It was over two years since they had set up their small flat share agency. Since its first months where the office had consisted of Meg’s kitchen table, a second hand word processor and two box files they had expanded to the point where there was room to take on staff, something they had been planning over the last few days.
‘Pity we haven’t already got our new gofer. Then we wouldn’t have to shut.’ Nicola led the way into the coffee shop three doors up from the office. ‘Of course we could have an extension put in here!’ she joked. ‘We spend enough time drinking their coffee!’ In fact her mobile and note book were already on the smoked-glass table in front of them as they sat down. ‘Right. Fire away.’ She reached for the note book. ‘Bullet points!’
Meg laughed. ‘Nicola, this is my life we’re talking about. It doesn’t have bullet points.’
‘That’s the first place you’ve gone wrong then. Everyone’s life has bullet points. Or should have. There was some song my mother used to trill over the washing up when I was a kid. “You’ve got to have a dream or how are you going to have a dream come true!” So, what’s your dream? Clearly not the wayward Douglas or you would be crying into your latte. Thanks, Allie.’ The waitress had brought them two large coffees and two apricot Danish pastries without being asked. ‘So.’ Nicola turned back to Meg. ‘Let’s go back to basics. Number one. Do you like the job enough to go on wanting to do it forever?’
Meg smiled. ‘I wonder why that’s first.’
‘Because it affects me. If you don’t like it, I’ll buy you out.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence.
‘Do you mean that?’ Meg scanned Nicola’s face.
The latter nodded. ‘I love working with you. Don’t get me wrong. This is not a takeover bid, but if you hate it or feel trapped by it or need a change for whatever reason or just some different scenery I’ll use my grandmother’s legacy and buy you out. That would give you enough bread to start again with something fresh. Now. Next point.’ She wrote ‘No. 2’ on her piece of paper. ‘The corpse of the marriage. How much will you get? Half the house?’
‘The whole house. So he says.’
‘Get it in writing.’ Once Nicola had slipped into practical mode she was formidable. ‘It is the least he could do. I’ve never seen Douglas do a damn thing to that house, whereas you’ve turned it into a real home. Number three. Money.’
Meg shook her head. ‘Not a lot. But having no children means it’s less complicated.’
‘What about the need for revenge?’ Nicola’s pen was hovering over the margin ready to write number four.
‘That’s a bullet point?’
‘Oh yes.’ Nicola stared thoughtfully down at her plate for a moment. ‘Anger can fester. You may think you don’t care now, but you might later. When you’re lonely, feeling down, maybe you even start to miss him. Then you’ll start to think about the slag who seduced your happily married husband.’
‘He wouldn’t go for a slag,’ Meg found herself protesting, ‘and if we’d been happy she wouldn’t have managed to seduce him.’ She shook her head.
‘Don’t you believe it. The thirty-somethings trawling the male workforce are sophisticated babies.’ Nicola raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘They want someone else’s man; one who is mature and steady and knows how to look after a woman and who is preferably rich or soon to be rich. They weren’t prepared to take a chance on a penniless youngster still in college, like you and I did. No, they waited. Waited for a man who’s been perfectly trained by another woman. Like great black spiders.’ She scowled. ‘Don’t forget, I know what I’m talking about. This was before your time, but one of them hooked my old man when he was in hospital for God’s sake! I only turned my back for a few hours and she had him convinced he’d die without her personal physio talents! By the time he was fully conscious after the op. she had got him to agree to move in with her. By the time he left hospital he thought he’d never walk again unless she was beside him. But we’re not talking about me.’ She cut a wedge of Danish and inserted it into her mouth.
The minute or two of silence which followed allowed Meg space to think for the first time since the morning’s shattering phone call.
Even so, after Nicola’s unexpected tirade she couldn’t resist asking the question. ‘Did you extract your revenge?’
Nicola smiled. ‘Oh yes.’
‘What was it?’
‘I let her have him.’
‘Wasn’t that a rather hollow victory?’
‘Nope. Their marriage lasted five months. Then when he begged to come back I said no.’ There was a hardness in her voice Meg had never heard before. ‘She took him for every penny he had had left after I finished with him.’
Meg glanced at Nicola’s face and for a fleeting second she glimpsed the pain in the other woman’s eyes. Nicola had loved her husband and to Meg’s certain knowledge there had never been anyone to replace him.
‘OK!’ Nicola uncapped her pen again. ‘No revenge then. So, on to the dream. The dream before real life and the saintly unseduceable Douglas made you compromise.’ She had written a ‘4’ in the margin.
‘I wanted to sail single-handed round the world.’ As soon as she had said it Meg stopped, completely stunned by her own words. Where had they come from? She opened her mouth to call them back, deny them, but instead she found herself saying, ‘Not without stopping. Nothing like that. I would stop everywhere. Every island. Every country. Every port. Every deserted river mouth. And I would buy a camera and take a million photos and produce wonderful travel books to feed other people’s dreams.’
Nicola stared at her, astonished. ‘Can you sail?’ she asked at last.
‘No. Haven’t a clue!’ They gazed at each other for a full minute, and then dissolved into gales of laughter.
‘I think point five had better be sailing lessons,’ Nicola said quietly. ‘Followed by six and seven, photography and navigation.’
It took her two and half years, still working in the daytime with Nicola, attending evening classes and courses and boat shows and photographic exhibitions. She lost weight, she grew her hair, she changed her wardrobe and she acquired a genuine, slightly-weathered tan, all unlooked-for but glorious side effects of her new found interests. Douglas had gone to Bristol, remarried, and then, as predicted returned to London without wife, house or much money. He met Meg for a drink – for old times’ sake – and found her, to her extreme gratification, newly attractive. Too late. Meg had bought a boat with Nicola’s buy-out money.
When she finally sailed, heading for southern climes, she wasn’t alone. Her navigation instructor was with her. Just to make sure she didn’t take the wrong turning. She planned to allow him to disembark in the fullness of time but until that moment they were getting on far too well and having much too much fun to worry about the future.
And the boat? She had called it No. 8. ‘Bullet Point’ had not had quite the romantic ring she sought and seemed a bit warlike for her purposes, but locked in her document case with the charts and papers, was Nicola’s original list. When she returned to England with some of her million photos and the manuscript for her first book Meg planned to frame it.
First-class Travel
As she rode the escalator up from the crowded District Line, Abi glanced furtively at her watch. Normally she didn’t allow herself to do that. To see the hands moving round as she fought her way through the crowds was to invite stress. If she left her time-check until she arrived on the teeming concourse of Liverpool Street Station she could see which trains were there on the departure board, and she could make a spot judgement. Run or saunter, or go grab a coffee. The stress was thereby minimised.
Today had been particularly bad. The crowds seemed heavier than usual and she had had an especially exhausting afternoon in court. A child custody case – the worst kind. The 5.42 was still alongside Platform 11 and she had four minutes to get there. With every step her briefcase and large shoulder-bag grew heavier, but on this occasion it was worth the hu
rry. To get home as soon as possible, to have a cool bath and a long, lazy gin and tonic on the terrace at the back of the cottage was the sole thing on her mind at this moment.
The cottage had seemed a sensible buy when she and Don split up: two small homes in exchange for the beautiful Georgian townhouse that had been sacrificed on the altar of divorce. Initially, she had been pleased with her purchase. Idyllically pretty, with a thatched roof in a charming, riverside village. But it was lonely. There was no one to share her frozen meals with. No time to meet the neighbours. No energy to go out and seek for company, male or female. No possibility, given her long, long hours of work, of even a cat or a dog for company … She sighed.
The first-class allocation on these trains was a joke. It was to be found at the end of the first carriage, a small glassed off section, only seating a mere sixteen people, presumably all the business travellers – people like her whose tickets were paid for by their firms because they needed to work in that precious hour or two on the way to and from home. If she were travelling Intercity there would have been a table to work at, and above all she wouldn’t have to wait till she got home for the G&T, but as it was even the token space and relative quiet provided in this small area was welcome.
She slid the door back and climbed into the one vacant place with murmured apologies to the other passengers upon whose toes she was treading. The train was hot and stuffy. The windows were dirty, misted with condensation, and closed. She leaned back wearily as the train pulled out of the station. What, she asked herself for the hundredth time that week, was it all for?
Her neighbour reached down into his own briefcase and brought out a laptop. Opposite her a mobile phone trilled importantly and was immediately silenced. She sighed and closed her eyes. If someone didn’t open a window soon they would all suffocate anyway, and that would be the end of all their problems.
At Chelmsford half the train passengers disembarked. Those who remained spread themselves more comfortably and someone at last lowered a window. Abi did not open her eyes.
When she awoke, the train was standing at a small station, the doors blessedly open. Soon it would be dark. Nearly everyone had gone now. She was the only person left in the first-class ghetto.
In the distance, she could hear an announcement over the station loudspeaker. Someone blew a whistle. The doors were actually closing when three young men, heavily tattooed, jumped on the train. Of one accord they turned towards the first-class compartment and slid open the door.
‘Hello, darling!’ The first one greeted her with a leer. ‘Not too proud for a bit of company, I hope!’ They sat down in the set of seats next to hers across the gangway.
Her heart had sunk to her shoes. The first-class compartment, in theory a haven, was a challenge to people like these, and it had become, suddenly, a trap. She smiled non-committally and closed her eyes again, hoping that a calm demeanour would bore them into looking for someone else to bait. It didn’t.
‘Come on, darling. Want a drink?’ A can of lager was waved under her nose.
She shrank back and shook her head. ‘No thanks.’
‘No thanks!’ The mimicry was mocking, the atmosphere of threat and barely suppressed anger increasing every second. She found to her surprise that she was thinking very clearly. What were they going to try? She doubted if they would actually hurt her. Best not to think about that. Concentrate on her belongings instead. Her briefcase was pushed back on the rack. Legal briefs. Court papers. Confidential memos. She doubted if this bunch could even read, but nevertheless their theft would compromise the case. She had little jewellery on. Earrings. A slim gold bangle, hidden under the cuff of her blouse. A couple of rings – one Victorian, which had belonged to her grandmother’s grandmother. That she would be devastated to lose. The rest, well, it could be replaced. Her shoulder-bag contained more papers. Some money. Credit cards. Mobile.
Mobile. She glanced at the bag, now lying beside her on the seat. Could she reach it and dial? The communication cord, so often glanced at, its position noted, just in case, was out of reach above the door, outside the compartment. No use at all.
Her chief tormentor had fallen back into his seat, amusing himself with draining his can of lager. Finishing it, he crumpled it up in one fist and hurled it suddenly and with enormous force at the window near her. She jumped back in her seat and he let fly a string of obscenities before reaching into the bag he had dumped on the seat beside him for a new can.
Abi glanced at the window. With it rapidly growing dark outside, it was hard to see where they were, but surely it could not be many minutes before they reached the next station. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than her heart sank. Whatever they intended to do, it would be before they arrived so that they could make their escape. If only she had a rape alarm, or something with which to defend herself.
The third young man had risen slowly to his feet. His hair was longer than that of his friends and lay greasy on his collar. Clutching his can, he staggered across to stand immediately in front of her, his legs actually touching her knees. ‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ he announced casually.
‘… In which case, I think it would be a good thing if you got off the train, young man. I doubt if any of you have first-class tickets – or any tickets at all. You leave the train at the next stop. Do you understand me? All of you?’
The sliding open of the compartment door had been sufficiently sudden, the deep voice sufficiently loud for the youth to spin round in surprise. His companions, who had begun to sing discordantly, fell silent.
Abi’s rescuer was tall and broadshouldered, casually dressed, in his forties, Abi guessed, and he was undeniably black. She took a deep breath and waited for the torrent of racial abuse she thought was bound to follow. It didn’t come. The stranger looked at each one in turn for several seconds as though memorising their faces, then, with a nod at Abi, he turned away without a word. She saw him resume his seat about half a dozen rows away. She did not dare look at her three persecutors.
She reached into her bag and produced her mobile. Aware that they were watching her, she pressed the 9 button three times and at last looked up at them directly. All three stood up.
As the train drew into the next station they jumped off and disappeared into the dark. Abi put away her phone. The only sound in the carriage now was the distant rattle of an empty lager can being kicked along the wet platform.
From her seat, Abi saw her rescuer glance up and register that they had gone. She caught his eye and smiled gratefully, wondering if she should go and thank him properly, but already he had looked down, immersed, she could see, in a pile of papers.
The last long haul before the final stop was blessedly peaceful. Abi reached her own briefcase down at last and withdrew a memo. The compartment still reeked of lager and the atmosphere of violence lingered, but she had left the door open and the sight of the distant, dark, slightly greying head bent so studiously over his own reading matter reassured her. She reached for a pen and began to make notes, trying to put the disturbance behind her.
‘I must speak to the driver!’ The woman’s voice behind her made her jump. She turned round, scanning the compartment. It was empty. The door behind her, locked shut, led only, she knew, to the empty driver’s cab and the rear of the train.
She frowned. She must have imagined it. Perhaps she had dreamed it, fallen asleep or been in that unreal hypnotic state when strange voices from time to time accost one loudly out of the ether. Rubbing her eyes she turned back to her papers.
‘Please. Help me! I must speak to the driver!’
Abi jumped to her feet, her papers sliding from her lap in all directions. The voice had come from the seat behind her – quite loud, perfectly clear, the accent elegant, almost over-refined. There was no possibility she had imagined it. She turned round slowly, clutching the back of the seat as the train sped northwards on the last stage of its journey, scanning every inch of the compartment, under every seat, the l
uggage rack, even the litter bin.
‘I don’t mean to pry, but are you all right?’ He had been watching her, and now he approached, a look of concern on his face. ‘Did they steal something?’
‘No, they didn’t take anything. It was a woman.’ Abi looked up at him, confused. ‘Did you see a woman in here? Sitting behind me?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ Stepping into the compartment, he sat down and leaned over, rounding up her papers from the floor. ‘Yes, come to think of it, I believe a woman got on the train as those boys got off. I noticed her and thought it strange because she was wearing such an old-fashioned hat. But I didn’t see where she went. I was reading. I didn’t take much notice, I’m afraid, once they got off.’
Abi had watched them get off. She had seen no one get on. She shook her head. ‘She’s not here now. Look, you can see that the whole carriage is empty.’ She gestured wildly down the length of it.
‘She could have walked on through.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, this is the last carriage. The end of the train.’
Far away, at the front, they heard the two-tone hooter as they rattled through an empty station without stopping.
‘Are you sure you weren’t asleep?’ He had the most wonderful smile, she realised suddenly. Gentle. Understanding. Inviting confidences. Slowly she shook her head. ‘I suppose I must have been.’ She gave an awkward laugh. ‘I’m sorry. I suppose those awful louts unnerved me so much I was hallucinating or something.’ She paused. ‘I haven’t thanked you for saving me. I was so sure they were going to rob me at the very least.’
He laughed. ‘Bravado, most of it. You showed no fear, so would probably have been OK. They’re often cowards, that sort.’
‘You handled them like an expert!’
He nodded. ‘So I should. I was head of an inner city school for sixteen years. I expect I dimly reminded them of some sort of authority figure.’
Abi laughed. ‘I should have guessed. Are you still a teacher?’
Sands of Time Page 24