving back and forth as she talks. Jason is standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders. I smile at them. I want to wave, but I don’t want people to think I’m weird. I just watch, and I wish that I had a glass of wine too.

We’ve been here for ages and the train still isn’t moving. I wish we’d get going, because if we don’t Tom won’t be there and I’ll miss him. I can see Jess’s face now, more clearly than usual – it’s something to do with the light, which is very bright, shining directly on her like a spotlight. Jason is still behind her, but his hands aren’t on her shoulders now, they’re on her neck, and she looks uncomfortable, distressed. He’s choking her. I can see her face turning red. She’s crying. I get to my feet, I’m banging on the window and I’m screaming at him to stop, but he can’t hear me. Someone grabs my arm – the guy with the red hair. He tells me to sit down, says that we’re not far from the next stop.

‘It’ll be too late by then,’ I tell him, and he says, ‘It’s already too late, Rachel,’ and when I look back at the terrace, Jess is on her feet and Jason has a fistful of her blonde hair and he’s going to smash her skull against the wall.

Morning

It’s hours since I woke, but I’m still shaky, my legs trembling as I sit down in my seat. I woke from the dream with a sense of dread, a feeling that everything I thought I knew was wrong, that everything I’d seen – of Scott, of Megan – I’d made up in my head, that none of it was real. But if my mind is playing tricks, isn’t it more likely to be the dream that’s illusory? Those things Tom said to me in the car, all mixed up with guilt over what happened with Scott the other night: the dream was just my brain picking all that apart.

Still that familiar sense of dread grows when the train stops at the signal, and I’m almost too afraid to look up. The window is shut, there’s nothing there. It’s quiet, peaceful. Or it’s abandoned. Megan’s chair is still out on the terrace, empty. It’s warm today, but I can’t stop shivering.

I have to keep in mind that the things Tom said about Scott and Megan came from Anna, and no one knows better than I do that she can’t be trusted.

Dr Abdic’s welcome this morning seems a little half-hearted to me. He’s almost stooped over, as though he’s in pain, and when he shakes my hand his grip is weaker than before. I know that Scott said they wouldn’t release any information about the pregnancy, but I wonder if they’ve told him. I wonder if he’s thinking about Megan’s child.