The Stranger on the Train Read online

  “Sounds interesting,” he said. “Bristol’s a good place.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  A pause.

  “What are you reading?” Emma asked, spotting a book sticking out of the pocket of his jacket. There was a picture of some sort of cockroach on the front.

  “Kafka,” Oliver said. “Metamorphosis.”

  “I’ve heard of that. What’s it about?”

  “A man wakes up one morning and finds he’s changed into a giant insect.”

  “Oh.” Typical male. “Sci-fi.”

  Oliver laughed then, as if she’d said something funny.

  “I have to go,” he said, putting his glass on the counter. “I’ve arranged to see someone in town. But it was nice meeting you. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again.”

  “Great,” Emma said politely. “I’m sure we will.”

  “No vibe,” she said, deflated, to Joanne and Claire a couple of minutes later.

  “He only goes out with really attractive girls,” Claire said. “Not that I don’t think you’re attractive,” she added quickly as Emma looked at her, “but you know what I mean.”

  Emma did. Claire had been green with envy in case Emma hit it off with Oliver and ended up going out with him. She’d always been like that, all through uni. Putting people in their place, in case they got ideas above their station. Emma often wondered why they still hung out with her. But that was London for you. It was so huge, and so hard to get to know new people, that even though you’d moved there to do precisely that, you ended up hanging out with all the old ones, just for security.

  “Oh, well.” She shrugged, refusing to let Claire’s snide remarks get to her. “I gave him a chance, but I have my pride.”

  Back at Joanne and Emma’s flat, two streets away, there was a message for Emma on the answering machine.

  “Hi, Emma. Mum here. I haven’t heard from you for a few days, so just checking that you’re well and hope to hear from you soon.”

  Emma jabbed the “Erase” button.

  “That’s the third time this week,” she complained. “It’s only recently she’s started doing this. Phoning me at all hours.”

  “Why d’you never ring her back, then?” Joanne called, clattering around in the kitchen.

  “Sunday is the day I ring. She knows that. Why’s she calling the flat on a Friday night? Does she think I have no life, phoning on a Friday?” Emma’s voice rose. How tantrummy and hysterical she sounded. There her mother went again. Turning her straight back into a nine-year-old.

  “My mum’s a nag too,” Joanne said. “It’s being on their own does it.”

  Emma fiddled with the switch on the answering machine. She hadn’t meant to imply that her mother was a nag. And then she was frustrated. What was there to feel guilty about? She owed her mother nothing. Nothing at all.

  “Your mum does care about you, love,” her gran had assured the five-year-old Emma whenever her mother snapped at her. And the eight-year-old when her mum forgot to collect her from school. And the eleven-year-old when Emma was spending most evenings and weekends at her gran’s because her mother was too tired to look after her. “She’s just worn-out because of her work. It’s so there’ll be money in the bank for you for university.” But really, her gran didn’t see what the big deal was about Emma going to university. Emma didn’t either, at the time. But she loved her gran, and the arrangement of spending so much time with her suited them both. Who needed her cold, distant mother?

  She marched through to the kitchen to explain it properly to Joanne.

  “I would ring her more,” she said, “but once, when I was four years old, I tried to climb on her knee and she pushed me off so hard, I fell and smashed my face on the fireplace. Look.” She pulled her hair to one side and tilted her head, jutting her chin at Joanne. “You can still see the scar. What kind of mother does that to a child?”

  “Keep your hair on. I was only saying.” Joanne had seen the scar before. She had lost interest and was reading a fashion magazine, winding her long blond hair around the top of her head.

  • • •

  Emma saw Oliver a few times after that, usually in a Friday-night group with Barry and the City boys. The Grape was the magnet for most of the twenty-somethings in their area. It had high ceilings, a dark wood floor, plenty of tables. The pub grub was cheap and tasty: steak and ale pie, chicken curry, sausages and mash. No snooker tables, which pleased the women. The blokes liked it because there was a large selection of real ales. Emma didn’t try to approach Oliver again, but secretly she was still fascinated by him. The way he rarely spoke to anyone; just stood there sipping his pint of Spitfire, sometimes staring off into space. What was all that about? What did he think about when he half closed his drowsy eyes while those around him shouted over each other to be heard? And yet, despite his aloofness, he always managed to be right in the middle of the coolest group. How did he do that? He didn’t seem to make any particular effort to attract people; they just gathered around him. On the nights she spotted him, she felt a little snip of excitement in her belly. She held herself straighter, became more animated, made sure she was always laughing and having a good time. Easy enough to do, because the Grape, with Oliver in it, suddenly seemed like the very center of London. The place everyone wanted to be.

  “You know he’s an orphan,” Joanne told her one evening. “His parents were killed in a car crash when he was seven.”

  “No!” Emma was shocked. “That’s horrible.”

  “He was sent to live with an aunt somewhere in the country but I don’t think they got on too well. She chucked him out when he was about fifteen.”

  “Poor Oliver,” Emma sighed. “No wonder he’s so reserved.”

  “Yeah, ” Joanne said. “Comes across quite deep, doesn’t he? Likes it that way.”

  “I thought he was a friend of yours?”

  “Oliver’s all right, you know. Barry says he works at that laid-back image of his. A mate of ours lived with him and he said Oliver spent all his time checking himself in the mirror, turning his head from side to side when he thought no one was looking. He makes sure he reads all the right books, knows all the right-on things to say. I don’t know how much depth there actually is to him to be honest.”

  “Hmm,” Emma said.

  The trouble with Joanne was she didn’t like any men now that she’d met Barry. Emma could take or leave Barry. He was a bit middle-aged, considering he was only twenty-six. He’d been born and spent his whole life in Wandsworth, and had a beer belly already, and views on things like immigration and single mothers. But he was doing well in his career, slowly clambering to the top of the IT world. He had bought his own flat. Joanne had always wanted to marry young.

  It was raining one evening in September when Emma sloshed down the steps to put her key in the lock of their basement flat. The end of yet another glorious day at the call center, being shouted at by clients who couldn’t get through to technical support. The calls were recorded, so she couldn’t tell the clients to piss off, or even agree with them that, yes, actually, PlanetLink was the worst broadband provider in the UK and the best thing they could do would be to take their custom elsewhere. What made things even more unbearable was that she had no one to bitch to during her breaks. Most of her colleagues were either several years younger than her, only there for a few weeks to fund their gap year, or else many years older, worn down and embittered by life, trying to scrape up the cash to save the house their ex had remortgaged without telling them. The only person in the place remotely her age was Brian Cobbold, Emma’s would-be admirer, who’d been working at the call center for six years now, and wearing the same V-necked jumper for most of that.

  Six years! Emma felt faint. She’d been there for ten months, and already she could feel mold growing on her. She really needed to get out of there. Fast.

 
Her humor didn’t improve when she got in the door of the flat and found a letter from a renowned hotel chain waiting for her.

  “Dear Ms. Turner. Thank you for applying for the position of Assistant Marketing Director at the Globe Rendezvous Group. We regret to inform you that you have not been shortlisted for this post.”

  “London is so competitive,” Emma moaned to Joanne. “Any of the really good jobs I’ve applied for, all the other people have got master’s and first-class degrees. It’s hopeless trying to get anywhere.”

  “You’re aiming too high,” Joanne advised. “You should just take something. Get on the ladder. You’ve been at that call thingy for a year now.”

  “I don’t want to be tied into a job I’m not happy with,” Emma said. “The thing about the call center is, you can leave at short notice if anything turns up.”

  She crumpled up the letter, chucked it into the bin and went to the sink to fill the kettle. Even though it wasn’t half past six yet, she had to switch on the light. Emma and Joanne’s two-bedroom flat was in the basement of a terraced ­four-storey house divided into flats. The flats on the upper floors had high ceilings and big windows with views towards Clapham Common. Emma and Joanne’s ceiling was so low they could practically touch it sitting down, and the only view from their iron-barred windows was of people’s feet as they passed. This evening was darker than usual, due to the rain. The kitchen window ran with water. Through the bars, looking upwards, Emma saw the gray street, littered with flapping “To Let” signs.

  “I might travel again,” she said in a dreamy way.

  “Where?” Joanne asked.

  “I don’t know. China? I’ve always wanted to go there.”

  The phone rang.

  “Hello . . . Emma?” It was her mum. “I must have missed your call yesterday evening.”

  The Sunday evening phone call! Blimmin’ hell! Emma closed her eyes.

  “I was out,” she lied. “At . . . er . . . to dinner. I got in too late to ring.”

  “Not to worry,” her mother said cheerfully. “Where did you go? Somewhere nice?”

  “It was all right,” Emma mumbled.

  Time for a change of subject.

  “I’m thinking of moving to China,” she announced.

  “To China?” Her mum sounded puzzled. “Why would you do that?”

  “To work there for a while. Experience a different culture.”

  “But what sort of job would you get? You don’t speak Chinese.”

  “I could learn, couldn’t I?”

  There was a pause.

  “Do you think this is a good idea?” Emma’s mother asked.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Well, you’ve only got back from that waitressing job in Sydney—”

  “It wasn’t just waitressing.” Emma gritted her teeth. “I was in charge of all their PR work as well.”

  “I know that, love. I know. All I’m saying is, shouldn’t you try to get some proper experience or further qualification here before you head off again? Build some networks? You’ll find you have nothing to come back to.”

  “And you know so much about the business world?” Emma said coolly.

  “Oh, Emma.” Her mother sighed. “I can’t say anything to you. Give you any kind of advice.”

  You should have done all that a long time ago, Emma thought.

  “When are you coming to visit in Bath?” her mother asked.

  “Soon. Work’s kind of busy at the moment.”

  “You haven’t been home for a while.”

  “I will be soon,” Emma promised. “Look, I’ve got to go now. I’m going out. I’m meeting someone at eight and I still have to get ready.”

  “All right, love,” her mother said. “Have a good evening. Stay in touch.”

  They said their good-byes and hung up. But it was a while before Emma took her hand from the phone.

  I wish I could have the last few minutes back, she thought, as she often did after speaking to her mum.

  One day this would be sorted out, once and for all. Emma had it all in her head, all planned out. One day when she had a proper job, a job her mother would be proud of, she would visit Bath and she and her mother would sit down and talk, really talk, and they would both say everything they wanted to say. Emma would tell her mother how hurt she’d been as a child, never having been hugged or held, never brought anywhere by her mum, always left at her gran’s. Her mother would explain why she’d been so cold. There must have been some reason. She would ask Emma’s forgiveness, and because Emma was now so happy and successful, she would graciously agree to let bygones be bygones. She and her mother would hug each other, and Emma’s bitterness would melt away and she would let herself be as close to her mum as she sometimes longed to be.

  Because then she wouldn’t be so angry anymore.

  Three days later, at work, she received a phone call.

  “Is that you, Emma?” an elderly female voice asked.

  “Yes?” Emma was confused. The voice, vaguely familiar, sounded out of place in the high-volume, frantic surroundings of the call center.

  “This is Mrs. Cornes. Your next-door neighbor in Bath.”

  “Oh.”

  And then Emma felt a slow, cold finger at her throat. Why would Mrs. Cornes be phoning her at work on a Thursday afternoon?

  “Emma, love.” Mrs. Cornes’s voice trembled. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this. It’s your mum.”

  • • •

  Subarachnoid hemorrhage, the postmortem said. Mrs. Cornes had been worried when she hadn’t seen Emma’s mother for a few days. She’d taken the spare key and called around to the house. In the hall, at the bottom of the stairs, lay Mrs.Turner, her dark hair spread around her head. She’d been dead for more than forty-eight hours. On the train to Bath, light-headed and frozen, Emma traced the tiny mark on her chin.

  There were more people at the funeral than she had expected. Mrs. Cornes must have mobilized the citizens of Bath. Neighbors, none of whom Emma really knew, all had kind things to say about her mother. Afterwards, she spent a few days going through her mum’s things to see what she wanted to keep or throw away. Mrs. Cornes helped her. They didn’t have much time; already there were new tenants waiting to move in to the house. There were mainly clothes, old letters, a few bits of jewelry. That was about it, really. Her mum had left so little to show for her life.

  In a frame on the mantelpiece, Emma found a photograph: herself, her mum and her gran, taken when Emma was about thirteen. Emma remembered the day. It had been her gran’s birthday and a neighbor had taken the photo. Her mum and gran sat on the couch, side by side. Emma stood behind them, resting a hand on each of their shoulders. All of them were smiling, even her mum. Her gran showed no sign of the tumor that was already beginning to vanquish her right lung. Emma’s mum looked young and fresh, wearing a rose-pink dress, so different from the gray tunic she wore to her job as a health-care assistant at the nursing home. Her hair was loose, the same dark brown as Emma’s. She had the same blue eyes.

  That had been a good evening. They’d taken Gran to dinner at a restaurant. The three of them had drunk a bottle of wine. Emma took the photograph down and stared at it. What was it all about, Mum? Did you want me? Did you love me? She’d never know now. She wrapped the photo in a sheet of newspaper and put it into her bag.

  Mrs. Cornes saw her to the station to catch the train back to London.

  “Who do you have up there, Emma?” Mrs. Cornes was distressed. She had on the navy Sunday coat she’d worn for the funeral, buttoned up to the neck, with a patterned silk scarf underneath. In the harsh morning light, her lipstick, crookedly applied, was too pink for her face. She peered up at Emma.

  “Your mum worried about you,” she said. “All that traveling you’d been doing recently. Not putting down any roots. I hate to t
hink of you not having someone you can depend on.”

  “Joanne, the girl I live with, is a good friend,” Emma assured the kindly woman. “She won’t let me down.”

  She went to shake Mrs. Cornes’s hand and somehow found that she was hugging her instead. Mrs. Cornes smelled of rosewater and scones. They held each other tightly for a moment. The guard blew his whistle. Emma let go of Mrs. Cornes. She stepped away and walked through the barrier.

  • • •

  She was in the Grape one evening with Joanne, when Oliver came in. She hadn’t seen or thought about him for a while. He was with friends, but left them to come over and speak to Emma.

  “I heard about your mum,” he said. He stood in front of her, looking down. “It’s a tough thing to happen. If you need to talk to someone about it, I’m here.”

  Whatever he saw in her that night made him decide to stay with her instead of going back to his friends. He sat beside her for the rest of the evening. They drank a bottle of wine and talked about death, wondering what the point of everything was if it all came to nothing in the end.

  “What’s the point of beauty, even?” Emma asked in a low voice. “My mum loved the sea. Especially in the evenings. She loved the sunsets in Cornwall.”

  “Beauty is a myth,” Oliver said. “The sea and the sun aren’t beautiful. We’re just programmed to think they are because they represent water and heat. The fuel we need to survive.”

  The morbidness of the conversation suited Emma’s mood. She didn’t notice that Joanne had disappeared. Tears filled her eyes at the waste of it all; the futility of her mum’s short life.

  Oliver held her hand.

  “Come out with me,” he said. “This weekend. A friend of mine is in a band. They’re doing a gig in Brixton.”

  • • •

  The gig was in the top of a pub, somewhere in the maze of side streets between Clapham and Brixton. Emma didn’t make a massive effort to dress up for the evening. She wore her jeans and the reliable black top she’d got in the L.K.Bennett sale, with the shiny bits around the neckline. At the last minute, Joanne insisted she put on a pair of dangly jet earrings. But she wasn’t really in a party mood. Her mum had just died. This was no date she was going out on. Oliver was being a friend.