Then and Always (8 page)

I was lucky that Matt was every bit as busy as I was and perfectly understood the demands of my job, otherwise we’d never have survived together until now. Long hours at the office, plans that had to be canceled at the last minute, late nights and working weekends, these were all things we were equally familiar with. When I thought about it, when I had a free second to think about
anything
that wasn’t work-related, I wondered how anyone ever managed to find the balance between a successful career and a relationship. And if at the back of my mind there was a nagging voice telling me that things shouldn’t be the way they were right now, then I just ignored it, telling myself this was only a temporary glitch and that everything would be sure to settle down sometime next year when Matt and I eventually found somewhere to live together. That’s supposing we ever found enough time to clear our schedules to go flat hunting.

Perhaps if I still didn’t feel very much the “new girl” at the magazine, I’d be able to relax more. But each time I considered doing less, I could hear the echo of doubts that had been voiced at my interview as my prospective employers read my CV, detailing my very provincial two years’ experience on a local newspaper. But I had, against all the odds, been offered the job above people who I knew were far better qualified
and experienced than I was. That was eight months ago, and I was still trying to prove both to them and, more importantly, to myself that they had made the right decision. And if that meant being the first to arrive each day and the last one to leave at night … well, that’s just what I had to do. For now.

But I’d lately realized that I was seeing more of the office nighttime cleaners than I was my own fiancé, which made me consider that perhaps I needed to relax my work regime a little. And it wasn’t only Matt I had been neglecting. I hadn’t been back to Great Bishopsford to see my father for nearly six months, and it was really not to my credit that I’d continually postponed visiting him, knowing I’d be going back in December anyway for Sarah’s wedding.

The train rattled through a station, the waiting commuters a multicolored blur as we flashed past. It was only when we bulleted back into the darkness that I caught the reflection of the man sitting diagonally opposite me on the other side of the aisle. In the perfect blackness of my window I saw a thickset and balding man sitting upright in his seat, uninvolved with the travelers’ usual pastimes of newspapers, iPod, or the like. No, this man seemed to have only one thing on his mind. Me. Although I made no move, he must have seen that I’d noticed him staring at me. Unabashed, he didn’t look away immediately, as convention demanded. Instead he seemed to intensify his scrutiny and then slowly, revealing ugly and distorted teeth, he began to leer. An ice cube of inexplicable alarm trickled down my spine.

I pulled a magazine from my bag and in an instinctively defensive pose angled my body away from the rest of the carriage and toward the window. I flicked through ten or twenty pages before acknowledging I had no idea whatsoever what had been on them. I swear I could physically feel the intensity
of his gaze upon me, and surreptitious glances into the reflection from the window confirmed this was still the case. The hair on the back of my neck prickled uncomfortably. It was unfortunate that during one such furtive inspection, he caught me watching him watching me, and gave again that slow ugly smile, followed by an almost imperceptible licking of his lips.

That did it. A different sort of woman might have raised her glance and challenged him, either verbally or with a meaningful stare. I wasn’t one of those women. Feeling foolish, but working purely on instinct, I plucked my coat from the seat beside me and moved to a vacant place on the opposite side of the carriage some distance away. As I hurried down the narrow passage between the rows of seats, I thought I heard a low, dirty self-satisfied laugh from somewhere behind me.

I chose a seat opposite a middle-aged woman engrossed in a book. I now had my back to the stranger and his reflection was no longer visible. But instead of being comforted, I almost instantly regretted the move, feeling more vulnerable than ever now that I couldn’t see his whereabouts. This was ridiculous. What on earth was I getting so worked up about? This wouldn’t be the first time I had had to fend off some undesirable male attention. And while I was certainly not in the same category as my old school friend Cathy, any passably attractive young woman could normally handle unsolicited male advances with scarcely a second thought. Yet I couldn’t help but feel that this stranger’s intentions toward me didn’t fall into that category at all.

It was one of the most uncomfortable train journeys I could ever remember, but there was at least a reassuring safety in the number of people in the carriage. When the guard came through to check the tickets, I considered for a millisecond
mentioning the man. But then, just as quickly, I dismissed the idea. However menacingly the man had stared at me, I really had no grounds at all to alert the guard. I could almost imagine the inevitable reaction to such a complaint: “… And he was looking at you ‘in a funny way,’ miss, is that correct?” Yet even as I swallowed back my complaint, there must still have been some betraying anxiety in my eyes that alerted the guard, for on returning my ticket, he stopped and scrutinized me carefully before inquiring, “Are you all right? You look a little …” His voice trailed off. I silently filled in the blanks:
paranoid/​manic/​crazy
. The woman seated opposite lowered her book and openly awaited my response. A little diversion from the monotony of the usual commute home. I was happy to disappoint her.

“No, I’m just fine, thank you. Just concerned I’m going to be late for a special dinner tonight, that’s all.”

“Well, we’re running right on schedule, so you can’t blame British Rail this time,” he joked. I joined in his laughter, which sounded, even to my own ears, over-jovial and forced.

As the guard moved on to the quartet of seats directly behind me, I risked looking over my shoulder and was just in time to catch a glimpse of a bulky figure clad in a scruffy tan-colored jacket exiting the carriage, striding with some haste to the adjacent one. My sigh of relief was so loud that the woman sitting opposite once more lowered her book and looked at me with questioning eyes. I smiled briefly and returned my attention to the magazine.

The rhythm of the train was soporific and before long I lowered my magazine, settled my head more comfortably against the headrest, and closed my eyes. It felt strange to be going back home; even stranger to be meeting up with friends I had not seen in years. It was impossible not to feel guilty
when I realized the vows we had all made to keep in touch had been empty promises, more full of good intentions than actual resolve.

It had been easy to stay in touch during our student days, returning as we did to our families at the end of each term. Not so easy now, though, when the majority of us were scattered the length and breadth of the country. For most of us, our old hometown had been too small to hold us when careers and relationships began to tug us away.

Pursuing my own career in journalism had made my move to London inevitable. The same applied to Matt, who had needed to be based in the capital for his business since taking over from his parents after their retirement to Spain. I still saw Sarah whenever I could, of course; some friendships could endure any distance of separation or neglect. But there were people I had thought I would always have in my life, important people, who had somehow just faded away.

I had been looking forward to the evening ahead and was disappointed that my work commitments had meant the reunion would already be under way by the time I arrived. More than anything, I was curious to see if the threads of our friendship were still there, or if the unraveling of the old group was sadly irreversible.

The man whose unwanted attention had so disturbed the beginning of my journey never returned to the carriage. And while this should have quieted my fears, I couldn’t stop myself from checking the commuters who disembarked the train at the various stations, my eyes scouring the darkness, hoping to catch sight of a shabby tan jacket. I didn’t see him. Knowing he was most likely still on the train did very little to calm me. At one of the major stations the train had emptied dramatically and it had been impossible to check for him among the
throng of commuters on the platform. There were only a handful of stations left until we reached Great Bishopsford, and even fewer on the line beyond that. What were the chances of him alighting at the same stop as me? Greater now than they had been, I supposed. The ice cube down my spine was back.

From the station I intended to catch a cab across town and go directly to the restaurant. It was a shame there wasn’t time to go to the hotel and change first, but I was going to be ridiculously late as it was. I regretted now not asking Matt to meet me at the station, but it had seemed selfish to drag him away halfway through the evening. Grabbing a cab had seemed the best option. I only hoped there would be one ready and waiting at the rank.

With only ten minutes until my stop, I delved into my large handbag and extracted a compact and comb. As I was, by then, one of only three people left in the carriage, it didn’t seem too inappropriate to reapply some makeup on the train. And while the overhead fluorescent light wasn’t exactly flattering, it did at least allow me to tidy up some of the ravages of the day. I applied powder, touched up my eye shadow, and streaked a smooth layer of gloss across my lips. Unfortunately, the size of the compact made it impossible to view the overall effect. I tried angling the mirror both up and down in an attempt to get a better look, which wasn’t very effective, and I was on the point of snapping shut the compact when in the corner of the mirror I caught a fleeting glimpse of tan reflecting in the tiny glass.

I spun around in my seat as though electrocuted, imagining the strange man from before standing directly behind me. There was no one there. The carriage held only myself and two other occupants, both of whom appeared to be asleep.
Cautiously I stepped away from my seat, terrified the bald man was somehow lying in wait behind one of the banquettes. As I hesitantly moved down the gangway, I kept aware of the location of the nearest emergency cord. Screw the £250 fine for misuse, if anyone had so much as said “boo” to me at that moment, I was ready to bring the train to a halt in an instant.

Of course there was no one there. And by the time I was halfway down the carriage, I had already begun to feel more than a little ridiculous. I had convinced myself that what I thought I had seen in the mirror was most likely a flash of orange reflection from a passing streetlamp. It was just my overactive imagination that had made a quantum leap to the wrong conclusion. No one was lying in wait and unless I intended to search every last carriage on the train—which I most
certainly
did not—I just had to let go of the crazed-stalker notion.

With relief I heard the loudspeaker announce the next stop was Great Bishopsford, which left me only a minute or two to retrieve my case from my first seat and my other belongings from my second one. I was waiting with impatience by the automatic doors and was one of the first people to alight from the train when it eventually slowed to a standstill at the station. I was pleased to see three other people disembarking from a carriage further up the platform, and trotted as quickly as my suitcase would allow to keep pace with them.

Climbing the long flight of stairs dragging my case behind me caused me to lose ground, so I’d lost sight of the other commuters when I heard, or thought I heard, someone on the platform below me, someone out of sight of the pool of light from the staircase. Someone who had got off the train after I had.

I ran up the remaining stairs, my suitcase bouncing over the concrete treads. When I reached the small ticket office, I looked around for either the other commuters or a guard. There was no one, but I could hear a car pulling away from the station entrance. I could only assume that my fellow passengers had already departed. But surely the guard should still be here? It was only just ten o’clock; did they really leave the station unmanned this early?

“Hello?” I called out shakily, my words a quivering echo in the empty foyer. “Is there anyone on duty?”

Silence was my answer. Suddenly aware of my vulnerability at the top of the stairs, I quickly stepped far away from the stairwell. Whoever had got off the train after me would certainly be in the ticket area in a matter of moments. I strained my ears to hear their footfalls on the stairs but could make out no sound.

There were two options here: either I had imagined hearing someone on the platform below me, or whoever had got off the train was now lying in wait on the darkened stairs rather than revealing themselves in the foyer. I preferred my first option—better to be paranoid than a potential crime statistic. There was no virtue in staying to prove I wasn’t going crazy, so I turned and hurried across the ticket office and out into the winter night.

The taxi rank was sited to one side of the station, and I was grateful for the bright security lighting that illuminated my way as I followed the building around. I was in luck—there was just one cab parked in the bays, its engine idling, the yellow beacon on its roof glowing brightly in the frosty chill of the air. I raised my arm to claim the driver’s attention at the precise moment the engine increased its revs and the cab pulled away from the curb.

“Wait!” I cried out helplessly. “Please stop!”

Abandoning my case in the middle of the pavement, I ran after the departing taxi, my arms windmilling crazily overhead in an attempt to get the driver’s attention. From the darkened interior of the departing vehicle it was impossible to tell whether there was already a passenger within or whether the driver had simply decided to call it a night and go home. I ran on for a few more meters, knowing it was useless but unable to stop myself, until the taillights were mere red specks in the distance.

Tears of sheer frustration pricked at my eyes as I slowly walked back to retrieve my case. There were no other cabs in sight, and for all I knew there would be no more until the next day. I had no other choice but to call Matt and ask him to meet me. But even as I pulled my mobile from my bag and started to key in his number, I was already realizing that it would take him the best part of half an hour to reach me. And it wasn’t the prospect of waiting all alone for my fiancé to arrive that caused my fingers to tremble as I punched in the familiar number on the keypad; no, it was the more terrifying realization that I might not be alone at all.