The Sleeper (8 page)

The Falmouth train is leaving at 7.14, in eight minutes’ time. I turn and walk up to the small platform, Platform 1, concentrating on banishing my nausea, preparing myself to go home and be the wife Sam deserves. I should have put some proper clothes on. On the next train I will at least sort out my hair and try to apply some foundation.

The sleeper train pulls away, heading yet further west. I look again, but there is still no Guy.

Nothing happened between us. It was just a moment, or an evening of moments, that culminated in nothing. It is fine.

Falmouth Docks station, at the end of the line, is right below our house. I look up as my little train, carrying just me and, as far as I can see, two other people – a woman from the night train and a young man who got on at Penryn – approaches the station. Sam is not there. I wanted him to be in the conservatory, waving, with breakfast on the go.

As I step down, I gasp as he rushes up and clasps me tightly to him. I can hardly breathe, so I try to push him away, laughing.

‘Hi, Sam,’ I say, hoping I do not smell of train booze. He smells wholesome: he has clearly just showered and shaved. I make myself savour his familiarity and dependability. I am lucky to have this man here, waiting for me.

‘Oh, Lara.’ He nuzzles my hair. ‘You’re back, honey. Now we can live for a few days. The sun’s shining for you.’

‘Yes,’ I agree, grinning up at him. ‘I’m back. Come on.’ I look up at the house, ugly and dependable, and I am happy to be back. I am. ‘Is there some coffee with my name on it up there?’ I ask.

‘Yes! There is! There’s coffee with the word “Lara” running through it like a stick of rock. You can’t read it, because it’s written in coffee, but it’s there all right.’

‘Wonderful! Let me at it.’

He looks almost imperceptibly disappointed in me already. ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Come on then. Let’s get you coffeed up.’

We walk across the car park together, Sam wheeling my little bag.

‘How was your week?’ I ask, strangely formal. ‘At work and stuff? And what did you do in the evenings?’

I have to ask this, even though we speak every day.

‘It was fine,’ he says, lifting my bag to carry it up the set of stairs that cuts through from the station car park to the front of our house. ‘It was, in fact, phenomenally tedious. You absolutely can’t do this job for more than your six-month contract, OK, sweetheart? I can’t bear it without you. You know, the moment I see your train coming into the station, everything’s all right. I’m so bored without you. We belong together. We always have done. I hate having the bed to myself. I hate sitting here playing Scrabble against myself on my phone.’

I laugh, without meaning to.

‘Is that what you do? You play Scrabble against yourself on the phone?’

‘I know! It’s manly, isn’t it?’ He stops, turns to me and bites his lip. ‘Do you want to know the worst thing about it? It’s this: the reason I mess about on my phone is so that I have a legit reason to be holding it in my hand and staring at it, because all I’m really doing is waiting for you to call.’

‘Sam! Tell me that’s not true!’

‘OK. It’s not true.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’ I want to shrink away from him. I must not.

‘So how was the train? You look tired.’

He is unlocking our front door. I look at his back and imagine the hurt expression that would appear on his face if I told him the truth: I am tired because I was drinking gin and wine until two with my new great friends, and discussing him in some depth. And by the way, a handsome man pressed his knee against mine and I liked it. Then I nearly kissed him.

‘I never sleep well on the train,’ I say instead.

‘I know. You poor thing. We could look at the flights sometime, if you wanted?’

‘No, I enjoy it really. Honestly. A bit of coffee and I’ll be perfectly all right. And breakfast. I couldn’t stomach the railway croissant this morning. I’m starving.’

‘Well, that’s good news, because I’m going to make you the best breakfast you’ve ever had in your entire life,’ he says, and I put my handbag down, and take off my coat, and go to the coffee machine and pour myself a cup. I am home.

That afternoon we go to one of the pubs in town. It is still sunny, but cold, with a wind blowing straight off the Atlantic. I am wearing my Cornwall uniform of skinny jeans, a blue and white striped top and a coat I bought in New York five years ago, before we spent all our money on useless fertility treatment. Sam looks every inch the Cornish shipyard worker in a massive cuddly fleece, jeans and clunky Timberland boots, again purchased years ago when we had cash.

‘Cheers,’ I say with a bright smile, holding up my vodka and Coke. Short of Red Bull, which would have raised an eyebrow, that seemed like the most stimulants I could cram into one glass. The alcohol makes me feel sick, coming as it does on top of an unshakeable secret hangover, but I press on, and soon I feel a million times better.

‘Lara!’

I look round, grateful to whoever this might turn out to be, and see Iris. I have not seen her since I bustled her out the day she came for tea. I still feel bad about that.

‘Hello!’ I pat the wooden seat next to me. We are sitting at a huge round wooden table, and Sam and I are, naturally, right next to each other. There are acres of table free, kilometres of bench. ‘Come and sit down. Sam, you remember Iris.’

‘Yes,’ says Sam, verging on the rude. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, you know,’ says Iris. She is looking more eccentric than ever, or perhaps she just seems that way to me, used as I am now to corporate London. She is wearing a pair of striped tights, a tiny velvet skirt that, I have to admit, she carries off magnificently, and a fluffy jumper. Her hair is still dark at the roots and blond at the ends, and it is loose down her back. ‘Fine,’ she adds. ‘How are you? Aren’t you working in London these days?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ I do not want to go into details. ‘Back for the weekend. How about you? What are you up to?’

She smiles. ‘Oh, nothing much. Working. Staying at home with my cats. Dancing round the kitchen. Nothing as interesting as you.’

I remember that she has a boyfriend whom she described as ‘a recluse’, and that the two of them rarely leave the house.

‘How’s your partner?’ I ask.

‘He’s great, thanks. He’s well. I miss London, actually. Occasionally.’

Sam snorts. ‘Yeah, right! You live here, in the best place in the world.’

‘I know. Easy to miss city life from a distance. Hey, Sam, it must be nice having Lara back?’

He nods. ‘Certainly is.’

‘I won’t barge in any longer,’ says Iris, getting up. ‘I’ll leave you two to it.’

‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘Join us for a drink.’

Sam starts to stand up. ‘What can I get you?’ he asks, in a tone that clearly conveys that he wants her to insist on leaving.

She takes the hint and waves her hands theatrically. ‘No, absolutely not. Thank you, though. I need to get going anyhow. Can’t be drunk in charge of a bike again. Hey, have fun. Enjoy London. And if you’re ever in Budock, look me up.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, and I watch her weaving her way through the crowds and disappearing. I wish she’d had her boyfriend with her: they could have sat with us and we could have had a drink together and the intensity of everything would have been diluted. We would have been like a normal couple, with friends.

‘Enjoy London?’ Sam looks confused. ‘Weird thing to say.’

‘Oh, she was just being nice. Hey, Sam, do you want to come to London one weekend?’ Getting him a surprise trip for Christmas suddenly doesn’t seem like a very good idea after all. ‘We could drink cocktails and go to the Globe Theatre and things like that. Stay in a nice hotel. How about you do the reverse commute one weekend? Christmas shopping and stuff.’

‘Hmm. Could do.’

He hates the idea.

‘Don’t worry. It was just a thought.’

He looks up. ‘Oh, here we go again. Bloody hell. Adrian.’

A man in a pale blue V-neck jumper is standing between us.

‘You two! Nice to see you out. Hey, Lara. Thanks for putting a smile on this one’s face. He’s been moping about since you left.’

‘I didn’t leave,’ I tell him. I have never liked this man, one of Sam’s colleagues. ‘As you can see, I’m here.’

‘Yes, yes, but he’s quite the moper during the week. He misses his wife. Sweet. The rest of us would jump at the chance, you know what I mean, but not our Sam. You’ve got a good one here.’

‘I know,’ I say, turning away, forgetting to pretend to be polite.

‘Yes,’ says Adrian. ‘Well. Have a happy weekend. Have lots of fun together. You know what I mean.’

As soon as he is out of earshot, I say: ‘That man is such a twat.’

Sam looks hurt. ‘He’s all right, you know. Him and his wife keep inviting me to dinner.’

‘You should go, then. Since you like him.’

I watch a seagull landing on the recently vacated table next to ours, and extracting crisps from a ripped-open packet that instantly blows away.

‘No. You hate him.’

‘I won’t be there.’

‘You want me to keep myself busy?’

I look at him. ‘Of course I want you to keep busy, you idiot. I don’t have a moment in London to pause. Then suddenly it’s Friday. I want you to do the same. It makes it easier.’

Sam tries to swirl his pint around, but a bit slops over the edge of the glass and on to his hand. I watch him lick it off, relieved to find myself overwhelmed, at last, by tenderness.

‘Shall we go to the cinema tonight?’ I ask him, remembering the day we met.

‘The cinema?’ He thinks about it. ‘Is there anything on?’

‘There’ll be something.’

‘And we can afford it?’

‘Yes. Nowadays, we can afford it.’

‘You’re sure? The last thing we need is for you to be doing this job and us to fritter the money away and end up back where we started.’

‘Sam. We’ve been through this. We’re not even going to go for dinner anywhere more expensive than Harbour Lights until the debts are paid off. What we
can
do is spend, what is it? Fifteen quid? Going to watch a film. Another few pounds on a drink to take in with us. It’s fine.’

I shiver in my lightweight coat and think of the money I spend in London without even noticing it. Tuesday will be the first day of November. The past month has been tempestuously autumnal: sunny for five minutes, then suddenly hailing, then sunny again. When I have been in Falmouth, the sky has filled with rainbow after rainbow. They must happen in London, but I never notice a rainbow in London. There is always a building in the way, or something happening at eye level.

‘Cold?’ my husband asks, and I nod. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘It’s already been a month,’ I remind him, as we cut through the marina, using the five-digit code to get through the heavy metal gates. We are not supposed to do this, but whenever they change the code, Sam finds out the new one from work, and we use it as a cut-through constantly. It saves us a few minutes, but more than that, it is always interesting: today, for instance, there are some dressed-down but clearly rich people down on the wooden jetty, fussing around next to a small yet magnificent yacht. They look up as the gate slams behind us, and raise their hands in an efficient wave of acknowledgement. If we have the code to the marina, we are in their circle and worthy of a wave. Our feet clang as we cross the metal bridge, and there is, as there always is, a puddle on the other side of it which requires nimble skirting.

When the second heavy gate has clanged shut behind us, Sam takes my hand. I like the way it feels. In spite of everything, we fit together in the same way we always have. We will be, I suddenly know, all right. He is pining away at home, not just for me, because that would be pathetic in a man who is approaching forty, but for the family life that should have been going on around him. We have never spoken of it, but I know that imaginary scenes from that life-that-never-was ambush him at every turn. I picture him at home in the evening, probably eating a bowl of cereal for pudding, with the television on. From the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of a serious four-year-old, the child we would have had if it had worked out the way we blithely assumed it was going to, before it didn’t. There is a baby asleep downstairs in the smallest bedroom, and the two- and four-year-olds share the bigger one.

Instead, he is all alone. We haven’t spoken about adoption lately, but I know he is thinking about it. For the moment, I want to avoid the topic.

‘Shall we order a pizza?’ I am using my brightest voice to mask the fact that I am desperate for hangover food. Sam is standing in the conservatory, which juts out from the side of the house and, depending on my mood, makes me feel either that I am hanging over an abyss, or that I am suspended magically over the whole world. He is staring out over the docks and the water, to the mansions across the estuary, the curve of the town around the water of the mouth of the Fal.

He does not reply. I go to stand next to him. He puts an arm around my shoulders without looking round.

‘We can’t have Domino’s,’ he says, and as I watch he seems to pull himself together, to drag his focus back from wherever it was and on to me. ‘This is your only evening. Earlier we were going to the cinema. Which do you want to do? I could cook for us. Or we could go back out and do something.’

We both look back at the view. It is raining in Penryn, down the river. The clouds that partially obscure it are the dark grey that signifies a downpour. In the foreground, the masts and the buildings that cluster round the harbour are lit by bright sunlight. The lighting makes it look like a dazzling Renaissance artwork. For a second I am in an Old Master painting, in the National Gallery, a figure in the foreground to make the background look more focused.

‘Let’s stay in and be dry,’ I say, knowing that this is what he wants to hear.

He grins at that. ‘Good call. I’ll throw some food together. You can chat to me while I do it. Then we could have a game of Scrabble.’

I want to laugh at that. It sounds the epitome of dull, but I love Scrabble and always have.

‘That sounds like a perfect evening,’ I tell him, and now, at last, I mean it.