I hurry outside, climb into the back seat of Aidan’s Land Rover, and clip my seatbelt without looking out the window at him. I can’t help myself when the car starts moving,however, and I see him silhouetted in his doorway, the sheen of tears illuminated by the headlights of the car. I swallow my own tears down, and we drive to the train station without a single word.
I scroll mindlessly through my messages, taking stock of the recent conversations. My message to Sam from yesterday, when I had to apologise for leaving him in the lurch at the pub, and he just told me thank you for helping him through Christmas. My group chat with Rain, Wren, and Poppy, where the last message is a link to a decidedly not safe for work collab from one of our favourite online camboys. My other group chat with Rain and all the Foster siblings is filled with jokes and banter – Archer’s sarcastic wit and Cole’s slapstick, almost vaudevillian, bawdy humour. A chat with Nash and Aidan’s mum, another with Wren, and the one that hurts the most to look at – my thread with Nash. I’m really going to miss all these people who took me into their lives so fully, so easily.
Aidan shoulders my backpack and wheels my large suitcase behind him as he leads the way into the relatively small concourse of Norwich station. The Victorian brick building is a relic of a bygone era, with soapstone floor tiles – their century-old cracks repaired with grey cement in a crude version of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of using gold to repair cracked pottery –and a ticket office that looks as though it has stood in the very same spot since the first locomotives were launched. The only nods to modern life are the Spar shop on the right and the Costa Coffee on the left. When we reach Aidan’s side, he makes a dash in that direction and joins the short queue.
Rain takes the opportunity to wrap me up in a hug.
“You sure about this, babe?” he asks.
“I’m sure. I need to get away until… everything… is sorted.” Rain knows exactly what I mean by everything. Dominic. Therapy. Trauma recovery. Acceptance. Confidence. All of that and more. He knows I need to work on myself for a while. No, I need to work on myself for a while, so I can figure out who I am and what I want for my future.
We separate and check the departure board, identifying my platform number. Aidan returns with a single large cup that he thrusts at me.
“Caramel latte with all the trimmings. Something to keep you warm on the train.” I take the cup, then wrap my free arm around him and squeeze.
“Thanks for everything. I’ll see you soon,OK?” He nods.
“Whenever you want. There’s a room waiting for you.”
Aidan steps back, and Rain hugs me again.
“Any time. Come back any time, and when you’re settled, give me a shout, and I’ll come up for a weekend, too.” I smile at him because I would love to see him and Emma figure each other out.
He steps back into Aidan’s embrace, taking my coffee from me as I heft my overloaded backpack onto my shoulders. He passes the cup back, and I wave before dragging my case over to the turnstile, where I scan my ticket and head to the platform.
The train is quiet, and I find a single seat tucked at the end of the carriage, next to the luggage rack, which I quickly take advantage of. My backpack is heavy, so I leave it on the seat beside me, knowing that I’ll happily stow it in the overhead rack if the seat is needed, but this is a late train on a Sunday evening, and it’s New Year’s Day to boot. I doubt the train will be busy.
I’m right, and when it pulls slowly out of the tunnel that forms this end-of-the-line station, there’s only one other person sitting at theopposite end of the carriage. I pull my phone from my pocket and send John and Emma a quick text to let them know the train left on time.
The remainder of the four-hour journey – gotta love local train services – is spent dejectedly looking at my own reflection in the window, the darkness outside a wall the scenery can’t break through.
It’s a little after eleven o’clock at night by the time I drag my stuff off the train in Coventry after two changes and a freezing cold last thirty minutes after the train’s heating failed. It’s not as cold as it was in Norwich, which makes sense, I guess, given its proximity to the coast. It is, however, pissing it down. I pull the hood of my coat up over my head and tighten the drawstrings to keep it in place.
Thankfully, John only lives an eight-minute walk from the station that I manage to do in ten – not bad considering my luggage weighs a tonne. I close the short black iron gate of his front garden and knock on the wooden door of his Edwardian terraced house, the terracotta mouldings, finials, and ridge tiles combined with the bay window and patterned glass panels in the door a sign of his passion for restoration over renovation.
I hear the shuffle of footsteps from behind the door, the lock disengages, and then John is standing in front of me. He says nothing, just opens his arms, and it’s enough to break me once again.
I don’t know what it is about his comforting hold that destroys all the barriers I put between myself and the world, but at this moment, with a heart that’s bruised and broken, and a deep fear growing roots in my gut, I think this feels like one of the safest places I could be, with perhaps one notable, impossible, exception.
He pats me firmly on the back and guides me inside before dragging my case in and standing it at the foot of the staircase directly in front of us. The smell of chilli permeates the air, and despite the Sunday roast I ate this afternoon, the smell ignites a hunger in me, and my belly makes a loud growl of protest.
“Come on through. I promised you chilli, and it’s one of the best.”
John is one of those wonderful people who can hover without feeling like they’re intruding in your space. He sits at the table with me, but he’s doing a crossword, quite happy in his own activity as I eat the chilli and rice heserved. It is, in fact, one of the best I’ve ever had.
He leads me upstairs after I’ve eaten, slapping my hand away from my suitcase when I try to pick it up, and shows me the bathroom, then leads me to the second bedroom at the back of the house.
“It’s yours for however long you need it, mate. And I’ll expect you back at work on Tuesday,” he says, his eyes crinkling with a smile as he backs out of the room and leaves me with my luggage. “Thought I’d give you just one day off since your train got in so late. Make yourself at home.”
With a pat on the shoulder, he’s gone. As the door clicks shut, I hear his muffled voice through the wood.
“Glad to have you back, son.”
Deciding that now is as good a time as any to unpack since I’m stuffed full of food and won’t be able to sleep yet, I hoist the case onto the bed and start to put my clothes away in the wardrobe and chest of drawers that stand opposite the foot of the double bed.
When I take out the last item, my breath hitches with an aborted sob. It’s Nash’s old medical school hoodie. I frown in confusion, knowing damn well I didn’t pinch this, but I can’tdeny I’m so very glad I have it. I lay it carefully on the pillow and stow my suitcase beneath the bed.
I grab some pyjamas and the towel John left out for me and go to the bathroom, where I unpack my toiletries and take a shower. The hot water thaws the chill in my bones I haven’t shaken from the train, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
