Emily Barr - The Sleeper

I decide it was just someone brushing past: an accident. I am haunted by everything I did years ago, and I vow that on Monday I will tell Guy the whole story. I will even dig out my old, hidden diary this weekend, and let him read it for himself. Then we will be able to start a relationship with no enormous all-consuming secret. The thought is amazing.

I speed up my pace and go into the first-class lounge. I take two bottles of fizzy water, a couple of packs of biscuits, and I throw myself into a chair.

An hour later, as we leave the lounge to get on the train, which is waiting right outside, in its usual place on Platform 1, I hear someone calling something from the far end of the platform, and when I look up, towards the place where the station ends and the tracks go out westwards, I see a figure.

For half a second, I freeze. My blood thumps in my ears. My legs tense up, ready either to crumple or to run. I feel my face flush red before the blood drains out of it.

It is nobody I know, no one I recognise. It is just a person standing on a station. The night-time station smells of engines and mechanical things. The temperature must already be below freezing. I shiver in my coat, and close my eyes.

We sit on the train, at our usual table, and Guy goes to the bar for drinks and crisps. Ellen has invited a woman along from the lounge; she is an illustrator called Kerry who lives in Bodmin. I try hard to be bright and engaging, and Kerry is impressed by life on the Friday-night train. She tells us about her life, juggling a young family with work.

‘My parents have to come and stay when I need to go to London,’ she says, her cheeks dimpling as she sips her drink. She is wearing a thick mustard jumper and white flowers in her hair, which looks incongruous but somehow pleasing. ‘It needs ruthless organisation, but the moment I step on the train I’m a different person. I love it.’

‘Yes,’ I agree. I am staring at Guy, who is chatting to the barman. Kerry’s phone beeps, and she looks at it, then stands up.

‘I’m going to have to love you and leave you,’ she says. I never really know why people say that. It is an odd phrase. ‘I need to call home. I’ll be back in a little bit, though, all being well. Save my drink.’

She walks off, pressing her phone then lifting it to her ear. She is being a good wife.

Guy is gathering up the drinks, talking to someone else at the bar. Ellen reaches across and puts a hand on my cheek.

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘Lara. What’s going on?’

I flinch, then look at her and decide that if I could trust anyone, it would be Ellen.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, don’t do that. You’re not yourself. You’re incredibly on edge. Come on, sweetie. What?’

I bite my lip and look at the darkness outside the window. Paddington station is still out there. It is only quarter to eleven: the train won’t leave for another hour.

‘I’m going to leave Sam,’ I tell her, my heart thudding as I say the words. ‘I can’t do this any more. And Guy’s going to leave Diana. This weekend. Tomorrow.’

Her eyebrows shoot up.

‘Is he? Is he really?’ She pauses, weighing up her words. ‘Just don’t be surprised if he comes back and says he couldn’t do it. He’ll have an excuse. The moment wasn’t right. Et cetera. It’s a big thing to do, to pull a family apart.’

I am ashamed of myself. ‘I know. And of course he can take as long as he wants. I’m leaving Sam no matter what.’

‘Will you move back to London? Will we lose you from the train?’

‘I suppose.’

‘We’ll still see you in London. Well, Guy will, of course, but I hope that I will too.’

‘Of course, Ellen. Always. And Ellen?’

‘Yes?’

‘There’s something else …’

But I stop, because Guy is back, passing each of us a drink. Ellen has a little bottle of white wine, and Guy and I are both having gin and tonics. He puts Kerry’s miniature wine bottle down on the table. I signal to Ellen with my eyes that I cannot tell the story in front of Guy, not now, though I am desperate to offload it.

‘This is yours,’ he says, carefully giving me the plastic cup with the black stirring stick in it.

‘Why’s it mine? What’s different?’

‘Oh, I took the liberty of getting you a double. Bloke at the bar said you looked as if you needed it, and when I looked over, you did. You really did. Dutch courage for the weekend.’

His voice is so kind, his concern so genuine that even though I remind myself that he is married and a father and on his way back to his unsuspecting family, I am overwhelmed with love for him. I want him desperately. I long to be with him legitimately.

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I told Ellen about our plans. Sorry. I couldn’t help it.’

‘Cheers,’ says Ellen, pouring her wine into her plastic glass.

We all raise our cups.

‘To you, Lara,’ Ellen says, just before I take a sip. ‘This is you doing the right thing. And to you, Guy – and good luck with working out what the right thing is.’

I hear Guy say: ‘Oh, tell me about it,’ as I take a gulp from my drink, and then another.

I feel the alcohol coursing through me, and numbing me. I take one more sip. The periphery of my vision starts to go black. I am more tired than I realised.

I will just lean back, rest my head for a moment. Without meaning to, I let my head slump sideways and feel myself slipping down so I am resting on Guy’s shoulder.

I vaguely hear their voices. ‘Lara!’ they both say. ‘Lara, are you OK?’ I hear the woman, Kerry, coming back, hear the concern in her tone without being able to make out the words.

‘Yeah, fine,’ I hear myself answering. I open my eyes a little. ‘Fine. Just tired.’

‘She’s very stressed,’ Ellen’s voice says, and then she is taking charge. ‘Come on. She knocked half that drink back very quickly. No wonder she’s keeled over. Let’s get her back to her compartment and tuck her in. You leave her alone tonight, matey. OK? Next week she’ll be all yours, by the sound of it.’

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Right. Yes. All right. She’ll be all right, won’t she? Hey, Wilberforce?’

It takes an enormous effort to force my legs to walk, but I do my best, and with one of them on either side of me and Kerry somewhere nearby, we make our way slowly to my compartment, which is in the carriage next to the lounge car.

They put me on my bed. I hear their voices, though now they are so muffled that I cannot even distinguish individual words. Someone takes the shoes off my feet. They pull the bedding over me, and switch the light out, and then they are gone.

I feel the blackness breaking over me like a wave, and as the train clanks along the tracks, I succumb.

The chime of an incoming email pierces the darkness, and I am wide awake, as if the noise had activated my ‘on’ switch. I reach for my phone in the dark, but because I did not put myself to bed, it is not in its place in the mesh net beside my head. Normally I turn its volume off at night but leave it on. The blue light is bathing everything in the room in a woozy half-glow, but I have no idea where the phone could be.

The train is moving. I have no idea how long I have been asleep.

I feel horribly sick, and then I realise I need to move quickly. I stand up and lurch to the basin, fumbling with the lid and clicking it up just in time.

As I hunch over it, waiting for the eruption I know is about to happen, I hear a second message arrive and register the fact that the phone is still in my bag, just as I am sick into the basin, hugely, urgently sick with a stream of acidic liquid. I hope the little sink is up to the job: the idea of its not draining is horrendous.

I wash it away, wipe my mouth on the First Great Western flannel, and shakily brush my teeth. Then I make my trembling legs take me back, to sit on the edge of the bed. I find the bag, locate the phone in its front inside pocket.