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Chapter 2
I finally found a pair of empty seats in carriage A and threw myself into them, scooting across so that I could rest against the window. I hadn’t intended to come this far up, but a trio of pissed blokes had been making a massive racket in the carriage one up from ours, and the one after that had smelled like mould, as though someone had left their clothes festering in the washing machine for days on end. Ridiculous of me to be so fussy, really, we were on a night train across Europe, what had I expected? In any case, I was here now and carriage A was seemingly the least offensive option, even if I would have to endure the tinny sound of crap dance music blasting out of some guy’s headphones a few seats back. Was he playing the same song on loop? I looked over my shoulder at him, intending to give him a dirty look, but he was slumped on top of his bag with his eyes firmly closed. What kind of person fell asleep with their music on that loud? In desperation I raked through my bag again, deciding I might as well put my own music on as an antidote to his. I almost cheered out loud when I pulled out my earplugs instead, which hadn’t been left in Venice after all, but had been tucked inside a leaflet advertising guided tours of the Gallerie dell’Accademia. I pressed them in, slipped off my shoes and tried to get some sleep.
Early morning light was streaming through the carriage when I next opened my eyes. Disoriented, I reached for Si, forgetting that he wasn’t next to me, that he was somewhere further back, oblivious – hopefully – to the fact I’d moved seats at all. I took out my earplugs and rotated my head to the left and then the right, rubbing my aching neck, annoyed with myself for not having had the forethought to bring my cardigan so that at least I could have used it as a pillow. I looked out of the window, wondering where we were, watching the world slide silently by, the details all fuzzy and diffused, like one of those old-fashioned home movies shot on cine camera. The sun was almost entirely hidden by tumbling clouds, elephant-grey on the inside then edged with a brilliant, silvery white. I pressed my nose against the glass as we rocketed through a pretty village made up of fifteen or twenty houses, each with whitewashed walls and terracotta roofs. Its tiny, deserted station reminded me of a piece from a toy I used to have: the train set Dad had bought me for my seventh birthday. I could still remember that day, sitting cross-legged on the brown corduroy sofa in our lounge, waiting for him to come home from work so that we could tuck into the hedgehog cake Mum had made. I remembered he’d come in after a day on the building site, all dusty and tired, brandishing a huge box wrapped in shiny red paper. He’d left us a few weeks later, which must have been why the memory was so entrenched in my mind. Birthdays had never been the same after that.
I rotated my ankles to get some life back into them and scraped my hair up into a bun using the frayed elasticated band that had carved an angry pink circle around my wrist overnight. Looking for the nude ballet pumps I’d flung off in the early hours of the morning, I jabbed around under the seat in front, eventually finding them and hooking them on to my feet. Then, yawning, I levered myself to standing, had a stretch and looked up and down the carriage. Most people seemed to be awake, flicking through guidebooks and magazines, stuffing sweaty, microwaved toasties into their mouths. The smell was making my stomach rumble. When I got back, I’d nip to the buffet car, grab Si and myself some breakfast. Croissants with jam and butter were his favourite; I’d get him two, and a nice strong coffee.
I picked up my bag and set off down the aisle, retracing my steps from the night before. The train kept lurching forwards and I had to concentrate quite hard on not stacking it to the side, failing dismally at least once as my hip slammed into someone’s shoulder. The train was getting livelier the further towards the middle of it I went, with each carriage more populated than the last. I carried on, digging my fingernails into the felt fabric of the seats, nosing over people’s shoulders to see what they were eating, until suddenly I couldn’t go any further. There was a door blocking my way with no window and no buttons to press and no way of getting through to the next carriage. I stared at it, confused. Perhaps lack of sleep had made me delirious. I needed to think. I must have gone wrong somewhere, walked past my actual seat, and the rack with my suitcase in it, which contained the change of underwear I was desperate for, and my wash bag so that I could nip to the loos and scrub my face and clean my teeth. I tried turning the handle, but it didn’t budge. I’d only walked through four carriages and I knew, knew the train had been longer than this.
I turned round and headed back the way I’d come, clutching at seat backs as the train tipped and undulated, my head twisting from one side to the other, searching for Si’s face, his shock of blond hair, the black cardigan I’d left on my seat. I was cold in my thin summer vest now that we were further north, in France, maybe, or in Holland already. The air-conditioning had finally kicked in, and I had nowhere near enough layers on. I passed the seat I’d slept in, arriving at yet another grey door, which, given that it said No Entry in three different languages, I could only assume was the driver’s cabin. I leaned my back against it, looking down the aisle at a sea of heads and sticking-out feet. I took a deep breath. My mind must be playing tricks on me. Obviously I’d missed something. Si must have been in the loo before, it would be as simple as that. I’d do the length of the train again and I’d find him. I checked the time on my phone: 6.14 a.m. We weren’t due into Amsterdam until ten something, so I had plenty of time.
I set out again, this time searching for any face I recognised: the American family, the Dutch couple who’d been sitting behind us, but I couldn’t see any of them. A pulse throbbed in my throat. I reached the back end of the train again, turned round and headed for the front, searching for clues.
After another futile round-trip I sat back down in the seat I’d slept in with my hands clasped together in my lap, my palms now slick with sweat. I looked out of the window again, trying to make sense of the landscape, seeing if I could work out where we might be stopping next. I searched for something recognisable: a building, a road sign. There were station names, but we were screeching past so fast that I couldn’t make them out. I had the stirrings of a distant memory, a snapshot of something that flickered into my mind and then out again.
There was nothing for it, I would have to wake Si and ask him where he was. I got out my phone, prodding at the screen with clumsy fingers, dialling his number, waiting for him to answer. He wasn’t going to be happy when he found out what I’d done. It rang and rang, eventually going to voicemail. I didn’t bother leaving a message, he was obviously still asleep. The best thing would be to sort all of this out before he realised anything was wrong.
I dipped my head out into the aisle, wondering whether I could ask someone, and what I could say:
Excuse me, but do you know where the rest of this train has gone?
Or perhaps, Hello,I seem to have lost my boyfriend.
And then I heard someone barking Italian into a crackling radio and I perched on the edge of my seat, ready to pounce.
‘Mi scusi,’ I trilled as a guard sailed past, head held high, doing his best to avoid making eye-contact with anyone.
‘Madam?’ he said, elongating the ‘m’ sound at each end of the word and flashing a toothy smile. Resplendent in a navy-blue uniform and gold-trimmed hat, he clutched a ticket machine between his hands. He was a jobsworth, I could tell.
‘Un problema,’ I said to him, thinking he might appreciate an attempt to speak his native language. I tried to recall the few words I’d picked up at our school’s Italian club, which I’d only joined because Ellie had persuaded me that we’d then be fully equipped to go Interrailing around Italy for the summer where we could have flirty conversations with Italian boys, which of course we’d never had the money to actually do. ‘I cannot find my seat. It was back there, I think. Carriage F?’ I waved my arm towards the other end of the train.
‘What is your destination, Madam?’
‘Amsterdam.’
He sucked air through his teeth. ‘Nooooo,’ he said, shaking his head slowly, as if to make sure I’d noticed. ‘No, Madam, you are not on the right train. We are in Paris now. Look,’ he said.
‘What?’ I said, my eyes darting towards the window. The wide boulevards lined with trees were just visible between the huge, brutalist apartment blocks and offices that sat alongside the tracks and blocked out almost all of the light. Paris. Of course. I recognised it now. I turned back to him, swallowing hard.
‘But I was on the Amsterdam train!’ I said.
‘Madam, the train separated in Geneva at 3.38 this morning. There were many announcements. You did not hear them?’
‘No,’ I said, covering my mouth with my hands. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’
My earplugs, I thought.
‘The eight coaches at the back go to Amsterdam Central and this section here,’ he said, making a circular motion with a stubby finger, ‘will arrive in Paris Gare de Lyon in approximately seven minutes. This happens often with international travel in Europe, Madam. And we always ensure that our passengers are sitting on the correct segment of the train.’
‘Well I’m sorry, but you definitely did not do that this time.’
I bit my lip so hard I could feel it tingle. This was crazy. It didn’t seem possible that despite getting on the same train and sitting next to each other for several hours, I was now in one country and Si would soon be arriving in another. What about the wedding? And all my stuff? And Si’s schedule, which was now well and truly in tatters? I already knew he was not going to take it well. I looked around wildly, hoping for others who had made the same mistake, a group of us that could stick together, stage a protest, although what good that would do I didn’t know, they were hardly going to turn the train round, were they? Was I really the only one who’d done this? Could I be the only person on this whole train who had no idea it was going to split quietly into two in the dead of the night? I noticed the guy with the giant headphones and the bad taste in music was poking his head above the seats. When he spotted the ticket inspector he stood up and staggered over to us, looking half-asleep.
‘Did you say this train is going to Paris, Monsieur?’ he said to the guard, running his hands through his dark hair, which was sticking out at all angles. He looked as confused as I felt. He was French, then, judging by his accent. I gave him a dirty look. If it wasn’t for him, I would have heard the announcements in the first place.
‘Sir, as I have already explained to this young lady, the train separated in Geneva at 3.38 this morning,’ said the guard wearily.
‘We are not going to Amsterdam?’ said the French guy, clutching his chest dramatically.
