Watford Junction

“…..so I ended up using one of those internet chat things for a wee while. There wasn’t much doing, to be quite honest, and I was ready to give up when I received a message from someone called ‘Sarah’.” Iain paused while he removed his jacket, aware of the warmth in the compartment for the first time.

“And?”

“And I replied. I remember that her opening line was something about always liking history. That must have been somewhere on my profile…”

“So you’re a historian?”

“Well, in training, postgrad.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Er… Australian history,” answered Iain, coyly.

“Oh.”

Smiling, Iain repeated his well-worn reply to that question: “That’s what everyone says.” His gentle laughter was only interrupted by the low rattling of the train.

“So…”

“Ah, yes. Then came the message from ‘Sarah’. I was trying to ignore a couple of perverts at the time, so I wasn’t able to reply straight away. She must have thought I was a little cold… but I tried to reply, mainly because of the way she wrote. There was something … indefinable about her, even then. She intrigued me.” Iain paused for a moment, and it occurred to him that even that short message demonstrated exactly how she carried herself, with grace and fleet of foot. He smiled.

“So you got talking?”

Iain sighed wistfully. “We did. It was about 9.30 in the evening when we got talking properly, and we didn’t stop until 5am.”

Adam whistled through his teeth.

“You’re telling me. It started as a wee game, each of guessing what the other looked like. We were both pretty accurate, if I remember rightly.” Grinning to himself, he added: “Though she does tell me that I’m shorter than she imagined.”

Iain fell silent. Despite the happiness of the previous few hours, he felt an indescribably strange sadness which he couldn’t shake off, like a lead weight bound to his ankles. “I opened up with her. I just don’t do that, ever. I suppose I’ve always preferred anonymity and sticking to the shadows. But there was … something there with her, a connection, something very difficult to put my finger on. As corny as it might sound, it felt like I was speaking to an old and trusted friend, someone who I could confess to and admit all sorts of things.”

“Am I allowed to ask what kind of things?” said Adam, softly and not wanting to appear intrusive. Iain gritted his teeth. He felt as though he wanted to shut himself down, bury his head in the pillow, replay the events of the past two days over and over, and burn those memories into his mind. He ached all over and just wanted to lie down and sleep, close his eyes before the pain stung him again. Instead, he found the strength to reply.

“Things, things … so many things,” said Iain, talking to no one in particular. “Like the fact that I had always been single and live alone, that kind of thing… I’m sure she must have thought I was completely screwed-up or had been scarred in some kind of industrial fire.”

Adam chuckled. “What was she like?”

Iain took a long, deep breath as he recalled the face he had caressed and gazed lovingly at only hours before. “She showed me her picture and I think the word I used was ‘stunning’. She has this beautiful smile and that was what grabbed me by the throat.”

“Can you describe her?”

“I’ll try, though it’s sometimes hard to find the words.” He closed his eyes, seeing her smiling image etched onto his eyelids. “She’s from Spain, a wee bit older than me and she is beautiful. She has these gorgeous, warm brown eyes that seem to burn, and when she smiles and giggles it breaks my heart. She never believes me when I tell her this, but she’s a dream”.

Iain’s voice was lost amidst the furnace-like roar while the sleeper sped through a tunnel. When it emerged, both men were quiet until Iain started telling his story again.

“That night we spoke until 5am!” Iain threw back his head and laughed at the very idea. He recalled that Sunday morning, watching the sun rise over the cityscape and turning the sky and the buildings a vivid shade of pink. Even the seagulls perched on the window-ledge were looking at him quizzically, heads cocked to one side while they wondered what on earth he was doing still awake.

“I’ve never told her this, but it was a little emotional when we finally said goodbye that first night. It was quite a wrench to stop, even though she needed some sleep before her flight. When we did say goodbye, I just sat there for a few moments. I didn’t know what to do with myself, apart from trying to get some sleep.”

“When did you speak again?”

“This is where it starts to get a little complicated since we never really agreed to talk again,” Iain replied, swallowing hard. “I woke up in the afternoon and had only one real thought: ‘That can’t have happened. What the hell was that? Who the hell was that?’ Then I checked the picture she had sent and it all came flooding back. An email arrived in the evening to tell me she was back safely in Southampton, and was thinking of me.”

There was another brief silence, disturbed only by the incessant rhythm of wheels and the rain lashing the carriage. Adam suddenly spoke with the urgency of someone who had just put the penultimate piece of a jigsaw into place.

“So you came all the way down here from Aberdeen, just to see this woman who you met in a chat room a couple of months ago?”

“Sounds a bit insane, doesn’t it? If you’d told me about this last summer, I’d have told you to go away and get your head seen to.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, of course I replied. I told her that I was glad she was back safely and hoped that we would be able to speak again soon. I don’t know what I expected at that point, hopefully just to be able to talk to her again, I suppose.” Iain scratched his head. “There was no reply, so I wrote again a couple of times. She was settling back into things well, yes she was fine and going to Spain for a month to see her family. Perhaps I should have taken the hint – whenever she replied, she was kind, but short and to the point. I now know why she was like that and how hard it was for her, but I was a persistent little bastard. My boss was sending me to Shetland for a week at the end of August, so I sent her one last email before I went, just to tell her about it.”


Clapham Junction

The woman opposite Frida had something of a glint in her eye as she quietly sipped the last of her tea. The train was leaving the outskirts of London behind and Frida closed her eyes. She wondered whether if she opened them again, it would all be over, and this simply a memory of a time long ago, or an event that happened to someone else. She opened her eyes, and the woman was still there, her elbows resting on the table and hands clasped, smiling back kindly at Frida and offering a sympathetic ear.

“You must have got on well with him from the start,” she suggested.

“Even I was surprised by that,” Frida replied. “That’s one of the strangest things about all of this, that we connected so well from the beginning. Chatting to this perfect stranger was the easiest thing in the world, and a wonderful way to end my time in Boston. And to think it almost didn’t happen…”

“I suppose you were supposed to be doing something else that day, yes?”

“Sort of. I’d decided that I would have my last day there completely to myself, do the things I wanted to. I could go to the gym in the hotel and a long soak afterwards, and maybe pop to the bar to see if there was anyone interesting around.” Frida inclined her head slightly, trying to work out some imaginary kink in her neck. “But I realised that the wireless was working, and thought ‘what the heck?’ I thought I would have a look around and see who was online instead.”

The woman nodded slightly. “My daughter does that too, the chat thing. She has friends all over the place, though I do always warn her to be careful. I don’t really trust the thing.” She did sound like Frida’s mother, the familiarly sweet and corrective tone to her voice. “So you ended up not leaving the hotel room at all?”

“I didn’t, although it was a bit tricky at first. The chat room kept being difficult, and I had to log in and out constantly. Nothing seemed to work, and I tried and tried hopelessly. I panicked. I couldn’t lose him, not like that. I wanted Fate to give me at least one chance to find out who he was.”

The woman drew a sharp intake of breath through her teeth. “That’s one reason why I don’t use computers, you can’t rely on the damn things. You almost lost your love because of one!”

Frida arched her eyebrows. “My love? Oh no, no. To be honest, all I wanted was a little bit of fun, just an afternoon for myself before I flew back to reality. I didn’t intend to find love at all, it was supposed to be something innocent and nothing serious; that’s why I didn’t want to lose him – I knew I wouldn’t have another chance after that afternoon.”

“What’s his name?”

“Iain. Well, Dave. I mean, when I met him he was Dave. And I was Sarah.” She laughed as she tried to explain it, blushing a little when she realised just how silly it all sounded.

The woman grinned, all teeth and warmth. “So you’re not really Sarah, then?”

“No, it’s Frida.”

“And I’m Becky.”

Frida looked the woman over, aware of that glint in Becky’s eye again. Thackeray would have liked you. You would have made a good Becky, at least a couple of decades ago.

“Are you married, Becky?”

“Twenty-nine years in December.”

“Do you remember what it feels like when a man truly desires you? I mean really wants you. I’m talking about passion and fierce desire, the one you only experience a few times in your life?”

Becky stayed quiet, though the far-away look in her eyes suggested she knew what Frida was saying.

“Well, I suppose that’s what I was looking for, to feel seduced once more, and this was the perfect opportunity. That was what the night was about, and once the morning came I would never speak to him again. I would be gone, and it would be like it never happened. I still think it was a very sensible plan.”

“So how exactly did you meet him? Why him? Or did he approach you?”

Frida began her explanation a little wearily, as if she were admitting to something. “No, I was the one who wrote the first line that night.” She looked around furtively for a couple of seconds, just to make sure it was safe to talk before continuing, and as Frida told her story, Becky became acutely aware of how different Frida looked from when she had sat opposite her a short time before.

“So, I thought I would pay a visit to Scotland. I left Kent and headed north, virtually speaking of course.” Becky looked slightly confused, but Frida continued before she could even open her mouth. “The Edinburgh room was quite full, and although I didn’t really get into any of the conversations I did have a quick chat with a few other guys, until I came across Dave’s’ profile. He was a student, which caught my eye immediately, and the few other details about him gave me a good feeling. He said he was 23, and although some other time that would have been enough to stop me contacting him, I didn’t listen to that little voice inside my head which told me to move on. He took a while to respond, which I thought meant he wasn’t that interested. Maybe it was the age difference I thought, but the delay only made me that bit more interested in him.”

Frida could only remember a few snatches of that first conversation, and recalled them for Becky’s benefit. “It was a very … correct exchange, as I remember it. I suppose we were just trying to figure out whether the other person was a complete psycho. But we solved our technological problems, found another way to chat and…” – Frida halted for a few moments while searching for the right word – “from then on it was just as I planned it”.

Becky’s arched eyebrows gave away her fascination at Frida’s story. “I take it that the age difference is one of the factors that makes this story a little difficult?”

“It is,” Frida sighed, “though it’s not the biggest obstacle.”

The door of the car opened and the conductor, a big man with a weary expression on his florid face, bellowed that he wanted to see everyone’s tickets. A man nursing a can of lager in his sleep suddenly sat bolt upright at the disturbance. Frida and Becky waited their turn in silence, exchanging smiles every time their eyes met. The conductor moved down the carriage, explaining to one young man with sad eyes that yes, he would have to pay the full single fare, and yes, it would cost him the best part of fifty pounds. Becky looked at Frida, hoping she would continue.

“We chatted for hours, literally. I think it was around 1am with me when we finally said goodbye, but only because I had to get up so early in the morning for my flight back to London. I think we were so happy and excited at getting to know each other that we could have kept going for another eight hours. I loved every single line he wrote to me that night. The ones about his intriguing steely blue eyes, when he confessed his inexperience in love, about how he would impress me should I ever visit Aberdeen and when he told me that he liked me in Gaelic.”

“Are you sure you didn’t fall in love that night, Frida?”

“I was very aware of the danger of playing that game and I made sure that that didn’t happen. When we said goodbye that night I was convinced that I would never hear from him again. That was the deal I made with myself. Although I must confess that I kept looking at his picture all the way to London whilst I was up in the air.”

“His picture?” Becky was really enjoying this part of the story, getting a little vicarious thrill from the young woman’s experience.

“We exchanged pictures, yes.” Frida looked a little embarrassed. If Becky had looked under the table, she would have seen Frida’s feet shuffling.

“A good picture then?”

Frida almost visibly swooned. “It certainly was. I was a little in denial at first because I couldn’t believe that I had found such an appropriate character for my fantasy in this way.”

Becky had lost all pretence of being coy now, and her questioning almost verged on interrogation. “What happened when you got back to England?”

“I pretended I wasn’t interested in him, as I intended, but I don’t think he got the message, despite my short and cold emails.” Frida seemed a little pained at this memory. “I was so sorry, it’s not my style to be like that at all, especially to someone like Iain. But I had no choice.”

Becky looked at Frida oddly, not quite comprehending what she meant. Her mouth hadn’t even formed the question she was dying to ask, when Frida delved into her bag, searching intently for something. Becky remained silent, watching Frida open her purse, remove a ring and slowly put it onto the fourth finger of her left hand. She flexed her fingers a few times, afraid to look at Becky for a few moments, perhaps fearful of what her fellow-traveller might think. Fiddling absent-mindedly with the ring, she peered up through her eye-lashes to see Becky’s mouth forming a silent “Oh.”

“Well, that does make things a little more complicated than I thought,” replied Becky, still smiling warmly. Frida leant over the table towards Becky and looked her in the eye.

“Now I’m not so sure.”