‘Oh no. I can’t intrude. You literally got engaged this evening.’
‘No. We insist,’ Ruth says.
‘Yes, we do.’ Bea’s voice has turned steely and suddenly I’m imagining her having an unruly class of children with no interest in music under extremely firm control. ‘Also, you must all three of you come to our wedding as guests of honour.’
‘Oh, wow, thank you.’ Nadia beams. ‘I’d love to.’
Carole and I smile too and thank them.
Carole capitulates on the staying-over on condition that she treat them to a taxi back to Ruth’s North London home. An empty black cab passes us very soon, and once the three of them are inside it, Nadia and I head off back to Waterloo together, as fast as we can, heads down, because the heavens opened while we were inside and the rain’s immense.
‘Where do you live?’ I ask as we reach the shelter of the station.
‘In a shoebox in Wimbledon. What about you?’
‘Near Clapham Junction, also in a shoebox. Same train line.’
‘Look.’ Nadia points up at the big departures board. ‘There’s one in three minutes. We should run.’
We make a dash for the platform and hurl ourselves into the first carriage.
‘Oh my goodness.’ She puts her bag down on the seat next to her and gives herself a little shake. ‘That rain was unbelievable. As was everything else that happened this evening.’
‘What, you don’t usually get locked down at Waterloo in a false alarm and then wind up at a restaurant with four strangers, two of whom have just got engaged five decades after they first met and one of whom has just split up with her husband on their wedding anniversary?’
She eye-rolls me. ‘Well, obviously I do that all the time. But only on work nights, not at the weekend.’
‘Oh Isee. Seriously, though, yes, it has indeed been a very unusual evening.’
‘It’s an odd contrast,’ Nadia muses. ‘Between Bea and Ruth’s gorgeous love story – thank goodness they have finally got together – and Carole’s nightmare.’
‘Yeah.’ I look through the grimy windows as the train gathers speed and the illuminated station platforms disappear behind us.
‘It kind of makes you think.’
‘Yeah,’ I repeat. Selfishly thinking about myself first, I’m really hoping to go down the gorgeous love story path rather than the nightmare one. And I hope the same for Nadia, obviously.
‘It’s inspirational, really. Both their stories.’
‘That is true.’ I feel like I can’t sayYeaha third time. Also, itistrue. ‘Yes. Makes you think doesn’t it. Like – we should take some life lessons from it.’ I donotwant to wait until I’m in my seventies like Bea and Ruth to get together with Lola. Maybe I should just send her a message right now telling her how much I love her – how much I always have. I haven’t used the L-word since she got back in touch three days ago; I wanted to wait until I saw her. Usually it isn’t a word I’d use easily, but it’s ten years since we first met; that’s a long time, long enough to know.
Nadia’s nodding. ‘Yep. Almost like we should make some resolutions on the back of it.’
I nod, because weirdly (I am not a resolution person), I agree.
‘I love a resolution,’ she says. ‘But they’ve got to be for a good reason, and also you have to start them on a memorable date. Calendar date, not got-stood-up-yet-again kind of date. Today’s a good date.’
‘Is it?’ I’m confused if I’m honest. ‘A random twenty-something date in June?’
‘The longest day of the year?’
‘Oh, right.’ We’re interrupted by both our phones vibrating at once.
I obviously look immediately at mine.
It isn’t Lola, it’s Ruth – posting in the chat (‘The Waterloo Five’) she set up for the five of us before we left the restaurant – that she hopes we’re both dry and safely on trains. We assure her that we are and then we all gush about our evening together (quite a long chat even though Nadia and I are sitting next to each other and the three others are in the same cab), before Nadia finishes it with a three-heart-emoji message.
I think back to what we were talking about and then ask, ‘So… the longest day of the year?’
