The Stranger on the Train (22 page)

“You don't matter,” a deep voice said. “You're nothing.”

Emma jumped, glancing from side to side along the walkway. Who had said that? The bridge was empty. She looked over the railing. Rain spattered the Thames. A million tiny circles slid below her, carried on a surface as black and slow as oil.

Emma went on looking at the water, and a strange feeling came over her. A strong feeling. A certainty.

We're all going to die
.

Not just her, but everyone. Everyone in London. Even Ritchie, the most precious thing the city contained. The knowledge of it was as true as the fact that she was standing there. This beautiful, bloated, greedy city would crumble, like the Roman Empire had crumbled. There would be snarling, screams and slaughter, then nothing but silence and water for miles.

An evil presence, very strong, crept towards her over the bridge. It circled her, thickening like smoke. Terrified, Emma shoved Ritchie's buggy away from her, trying to push him away from the evil.

The deep voice again:

“You're useless. You're going to fail him.”

“Who's saying that?” Emma screamed. “Where are you?”

“Get off the bridge,” the voice spat.

Emma grabbed the buggy and ran. Her feet pounded on the hollow slabs.

Away from the river, the sense of evil faded, but the fear of it remained. She was trembling so hard the buggy rattled as she walked.

• • •

That evening, Ritchie wouldn't eat his mashed pasta and tomato. Emma didn't try to make him. Listlessly, she sat on the couch, a plate of beans on her knee. Ritchie seemed in a great mood. He kept trying to get Emma to play with his plastic tool set. He wanted her to show him how to push the ball through the hole with the hammer. When the ball went through, the machine made a noise:
ding ding ding
. He loved it.

“Be quiet,” Emma snapped.

Her heart was still beating so fast, it felt like there were a million fingers in her chest, trying to poke their way out. She couldn't stop thinking about the river. The boys who had jeered at the man with the burned face. That weird voice on the bridge. The sense of evil. You were always reading in the papers about things like terrorist attacks, global warming, flu. If something like that happened, the people who would survive would be people like those boys. Not people like her or Ritchie, but people who were strong and hard and ruthless enough to stamp all over others.

Ritchie came to stand beside her. Smiling, he pushed his tool set onto her knee. Her plate tipped over. The beans slid off in a wet lump onto the carpet. Emma jumped to her feet.

“Get off!” she shouted.

She shoved him, a really good, hard shove. For a second, she felt savage rage. She was thinking about
him
, for Christ's sake. What would become of him if anything happened to her? Wasn't he the slightest bit grateful?

Ritchie flew backwards and landed on his bottom. Plenty of padding; he wouldn't have hurt himself. She glanced to make sure. He sat there, mouth and eyes open, a look of shock and surprise on his face. Emma turned away. She got down on her knees and began to scrape the beans back onto the plate with her fork. After a few seconds, when Ritchie still had made no sound, no screech of outrage, she glanced at him again. His lower lip was out. He was crying. Not loudly, as he usually did, but in silence. Tears slid down his cheeks.

“Oh, Ritchie.” Emma's heart smote her. “Come here.”

She held her hand out to him but he turned away. The tears slid faster. This wasn't like him at all. Alarmed now, Emma left the beans and went to pick him up. He was stiff in her arms, gouging at his eyes with his fists, twisting his head to keep his face away from hers.

“Ritchie.” She was distraught. “I'm sorry. What's wrong with us? What have I done? What have I done?”

Later, when he was asleep, she went to check on him. The yellow light from the hallway shone into his cot. She rested her arms on the bars and watched him. He lay on his back, one pudgy arm flung above his head, his chest moving up and down in a hiccupy way. His cheeks were wet. He looked unhappy.

Emma's chest ached.

What was the matter with her? Who was this hard harpy she'd turned into? She'd never used to be like this. She'd had friends. She'd been normal. Now look at her. No one to care if she lived or died. A worthless failure. Horrible to her little son.

She undressed and got into bed, but she couldn't lie still. No matter which way she lay, she couldn't get comfortable. She turned and writhed; there was a feeling all over her, like flies crawling around. She ran her hands up and down her body, trying to push it off, the responsibility.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”

The sound dinged off the walls, ringing away into the silence. Shocked, Emma clapped her hand to her mouth.

In his cot, Ritchie stirred, and was quiet.

Emma lay, still with her hands to her mouth, utterly afraid.

Tuesday, September 26th

Day Ten

The flat was chilly and smelled of old food. Emma dumped her passport and keys on the table. She stood there, still in her outdoor fleece, her hands hanging down at her sides.

“Will you be all right?” Rafe asked.

He had pulled a chair out from under the table. He held it towards her until she sat down.

“He's better off without me,” Emma said dully. “I didn't deserve to be his mother.”

“Of course you did,” Rafe said. “Don't be so hard on yourself, Emma. Things haven't been easy for you.”

“I didn't deserve him,” Emma said. “I didn't want the responsibility of him. Anyway, it's over now.”

She didn't have to worry about him anymore. From now on, Ritchie would be looked after. He would be okay.

Rafe hunched beside her.

“Don't give up. There's still plenty you can do. You can follow up the other leads.”

“What other leads?”

“Well, didn't you say that the police mentioned a sighting in Manchester? Someone up there saw a child who looked like Ritchie? They're still looking into that, aren't they?”

It took her a couple of seconds to get it. The sensation that hits you when you think you've reached the bottom of a stairs but there's a final step you haven't noticed, and when you take it, the sickening jar goes right through your body.

She sat up.

“You don't think he's mine,” she said.

Rafe wouldn't meet her eyes.

“You don't believe me.” Emma was shocked. Truly shocked. On the journey home, Rafe had been very quiet. She'd guessed it was his reaction to her telling him the real story about what she'd said to Dr. Stanford. Even so, she'd still been so sure that he was on her side. But it was clear now that even Rafe, so accepting and unjudgmental, had a line that couldn't be crossed, and she, by what she'd told him, had done that at last.

Rafe looked very uncomfortable.

“It's not that I don't believe you, Emma. I know you think it's him. I know you're convinced about that. It's just . . .” He sighed. “The DNA, you know. It's hard to argue with it. Maybe we should just face the facts.”

Emma was incredulous. She'd thought he was brighter than that. Surely he must realize what had happened?

“She faked the test,” she said. “She did something to mix them up.”

Rafe shook his head.

“I've seen these tests done,” he said. “It's a very strict procedure. Once the swabs are taken, they're put straight into a sealed bag and sent to the lab. It's done that way on purpose, so no one can tamper with them.”

Emma was shaking her head too.

“Is there any way,” Rafe persisted, “that that little boy could have just looked like Ritchie? That you could just have thought it was him because you want so much for that to be the case?”

“No,” Emma said. “No way at all.”

Rafe sighed again.

He said: “My flight to La Paz leaves in a few days.”

“You should take it,” Emma told him. “Honestly. Don't miss it on my account.”

“I didn't mean that,” he said.

Then he said something odd.

He said: “Why don't you come with me?”

“Sorry?” Emma stared at him.

“Well,” Rafe sounded apologetic, “if, as you say, that
is
Ritchie in France, and you know where he is, then you know that he's safe. You said you didn't think you deserved him because the responsibility was too much for you. Now's your chance to take a break from everything. Come with me for a while. Try again when you get back.”

“Try . . .” Emma couldn't believe what she was hearing. What was Rafe saying? Go on
holiday
with him? Had he lost his mind? She looked at him again, and saw with a stone heart what she should have seen all along: a young, free stranger in a blue outdoor jacket, all ready for his backpacker tour of the world. What an adventure this must seem to him. A drama in his life, like going to a see a thriller in the cinema. A break in his routine of . . . how had he put it? Drifting. A vast space opened between them; he was a dot on the other side, and oh, it was a loss, she was amazed she could still feel it, on top of everything, but she could; and it gnawed at her, another frozen gap of pain.

“I'm sorry,” she said coldly, “but I can't just go on holiday somewhere while my son has been kidnapped. I can't just
take a break
from him. I won't start a new life, a life he was never in . . . I won't do that . . . I'll never . . .”

She couldn't continue. The coldness had gone from her voice. Even to keep that there was too much for her now. All that was left was how she felt: profound unhappiness that everything, everything, had gone so wrong.

Rafe was nodding. He had a strange expression on his face.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

He didn't say anything more to persuade her.

He closed the door quietly as he left.

Chapter Fifteen

Wednesday, September 27th

Day Eleven

“There's been a change of plan,” Rafe said. “I'm leaving tomorrow.”

Emma's eyes were puffy and sore. She'd had to get out of bed to answer the phone. She squinted at the clock. Just gone six. Voices and traffic noises from the street below. Six in the evening, then, presumably, rather than the morning.

“I'm sorry,” she said. What was it they'd been talking about? Her voice sounded thick and swollen, as if she had a cold. “What did you say?”

“I'm leaving tomorrow morning,” Rafe repeated. “My flight's at seven. Sooner than I expected, but a chance came up of some work abroad and I couldn't say no.”

Emma didn't answer.

“So,” Rafe said. “It looks like I mightn't see you again before I go.”

“No.”

“Will you be all right?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I'll be in touch,” Rafe promised.

“Uh-huh.”

She crawled back to bed. He wouldn't be in touch. She didn't blame him.

Ritchie wasn't his child. Time for him to move on.

• • •

Lindsay spoke to Emma about her trip to France.

“How did you get the Hunts' address?” she asked.

Emma didn't reply.

“You know you can't do that again,” Lindsay warned her. “You could have got yourself into a lot of trouble.”

Emma ignored her. She rested her head on the back of the couch and looked up at the ceiling. They could do what they liked to her now. She didn't care anymore.

Over the next few days, people trooped in and out of her flat. There was a social worker called Ziba—something like that—all dressed in black, like she was going to a funeral. A doctor called Hughes, in a striped navy suit. Dr. Hughes kept asking her how she was feeling. She said she was very tired but couldn't sleep. Dr. Hughes said he'd see about giving her something very mild that would help.

“What would be your thoughts on going into hospital?” he asked. “Just for a little while? For a rest?”

“Whatever you think.”

Dr. Hughes wrote something on a card. More writing. Between the doctors and the police, there must be a whole library on her somewhere by now.

Dr. Hughes said: “We'll talk about this again.”

• • •

At one point, someone knocked on the door of the flat, and when she opened it there was a nurse in blue standing in the hall. Emma had been asleep until the knocking woke her up, and for a second she was confused. Was she in the hospital after all, then? But the nurse was Rosina Alcarez, holding a Tupperware box that smelled of spices.

“I'm sorry.” Rosina looked anxious. “I hope you don't mind me calling. I'm on my way to work, for my night shift, but I've brought you something to eat.”

She held up the Tupperware container.

“Fish,” she said, “with rice and ginger. Very mild. Plenty of nutrition.”

“Thank you,” Emma said. “But I'm not really hungry.”

“It is Philippines food,” Rosina said. “Not everybody likes it. If you would prefer, I can get you something British?”

“No. Really. I'm fine.”

“Okay.” Rosina nodded. “I am sorry to bother you.”

She turned to leave.

Emma wanted nothing more than to close the door and go back to bed. But Rosina's unassuming nod at the rejection, her quiet willingness to take back the unwanted meal, so thoughtfully prepared, gave her a curious pang of guilt.

With an effort, she said to Rosina's back: “How is your daughter?”

Rosina turned at once, her round face brightening. She came back to the door.

“She is good,” she said eagerly. “She has grown so big. I have some photographs they sent the other day—”

She stopped, looking down.

“It's all right,” Emma said. “I was the one who asked. I don't mind if you talk about her.”

But Rosina settled the strap of her bag on her shoulder, and stared at the Tupperware container.

Emma said: “Do you have any of the photographs with you?”

“I have one.” Rosina glanced up at her. “But it's okay if you—”

“Please.” Emma widened the door. “Please. I'd like to see it.”

On the couch, Rosina felt about in her bag and passed Emma a photo. It was a close-up, the face of a smiling baby about eighteen months old. The baby had dark eyes and plump red cheeks. She was wearing something white—whether a top or a dress, it was hard to say. All you could see was the bright whiteness at her throat. She looked like a robin in the snow.

“She's beautiful.” Tears ran down Emma's face. “Really beautiful.”

Rosina was upset. “I shouldn't have showed you.”

“No, no.” Emma wiped her cheeks with her hand. “I'm glad you did.”

But Rosina's distress increased. She turned to Emma, sitting on the edge of the couch.

“I told them,” she said, agitated. “I told them you should be in a hospital. You should not be here alone. The police say, ‘Oh, it is up to such and such'—always up to some other person—‘to organize everything.' That Dr. Hughes who came here, I know him from the hospital. I find him in the corridor and I say to him, ‘Please, come back and see her again. She is so unhappy.' And he say, ‘Oh, so now you are a doctor and can tell me what to do.'”

Emma listened, astonished at how much Rosina had been thinking of her all this time. All the things her shy, quiet neighbor had tried to do for her, all without Emma knowing, never expecting any thanks or recognition.

“You're very good,” she said. She wiped her face again with her hands. “To want to help me like that. But I'll be all right. Honestly I will.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Emma felt very tired. She touched the face of the little girl in the photo.

She said, “I never asked you her name.”

“Her name is Estela.”

“Estela. It's beautiful.”

“It means Star.” Rosina hesitated. “If you want, I can leave this photo with you.” Her eyes were anxious again, worried she might have somehow said or done the wrong thing. “But only if you want.”

Emma said: “If you can spare it, I would love to have it.”

She placed Estela's photo on the low TV table, beside the picture of Ritchie with his tycoon comb-over hairstyle. The two toddlers smiled at each other.

“One day they will meet. I know it.” Tears in Rosina's eyes now too. She moved closer to the photos. As she did so, her arm brushed against Emma's, and Emma did not move away.

The sky over the balcony was dark. Stars, to the east, over the tower. Side by side the two mothers sat, elbows touching, gazing in silence at their children.

• • •

And then, at one point, Emma woke up and the flat was quiet. No people in suits. No voices. No one there at all.

She lay and floated in the silence, arms and legs spread to all corners of the bed. She was drifting in nothing, in a big white vacuum bowl. Her mind had no anchor. Her head ached from lying down so much. But she didn't want to get up. Or sleep. Or stay where she was. Or be alone, or have anybody with her.

She stretched out her arm, and her fingers touched something on the locker by her bed. She frowned. The object rattled when she moved it. She took it and lay back in the bed, holding her arm up in the air so she could see what it was. A small, brownish plastic jar with a lid. The jar Dr. Hughes had given her with the pills in it, to help her sleep.

Emma pushed herself up onto her elbow. She peered through the side of the jar. Capsules, wobbling about on the bottom, each about the size of a large grain of rice. One half of each capsule was red, the other green. Emma opened the jar and took out one of the capsules. She held it between her finger and thumb, turning it this way and that to examine it. There was writing on the side, some kind of number. She popped the pill into her mouth. Tasteless. Plastic, if anything. She swallowed it. It took a few attempts, as her mouth was dry, but she managed to get it down.

She took out another pill. This time, instead of eating it, she pulled the two colored halves apart. The whitish powder inside sprinkled all over the sheets. Then she took a third pill and bit into it. The taste was so vile she spat it out again straightaway.

She went to take another one, but that was all there was. Emma turned the bottle upside down. Empty. Three was all they'd left her. The first pill was still stuck halfway down her throat. She swallowed again but it stayed where it was. She could feel it sitting there, burning a hole in her neck.

Sometime after that, she got out of bed. She went to the fridge to get a drink of something to get rid of the tablet in her throat. But the fridge was empty. Someone had cleaned it out and propped the door open with a sweeping brush.

Emma thought for a while. Then she put her trainers on, took her bag and headed off out to Sainsbury's.

Closed.

Must be earlier than she'd thought.

What now? She stood there in the street, very low. She could go home again. But she didn't have to. There was no one expecting her. No one waiting to be fed, or changed, or entertained. She could go anywhere. Might as well make the most of it. It was what she'd wanted, after all.

She walked to Hammersmith station and boarded the first train that stopped at the platform. Eastbound District Line. She sat in the corner, beside the connecting door. Most of the other seats were empty. There were three people in her carriage, all wearing suits and reading the
Metro
. Off to work in the City, probably. Where was
she
going to go? Emma looked at the map above the window. One of the big stations, maybe? She could take a trip out of London. Victoria was coming up in a few stops. The Victoria trains all went south, as far as she knew. To the coast.

Suddenly she wanted to be near the sea again.

A little boy with wispy hair, rolling down a dune.

• • •

Brighton looked very pale when she came out of the station. Everything painted cream or eggshell or pastel. The whiteness of the sky told her which direction the sea was in. Straight down the hill, through the town. There were people everywhere. Shops and amusements and piers and restaurants. Not what she'd expected, for some reason. Not the sort of sea she was looking for.

“You want the bus east, lovie,” a nice woman washing the floor in a pub told her. “The coast is quieter there. Might be more what you're after.”

The woman was right. Sitting on the bus, watching the large, cream-colored buildings give way to smaller towns, and then to villages, Emma felt a huge sense of relief. Finally the bus came to its last stop outside a lone pub in the middle of nowhere. Two cars in the car park. No people. The wrong time of year for tourists. Raindrops dotted her cheeks when she got out.

She could smell the sea. The smell blew from behind a line of grassy hills, like the dune in France. A path—a groove in the sand, really—led over the dune. She took it, leaning into the wind.

She didn't notice herself climbing and was surprised, on reaching the top, to see how far she was above the sea. No gentle slope down to the shore, this, but a sheer drop over high cliffs.

She walked right to the edge and looked over. The walls of the cliffs were dazzling white. The sea was blue—not just normal sky blue, but a surreal, vivid turquoise. Hypnotized, Emma stared down. The colors seemed much too bright to be real. They were like crayon colors, colors you'd find in a child's nursery.

A memory of herself: very small, playing in a white room somewhere, with a doll in a bright blue dress. Where, she didn't know; a neighbor's house maybe, or some child's birthday party. She had hummed to herself as she played.

She'd been happy there.

If she wanted, right now, she could go there again.

Ritchie would be fine without her. He would forget. She could leave him, leave his baby softness and the arms that clung to hers. They wouldn't cling to her forever anyway. The arms pulled; there was a catch at her chest, and he was gone. When she saw him next, he was running on a beach, chasing something, a kite or a dog. He was older—ten, maybe—strong and healthy and happy. His hair was darker but he still had Oliver's smile. He was tall, and spoke confidently, in a language she didn't understand. The sky grew dark, he ran past but didn't recognize her, and he ran home to a place she didn't know.

The sky darkened further. The wind came up. She couldn't see the waves anymore, but she could hear them, crashing and pounding against the rocks. Emma felt like an animal before a storm. As if electrons were running through her body, snapping her alive. Her mind was sharp and clear, like cleaned glass.

“There's a wall between your mother and happiness,” her grandmother had once said. “It's been there so long now, I think it would take something huge to break it down.”

Emma fingered the scar on her chin.

The eager child, running to her mum. The shock of it as her mother pushed her away. The fright, more than anything else, as she tumbled against the fireplace.

Her mother, white-faced, springing out of her chair.

“Emma. Emma, are you all right?”

Her voice so odd and high. She flew to Emma and scooped her up. She stood with her in her arms, squeezing her tight, rocking her from side to side.

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” she kept saying, over and over. Her voice was muffled. She had her face in Emma's hair. “I never should have done that. I love you, sweetheart. I love you, you'll never know how much.”

Emma didn't remember the exact words but she knew that was the gist. She remembered very clearly how tightly her mother had held her. At the time, she'd been frightened, not used to seeing her mother so emotional; but also she was exhilarated, because it was like in the ad for washing powder where the mother lifted the child out of bed and spun her in the air. Emma had loved that ad.