The Girl on the Train

MEGAN • • •

She’s forced my hand. Or maybe he has. My gut tells me she. Or my heart tells me so, I don’t know. I can feel her, the way I could before, curled up, a seed within a pod, only this seed’s smiling. Biding her time. I can’t hate her. And I can’t get rid of her. I can’t. I thought I would be able to, I thought I would be desperate to scrape her out, but when I think about her, all I can see is Libby’s face, her dark eyes. I can smell her skin. I can feel how cold she was at the end. I can’t get rid of her. I don’t want to. I want to love her.

I can’t hate her, but she scares me. I’m afraid of what she’ll do to me, or what I’ll do to her. It’s that fear that woke me just after five this morning, soaked in sweat despite the open windows and the fact that I’m alone. Scott’s at a conference, somewhere in Hertfordshire or Essex or somewhere. He’s back tonight.

What is it with me, that I’m desperate to be alone when he’s here, and when he’s gone I can’t bear it? I can’t stand the silence. I have to talk out loud just to make it go away. In bed this morning, I kept thinking, what if it happens again? What’s going to happen when I’m alone with her? What’s going to happen if he won’t have me, won’t have us? What happens if he guesses that she isn’t his?

She might be, of course. I don’t know, but I just feel that she isn’t. Same way I feel that she’s a she. But even if she isn’t, how would he know? He won’t. He can’t. I’m being stupid. He’ll be so happy. He’ll be mental with joy when I tell him. The thought that she might not be his won’t even cross his mind. Telling him would be cruel, it would break his heart, and I don’t want to hurt him. I’ve never wanted to hurt him.

I can’t help the way I am.

“You can help what you do, though.” That’s what Kamal says.

I called Kamal just after six. The silence was right on top of me and I was starting to panic. I thought about ringing Tara—I knew she’d come running—but I didn’t think I could stand it, she’d be all clingy and overprotective. Kamal was the only person I could think of. I called him at home. I told him I was in trouble, I didn’t know what to do, I was freaking out. He came over right away. Not quite without question, but almost. Perhaps I made things sound worse than they are. Perhaps he was afraid I was going to Do Something Stupid.

We’re in the kitchen. It’s still early, just after seven thirty. He has to leave soon if he’s going to make his first appointment. I look at him, sitting there across from me at our kitchen table, his hands folded together neatly in front of him, his deep doe eyes on mine, and I feel love. I do. He’s been so good to me, despite the crap way I’ve behaved.

Everything that went before, he’s forgiven, just liked I hoped he would. He wiped everything away, all my sins. He told me that unless I forgave myself this would go on and on and I would never be able to stop running. And I can’t run anymore, can I? Not now she’s here.

“I’m scared,” I tell him. “What if I do it all wrong again? What if there’s something wrong with me? What if things go wrong with Scott? What if I end up on my own again? I don’t know if I can do it, I’m so afraid of being on my own again—I mean, on my own with a child…”

He leans forward and puts his hand over mine. “You won’t do anything wrong. You won’t. You’re not some grieving, lost child any longer. You’re a completely different person. You’re stronger. You’re an adult now. You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it?”

I don’t say anything, but I can’t help wondering whether it is, because if I close my eyes I can conjure up the feeling that comes to me when I’m on the edge of sleep, which jolts me back into wakefulness. It’s the feeling of being alone in a dark house, listening for her cries, waiting to hear Mac’s football on the wooden floors downstairs and knowing that they’re never going to come.

“I can’t tell you what to do about Scott. Your relationship with him… Well, I’ve expressed my concerns, but you have to decide what to do for yourself. Decide whether you trust him, whether you want him to take care of you and your child. That must be your decision. But I think you can trust yourself, Megan. You can trust yourself to do the right thing.”

Outside, on the lawn, he brings me a cup of coffee. I put it down and put my arms around him, pulling him closer. Behind us a train is rumbling up to the signal. The noise is like a barrier, a wall surrounding us, and I feel as though we are truly alone. He puts his arms around me and kisses me.

“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for coming, for being here.”

He smiles, drawing back from me, and rubs his thumb across my cheekbone. “You’ll be fine, Megan.”

“Couldn’t I just run away with you? You and I… couldn’t we just run away together?”

He laughs. “You don’t need me. And you don’t need to keep running. You’ll be fine. You and your baby will be fine.”

I know what I have to do. I thought about it all day yesterday, and all night, too. I hardly slept at all. Scott came home exhausted and in a shitty mood; all he wanted to do was eat, fuck and sleep, no time for anything else. It certainly wasn’t the right time to talk about this.

I lay awake most of the night, with him hot and restless at my side, and I made my decision. I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to do everything right. If I do everything right, then nothing can go wrong. Or if it does, it cannot be my fault. I will love this child and raise her knowing that I did the right thing from the start. All right, perhaps not from the very start, but from the moment when I knew she was coming. I owe it to this baby, and I owe it to Libby. I owe it to her to do everything differently this time.

I lay there and I thought of what that teacher said, and of all the things I’d been: child, rebellious teenager, runaway, whore, lover, bad mother, bad wife. I’m not sure if I can remake myself as a good wife, but a good mother—that I have to try.

It’s going to be hard. It might be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I’m going to tell the truth. No more lies, no more hiding, no more running, no more bullshit. I’m going to put everything out in the open, and then we’ll see. If he can’t love me then, so be it.

My hand is against his chest and I’m pushing as hard as I can, but I can’t breathe and he’s so much stronger than I am. His forearm presses against my windpipe, I can feel the blood pulsing at my temples, my eyes blurring. I try to cry out, my back to the wall. I snatch a handful of his T-shirt and he lets go. He turns away from me and I slide down the wall onto the kitchen floor.

I cough and spit, tears running down my face. He’s standing a few feet from me, and when he turns back to me my hand instinctively goes to my throat to protect it. I see the shame on his face and want to tell him that it’s OK. I’m OK. I open my mouth but the words won’t come, just more coughing. The pain is unbelievable. He’s saying something to me but I can’t hear, it’s as though we’re under water, the sound muffled, reaching me in blurry waves. I can’t make anything out.

I think he’s saying that he’s sorry.

I haul myself to my feet, push past him and run up the stairs, then slam the bedroom door behind me and lock it. I sit down on the bed and wait, listening for him, but he doesn’t come. I get to my feet and grab my overnight bag from under the bed, go over to the chest to grab some clothes and catch sight of myself in the mirror. I bring my hand up to my face: it looks startlingly white against my reddened skin, my purple lips, my bloodshot eyes.

Part of me is shocked, because he’s never laid a hand on me like that before. But there’s another part of me that expected this. Somewhere inside I always knew that this was a possibility, that this was where we were headed. Where I was leading him. Slowly, I start pulling things out of the drawers—underwear, a couple of T-shirts; I stuff them into the bag.

I haven’t even told him anything yet. I’d just started. I wanted to tell him about the bad stuff first, before we got to the good news. I couldn’t tell him about the baby and then say that there was a possibility it wasn’t his. That would be too cruel.

We were outside on the patio. He was talking about work and he caught me not-quite-listening.

“Am I boring you?” he asked.

“No. Well, maybe a bit.” He didn’t laugh. “No, I’m just distracted. Because there’s something I need to tell you. There are a few things I need to tell you, actually, some of which you’re not going to like, but some—”

“What am I not going to like?”

I should have known then that it wasn’t the time, his mood was off. He was immediately suspicious, searching my face for clues. I should have known then that this was all a terrible idea. I suppose I did, but it was too late to go back then. And in any case, I had made my decision. To do the right thing.

I sat down next to him on the edge of the paving and slipped my hand into his.

“What aren’t I going to like?” he asked again, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

I told him I loved him and I felt every muscle in his body tense, as if he knew what was coming and was bracing himself for it. You do, don’t you, when someone tells you they love you like that. I love you, I do, but… But.

I told him that I’d made some mistakes and he let go of my hand. He got to his feet and walked a few yards in the direction of the track before turning to look at me. “What sort of mistakes?” he asked. His voice was even, but I could hear that it was a strain to keep it so.

“Come and sit with me,” I said. “Please?”

He shook his head. “What sort of mistakes, Megan?” Louder that time.

“There was… it’s finished now, but there was… someone else.” I kept my eyes lowered, I couldn’t look at him.

He spat something under his breath, but I couldn’t hear it. I looked up then, but he’d turned away and was facing the track again, his hands up at his temples. I got to my feet and went to him, stood behind him and placed my hands on his hips, but he leaped away from me. He turned to go into the house and, without looking at me, spat, “Don’t touch me, you little whore.”

I should have let him go then, given him time to get his head around it, but I couldn’t. I wanted to get over the bad stuff so that I could get to the good, so I followed him into the house.

“Scott, please, just listen, it’s not as awful as you think. It’s over now. It’s completely over, please listen, please—”

He grabbed the photograph of the two of us that he loves—the one I had framed as a gift for our second wedding anniversary—and threw it as hard as he could at my head. As it smashed against the wall behind me, he lunged, grabbing me by the tops of my arms and wrestling me across the room, throwing me against the opposite wall. My head rocked back, my skull hitting plaster. Then he leaned in, his forearm across my throat, he leaned harder, harder, saying nothing. He closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to watch me choke.

As soon as my bag is packed, I start unpacking again, stuffing everything back into the drawers. If I try to walk out of here with a bag, he won’t let me go. I have to leave empty-handed, with nothing but a handbag and a phone. Then I change my mind again and start stuffing everything back into the bag. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I can’t be here. I close my eyes and can feel his hands around my throat.

I know what I decided—no more running, no more hiding—but I can’t stay here tonight. I hear footsteps on the stairs, slow, leaden. It takes forever for him to get to the top—usually he bounds, but today he’s a man ascending the scaffold. I just don’t know whether he’s the condemned man or the executioner.

“Megan?” He doesn’t try to open the door. “Megan, I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.” I can hear tears in his voice. It makes me angry, it makes me want to fly out there and scratch his face. Don’t you bloody dare cry, not after what you just did. I’m furious with him, I want to scream at him, tell him to get the hell away from the door, away from me, but I bite my tongue, because I’m not stupid. He has reason to be angry. And I have to think rationally, I have to think clearly. I’m thinking for two now. This confrontation has given me strength, it’s made me more determined. I can hear him outside the door, begging for forgiveness, but I can’t think about that now. Right now, I have other things to do.

At the very back of the wardrobe, in the bottom of three rows of carefully labelled shoe boxes, there is a dark-grey box marked red wedge boots, and in that box there is an old mobile phone, a pay-as-you-go relic I bought years ago and hung on to just in case. I haven’t used it for a while, but today’s the day. I’m going to be honest. I’m going to put everything out in the open. No more lies, no more hiding. It’s time for Daddy to face up to his responsibilities.

I sit on the bed and switch the phone on, praying that it still has some charge. It lights up and I can feel the adrenaline in my blood, it’s making me dizzy, a little bit sick, and it’s making me buzz, as though I’m high. I’m starting to enjoy myself, enjoy the anticipation of putting everything out there, confronting him—all of them—with what we are and where we’re going. By the end of the day, everyone is going to know where they stand.

I call his number. Predictably, it goes straight to voice mail. I hang up and send a text: I need to talk to you. URGENT. Call me back. Then I sit there, and I wait.

I look at the call log. The last time I used this phone was April. A lot of calls, all of them unanswered, in early April and late March. I called and called and called, and he ignored me, he didn’t even respond to the threats I made—I’d go to the house, I’d talk to his wife. I think he’ll listen to me now, though. I’m going to make him listen to me now.

When we started all this, it was just a game. A distraction. I used to see him from time to time. He’d pop by the gallery and smile and flirt, and it was harmless—there were plenty of men who came by the gallery and smiled and flirted. But then the gallery closed and I was here at home all the time, bored and restless. I just needed something else, something different. Then one day, when Scott was away, I bumped into him in the street, we started talking and I invited him in for coffee. The way he looked at me, I could see exactly what was going through his mind, and so it just happened. And then it happened again, and I never meant for it to go anywhere, I didn’t want it to go anywhere. I just enjoyed feeling wanted; I liked the feeling of control. It was as simple and stupid as that. I didn’t want him to leave his wife; I just wanted him to want to leave her. To want me that much.

I don’t remember when I started believing that it could be more, that we should be more, that we were right for each other. But the moment I did, I could feel him start to pull away. He stopped texting, stopped answering my calls, and I’ve never felt rejection like that before, never. I hated it. So then it became something else: an obsession. I can see that now. In the end I really thought I could just walk away from it, a little bruised, but no real harm done. But it’s not that simple any longer.

Scott is still outside the door. I can’t hear him, but I can feel him. I go into the bathroom and dial the number again. I get voice mail again, so I hang up and dial again, and again. I whisper a message. “Pick up the phone, or I’m coming round there. I mean it this time. I have to talk to you. You can’t just ignore me.”

I stand in the bathroom for a while, the phone on the edge of the sink. Willing it to ring. The screen stays stubbornly grey and blank. I brush my hair and my teeth, put on some makeup. My colour is returning to normal. My eyes are still red, my throat still hurts, but I look all right. I start counting. If the phone doesn’t ring before I get to fifty, I’m just going to go down there and knock on the door. The phone doesn’t ring.

I stuff the phone into my jeans pocket, walk quickly through the bedroom and open the door. Scott is sitting on the landing, his arms around his knees, his head down. He doesn’t look up at me, so I walk past him and start to run downstairs, my breath catching in my throat. I’m afraid that he’ll grab me from behind and push me. I can hear him getting to his feet, and he calls, “Megan! Where are you going? Are you going to him?”

At the bottom of the stairs, I turn. “There is no him, OK? It’s over.”

“Please wait, Megan. Please don’t go.”

I don’t want to hear him beg, don’t want to listen to the whine in his voice, the self-pity. Not when my throat still feels like someone’s poured acid down it.

“Don’t follow me,” I croak at him. “If you follow me, I’ll never come back. Do you understand? If I turn around and see you behind me, that’ll be the last time you ever see my face.”

I can hear him calling my name as I slam the door behind me.

I wait on the pavement outside for a few moments to make sure he isn’t following me, then I walk, quickly at first, then slower, and slower, along Blenheim Road. I get to number twenty-three and it’s then that I lose my nerve. I’m not ready for this scene yet. I need a minute to collect myself. A few minutes. I walk on, past the house, past the underpass, past the station. I keep going until I get to the park and then I dial his number one more time.

I tell him that I’m in the park, that I’ll wait for him there, but if he doesn’t come, that’s it, I’m going round to the house. This is his last chance.

It’s a lovely evening, a little after seven but still warm and light. A bunch of kids are still playing on the swings and the slide, their parents standing off to one side, chatting animatedly. It looks nice, normal, and as I watch them I have a sickening feeling that Scott and I will not bring our daughter here to play. I just can’t see us happy and relaxed like that. Not now. Not after what I’ve just done.

I was so convinced this morning that getting everything out in the open would be the best way—not just the best way, the only way. No more lying, no more hiding. And then when he hurt me, it only made me all the more sure. But now, sitting here on my own, with Scott not just furious but heartbroken, I don’t think it was the right thing at all. I wasn’t being strong, I was being reckless, and there’s no telling how much damage I’ve done.

Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. It’s not just restlessness—this is more than that. For her sake and mine, now is the time to go, to walk away from them both, from all of it. Maybe running and hiding is exactly what I need to do.

I get to my feet and walk round the park just once. I’m half willing the phone to ring and half dreading it ringing, but in the end I’m pleased when it stays silent. I’ll take it as a sign. I head back the way I came, towards home.

I’ve just passed the station when I see him. He’s walking quickly, striding out of the underpass, his shoulders hunched over and his fists clenched, and before I can stop myself, I call out.

He turns to face me. “Megan! What the hell…” The expression on his face is pure rage, but he beckons me to go to him.

“Come on,” he says, when I get closer. “We can’t talk here. The car’s over there.”

“I just need—”

“We can’t talk here!” he snaps. “Come on.” He tugs at my arm. Then, more gently, “We’ll drive somewhere quiet, OK? Somewhere we can talk.”

As I get into the car, I glance over my shoulder, back the way he came. The underpass is dark, but I feel as though I can see someone in there, in the shadows—someone watching us go.