A Night on the Orient Express (7 page)

‘What? What am I like?’ Archie felt indignant. It was true that he wasn’t as much of a party animal as Jay – given the choice between a quiet night in and a wild night out, he was quite content with the former – but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself.

‘I have to prise you off that sofa sometimes and drag you out of the house kicking and screaming—’

‘No, you don’t. I’m just happier with my own company than you are.’

‘I’m worried you won’t budge without me to give you a kick up the arse. That you’ll become a recluse.’

‘Don’t be daft. I can get myself out there. Anyway, I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation.’

Archie flicked a glance sideways at Jay. Jay was staring at the road ahead.

‘There’s something else.’

Archie’s heart jumped. ‘What?’

He looked at Jay again. There was a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

‘That jumper? The one with the holes?’

‘My blue one?’ Archie affected an injured air. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s got to go.’

‘I love that jumper.’

‘You’re never going to pull wearing it.’

‘It’s comfy. I feel comfy in it.’

‘If I die knowing I’ve left you to roam the earth in that jumper, I won’t have done my job properly. As your best mate, I’ve got to be the one to tell you . . .’

Archie didn’t speak for a moment. It was the first time either of them had actually mentioned the possibility of Jay dying. He decided to follow Jay’s lead and keep it light. Now wasn’t the time for a deep philosophical discussion.

‘If it makes you happy, I’ll stick it in the dogs’ basket. Sid and Nancy can sleep on it.’ He thumped him on the arm affectionately. ‘You win. OK?’

‘Good.’ Jay nodded, satisfied. ‘And while I think about it, I entered you in that magazine competition. If you win, you’ve got to promise me to go.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.’

‘Even if you’re lambing, or haymaking . . . I know you. Any excuse.’

Whatever the competition was, Archie was certain he wouldn’t win. He’d never won anything in his life.

‘Course,’ he laughed. ‘I promise.’

Jay turned the music back up.

‘Good.’

Nothing more was said.

Archie dropped the car down a gear and took the next corner at a terrifying speed. Fear was making him reckless. Fear of the terrible thing he felt certain was coming? He wasn’t at all sure how he was going to face it.

Face it he did, for that was in Archie’s nature.

Three weeks later, he stood in front of the altar at St Mary’s, the tiny little church where both he and Jay had been christened, and had seen through any number of carol services and midnight masses and Easter Sundays over the years. He didn’t need notes during his eulogy. He didn’t need anything to remind him of what his friend had meant to him. Jay, who had been so alive and vibrant and immediate, and was now lying as still as stone in a coffin made of elm. For a fleeting moment, Archie wondered if the undertaker had remembered to put in the list of things Jay’s family had agreed he couldn’t be without, the things which were intrinsically Jay: his blood-red cashmere scarf, his Panama Jack boots, his Laguiole knife, his ancient iPod – he’d had one long before anyone else, but still had the original. Jay was an early adopter yet appreciated longevity over innovation.

Archie looked out at the congregation as he spoke, at all the friends and neighbours who had been part of their lives over the years. To his left was a gaggle of Jay’s mates from university; to the right, almost the entire rugby club. He counted at least five ex-girlfriends, including the one Jay had dumped when he had first been diagnosed, her eyes red from a night-time of tears, her long fingers worrying at a shredded tissue. Then there were Jay’s parents, his brother and two sisters, a rank of cousins, his elderly grandmother. And Archie’s own parents, of course.

His mum was worried about him, and the fact he was taking Jay’s death so hard. He had barely slept since that awful moment when the consultant had come out to tell them the transplant had failed. Something had died in him, too. Hope, trust, optimism, belief – a part of his soul had gone with his friend.

‘You take all the time off you need,’ said his dad. ‘I can manage. Your mum can help me with the cattle. The cottages aren’t booked up yet till after Easter. We’ll cope.’

After the funeral, everyone went for drinks at the Marlborough Arms. The landlord had laid out a trestle table with sausage rolls and pork pie and local cheese, thickly buttered tea-loaf and fruitcake and Victoria sponge oozing jam and cream. Jay’s parents stayed until five and then went home. Archie was torn between escorting them back to their house to make sure they were all right, and mixing with the hard core of friends who were going to carry on toasting Jay for the rest of the night.

‘You stay here, love,’ said Jay’s mother. ‘We’ll be all right. To be honest, I just want to go to bed.’

He stayed, because he felt as if he were the host. It was like the party to end all parties. All night, he felt as if Jay was going to walk in at any moment, grab a pint from the bar and start flirting with the nearest pretty girl, but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.

At one point, Archie went outside. He felt overwhelmed. There were too many faces from the past, too many memories, a mix of people who might only have come together had Jay ever got married – a wedding that was now never going to be. He sat at the table that had always been theirs when they drank outside in the sunshine, the one nearest the hatch that served the foaming pints of Honeycote, the local ale. He took out his phone and started checking his emails for something to do, something to take his mind off what was happening.

He frowned. There was one from an address he didn’t recognise. Not On The Shelf? What was that? The subject read ‘Congratulations’. Spam, no doubt. Some hard sell disguised as a win, probably.

His eyes flicked over the contents of the email. Then he frowned, and read it again slowly.

Dear Mr Harbinson,

It is with great delight that we would like to inform you that you are one of the two winners of our competition to win a night on the Orient Express. Our team of highly experienced matchmakers chose you from a considerable number of entries, and your companion for the journey is Emmie Dixon, whose profile we enclose for your interest. All we ask is for you both to have your photograph taken on departure at Victoria Station for publicity purposes, then the rest of this journey of a lifetime is yours to enjoy in total privacy . . .

The letter went on, detailing dates, times and travel arrangements.

Archie was mystified at first. He hadn’t entered a competition. It must be a scam – no doubt they would ask him for his credit-card details at some point. Then, as he read through it again, he remembered that afternoon in the hospital – Jay snickering over something in a magazine.

Jay had set him up. Jay had entered him into a competition for the ultimate blind date. And now, Archie remembered their conversation on that final car journey, when he had promised Jay that, if he won, he would go. He’d taken little notice of the promise at the time. It had seemed irrelevant.

Despite his despair, despite his heavy heart, despite his grief, a slow smile spread itself across Archie’s face.

‘You bugger,’ he said to the sky. ‘You absolute bugger . . .’

‘
H
appy birthday dear Imoooooo . . .’

Imogen looked round at the smiling faces of her closest friends. They were all serenading her as Alfredo came in bearing the chocolate and chestnut gateau he had made and laid it reverently in front of her. Every year she came here for her birthday. It was the tradition. Nothing ever changed. Well, she didn’t. Her friends sometimes did – sporting engagement rings, then wedding rings, then baby bumps. But somehow Imogen always remained the same. Except this year. This year she was just the tiniest bit different, not that anyone seemed to have noticed.

Not yet, anyway. It would be all too evident the moment he walked through the door. She had hoped he would be here in time for the cake. Somehow that was important to her. But the door to Alfredo’s Trattoria on Shallowford high street remained firmly shut.

Meanwhile, thirty candles flickered in front of her eyes. Together with the spinach and ricotta cannelloni and several glasses of Gavi de Gavi, it made her feel slightly woozy.

She bent and blew out the candles.

‘Make a wish! Make a wish!’ ordered her friend Nicky as she passed her a knife to make the first incision.

Imogen hesitated. Making a wish wouldn’t have any bearing whatsoever on whether Danny McVeigh came through that door in the next ten minutes. It was up to him entirely.

‘Please, please, let that door open and let him walk in,’ she thought as the knife cut through the sweet chocolate icing.

Earlier in the evening, she had been buoyant with optimism that he would grant her the one thing she’d asked of him on her birthday: to come to her celebratory dinner. Even though he’d told her, categorically, that very afternoon, as she lay curled into him, that he didn’t think it was a good idea. ‘I won’t fit in with all your posh mates. They won’t want a bit of rough at the dinner table.’

‘I don’t care.’ Imogen grinned at him. A little bit of her wanted to shock her friends. Imogen Russell and Danny McVeigh – the scandal would ricochet round Shallowford in minutes. They had kept their relationship secret so far. It was early days, for a start, and it gave it more of an edge to keep it clandestine. His family would be just as horrified as hers to hear they had been seeing each other. The McVeighs didn’t mix with the likes of the Russells.

But now Imogen felt ready to bring it all out into the open. It was always far better to be in control of people finding out your secrets. And somehow her birthday seemed the right time to do it.

‘Please,’ she had begged him, snaking herself around him, entwining her arms and legs around his until they were as one. ‘It would mean a lot to me. It would be the best birthday present ever.’

‘Even better than this?’ He’d given her a wicked smile as he slid her hand down to feel him.

Foolishly, she’d taken that as agreement. She had convinced herself that he’d turn up. Now, the clock on the wall told her it was twenty past ten. It seemed very unlikely.

‘So? What did you wish?’ Nicky nudged her with a sharp elbow.

Imogen longed to tell her. She could picture Nicky’s jaw dropping in astonishment. Nicky, who had married the local solicitor and drove around in her pristine four-by-four with her two immaculate children and worked in the estate agency to stop her getting bored but who didn’t need to work at all if she didn’t want to . . .

That was, Imo supposed, the sort of life she should have. By now she should have married well and be set up in her own home and at least be thinking about starting a family. That’s what you did if you stayed in Shallowford. Somehow, though, she had missed the boat and now all the eligible men had been snapped up.

Leaving only the likes of Danny McVeigh . . .

Alfredo brought out a tray of tiny liqueur glasses filled with Limoncello. Just as he did every year. They were complimentary. Imogen suddenly found it an empty gesture. What was a quarter of a bottle of sickly Italian liqueur when she and her friends had spent several hundred quid on food and wine? Was she supposed to fall over herself with gratitude?

She knocked back a glass nevertheless. It wasn’t like her to be so bitter and cynical. Not at all. But she wanted to numb the disappointment she felt.

How could she have imagined that Danny would come? Because he was right – he wouldn’t fit in with all her friends, with their perfect hair-dos and their tasteful little floral dresses and fitted cardigans. He must have sensed that she wanted him to turn up just to get a reaction. She couldn’t deny that she’d been looking forward to the expressions on their faces when he walked in, lean and mean in his jeans and leather jacket. She’d wanted to show him off, to shock them. He knew that. And to punish her he hadn’t turned up. Besides, why would he care what she wanted? Men like Danny weren’t programmed to please women. They pleased themselves.

She got up from the table and walked to the cloakroom. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw unshed tears at the back of her green eyes. It wouldn’t work in a million years. It was a game, that was all. Danny McVeigh was just a toy for a bored thirty-year-old; she was just another notch on his bedpost: a conquest. Yes, they had chemistry – her head spun at the memory of what they had done in bed over the past few months – but that was no basis for a serious relationship.

She re-applied her lipstick, ruffled her shoulder-length curls and gave herself a stern look in the mirror.

‘Walk away, Imo,’ she told herself. ‘You knew you were playing with fire when you started this.’

She thought back to the day Danny had walked back into her life. The sleepy Berkshire town of Shallowford still followed the tradition of early closing on a Wednesday afternoon, which most people found irritating but Imogen was eternally grateful for. It was the day she rearranged paintings in the gallery, keeping the sign on the door saying ‘Closed’, but beckoning people in if they pressed their nose to the window. It was surprising how many customers bought something when they thought they had been given preferential treatment.

When she saw the man outside staring intently at the Ruskin Spear on the easel in the window, she gave him a wave to say ‘Come on in.’

He pushed the door open. ‘You’re not closed, then?’

Imogen smothered a gasp. Now he was standing in front of her she recognised him, one hand in the pocket of his jeans, his dark hair falling across his eyes. He was so tall, well over six foot. And broad. She felt a tiny flicker of fear.

Danny had been two years above Imogen at school. Broodingly handsome, surly, rebellious, he’d been a source of fascination to the girls in Imogen’s class, who’d held endless breathless conversations about his attractions. He always had a girl in tow, but rarely the same one. There were rumours about him drug-dealing, having an affair with the Latin teacher (not that he studied Latin, but it seems his charms beguiled even the cerebral), shoplifting, fighting . . . He was suspended twice before finally walking out the week before his GCSEs. The school was a duller place without him. He was something to look at during assembly.