Emily Barr - The Sleeper

‘Lara,’ says Ellen, sitting next to me, tapping on her iPhone, tucking her hair behind her ears and rearranging something in the pocket of her overnight bag, all in one go. ‘Good evening. Happy Friday.’

‘Hi,’ I say, opening my biscuits, delighted to see her. ‘Good week?’

‘Fine. Yes thanks. You? How’s that sister of yours?’ She looks at me with narrowed eyes. As she has only had my word for it, she considers Olivia to be quite the witch. I constantly try to qualify my stories by adding things like ‘I’m sure if you asked her she’d have a completely different perspective’, but Ellen and Guy never care about that.

I look around quickly for Guy.

‘Oh, you know,’ I say.

‘Get your own place! I’m going to keep saying that until you do, you know. You’re a professional woman. You earn. You’re allowed to rent yourself a studio. It doesn’t have to be hideously expensive. You can take yourself out of that whole toxic relationship, you know.’

I sigh. Ellen, I have realised in the short time I have known her, says exactly what she thinks. She is right, I know it.

‘If I tell her I’m moving out, she’ll never let me forget it.’

She shrugs. ‘And? You live in her box room. She snubs you at every turn. She makes you feel like shit. You don’t have to be there. Rearrange your life.’

‘I know. I’ll think about it over the weekend.’

‘Talk to Sam about it. Properly. You know he’ll say the same as me.’

I look around, again, for the third member of the gang. Guy, Ellen and I are the only ones who do this every week, all the way from west Cornwall. He lives somewhere near Penzance, with a wife and teenage children. For the past two Friday nights the three of us have consumed too many gin and tonics in the lounge car on the way west.

‘Is Guy coming back tonight?’ I ask.

She nods. ‘He said he was. Who knows? Maybe his family have come up for a London weekend or something. You see? That’s another reason why you should totally leave Olivia’s place. You could get Sam up for a weekend if you had a studio. Just a tiny place in north London or something would do it. It would barely cost you a thing. Then he could come up and you could do the whole theatre-galleries-restaurant business.’

I decide against challenging Ellen’s definition of ‘barely costing a thing’.

‘Do you do that? Does Jeff come to London?’

She waves a dismissive, and perfectly manicured, hand at the very idea.

‘Oh Christ, no. Jeff hates London. And I don’t want to do that shit anyway. Been there, done it. A weekend expedition for me is a walk to the pub at Zennor. Not fighting through Leicester Square. I’m talking about you, Lara. You get the buzz from the London thing. You guys lived here. From everything you’ve said about Sam, I think he’d enjoy a top-of-the-range London weekend with all the frills.’

‘You know what? He would.’ I think about it. Sam’s birthday is at the end of July. That is too far away: perhaps I could do it for Christmas instead. I imagine us looking at the lights in Oxford Street, skating at Somerset House, sheltering from the biting cold in a cinema. We could stay in a lovely hotel. I resolve to sort it out, at once. ‘Thanks, Ellen. Good idea. We could do it in December.’

A First Great Western woman strides into the waiting room and says, ‘Just about ready for boarding, ladies and gents.’ Ellen and I stand up and join the general shuffle for the door. We nod at a few familiar faces belonging to older men in suits, and I smile at a woman I have never seen before, a woman in her late thirties wearing a short skirt, a brightly patterned coat and a flower hairclip. She has to be a designer or a writer. Ellen says those are the people she likes to meet in the lounge car, the ones who keep the train interesting.

We get to board at 10.30, though the train does not leave until just before midnight. A train guard I have not met before, a young, earnest woman with a blond ponytail, shows us to our compartments, which are both in carriage F, five doors apart. I unpack just enough, putting my pyjamas on the end of the bed and the toiletries I cannot get from the pack of train freebies beside the flap that covers the sink, then take my handbag and head straight for the lounge car.

Ellen is, somehow, already there, sitting back in one of the luxuriously large chairs, flicking through the free newspaper. Two men in suits are at the next table, and more people are coming through.

‘I took the liberty of ordering our usuals. They’re not quite ready yet, but when they are, ours will be first off the block.’

I settle down opposite her. ‘Lovely,’ I say. ‘Thanks, Ellen.’

‘You’re welcome. The first drink. The start of the weekend. I rarely drink in London. The train G and T is something special.’

‘Isn’t it? I drink most nights in London, now. I have to.’ I think of Olivia, of the arch war of words and behaviour that we have drifted into. We are bristling against one another constantly. I try to smooth things over every single day, and that inflames her more than anything else I could possibly do. Perhaps next week I will try to smooth things over by being more confrontational.

‘I know you do, darling.’

‘Evening, ladies.’

My heart leaps, and I pretend it hasn’t. Keeping my expression as neutral as possible, I shift up slightly as Guy sits next to me.

I passed Guy in the corridor on my first journey to London, the night before my first day back at work; I first spoke to him when Ellen introduced us in the waiting room at Paddington that Friday. He is handsome in an unmissable, Clooney-ish way: he is one of those men who settle beautifully into middle age. He is also excellent company.

‘You’re late, matey,’ Ellen remarks. ‘We thought you’d stood us up.’

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Had to go to a work thing. Have you ordered? Bet you didn’t get me one. It was a leaving do. Champagne and all that shit, in some stupid wine bar at London Bridge. I was glad of the excuse to get away.’ He smiles at Ellen, then at me. ‘I would have preferred water and packets of biscuits in the waiting room with you two to champagne in a wine bar with my colleagues. You know that.’

‘I should hope you would.’ Ellen gets up and goes to add a third drink to the order. While she is gone, Guy turns to me, and I try not to enjoy his attention. We are sitting so close together that our thighs are almost touching, and I am acutely aware of the small distance between us. His hair is thick and dark, flecked with grey, and his eyes crinkle at the corners.

‘How’s the week been?’ he asks. ‘Are you moving out of your sister’s yet?’

‘Thinking about it,’ I tell him. ‘Christ, that sounds pathetic, but it’s a step closer, and that’s as good as I can make it for today.’

It is the oddest thing, but I can be myself with Guy and Ellen, on the train, in a way I cannot with anyone else and in any other location. If I knew them in any other context my guard would be up. Here, on this train, it is down. I would, and do, tell them anything. I consider telling Guy about my weird shiver on the station, but decide better of it.

‘Well, then it’s progress,’ he nods. He wriggles out of his suit jacket, slings it on the empty seat next to Ellen’s and rolls his sleeves up.

‘Barack Obama does that.’ I nod at his forearms, which, I notice, are muscular and hairy in just the right amount. I look away quickly, smiling to myself. This is the most harmless type of crush possible, considering that we are both safely married.

‘Barack Obama does what?’ He sounds mystified, as well he might.

‘He takes his jacket off and rolls his shirt sleeves up. It’s a nice look, that’s all. I like it when men do that.’