You and Me Read online

  At the sight of the train appearing from the tunnel, everyone squares up for the scrabble to get on. I catch another glimpse of Charles. We’re not far away from each other but the scrum of women is wedged between us now. All I can see are the backs of their heads – some of them wearing those stupid wigs, others with hair neatly styled in bobs or worn loose to their shoulders. I fancy I see a cloud of white-blonde hair that makes me think of Ellie, alongside another, brown and unkempt like my own. There’s a fierce energy to the movement of the crowd – a touch of malevolence that makes me think of the Furies demanding blood vengeance. They’re not going to stop pushing.

  The fear must be catching – there’s a panicked shriek and someone calls, ‘Watch out!’ The words seem to pull Charles back from the yellow line. He draws away as the train rushes in. Next to him, Dickie glances back over his shoulder at the hen party and his expression changes. It’s a half-smile as if he doesn’t know whether to be happy or worried, and it could be that moment of recognition, or the fact he’s not looking where he’s going, that causes him to stumble sharply and fall in front of the train.

  2

  Later, I think of the famous photograph of the tightrope walker Philippe Petit on a high wire between the Twin Towers, the roar of the city below. That’s how Dickie appears for a second: a small, fragile figure suspended in mid-air. Someone shrieks again. The driver squeezes her eyes shut and slams on the brakes, though it’s too late, of course. We all know that.

  All of us watching are bound together in that moment of terrible theatre. We wait as time seems to stretch and extend. Dickie is there and then he is not. There is a dreadful thud. No sound from him – no screech or yell. He slips away silently while noise rages around him.

  I wonder later if he remembers Ellie in that moment, if he prays for forgiveness. But perhaps that’s fanciful. If he thinks of anything, it’s probably that pretty wife of his and their baby.

  The driver is screaming, ‘We have one under,’ to her colleagues in the control room. A strange thing to say. A phrase you might hear at a cricket game. Too light for the circumstances. The crowd on the platform scoops away like a shoal from the incoming train, finding space where there was none before.

  It’s only then that I look at Charles. He has dropped to his knees and raised his hands to his face like shutters. He is the only still thing on a platform that is a blur of movement and noise. Dark uniforms begin to filter through – British Transport Police, Transport for London staff. I don’t understand how they got here so quickly.

  The driver is saying something over the system to the passengers about an incident but you can tell from the way they press against the glass to look for answers that they know something is very wrong. An old man next to me turns away and stares at the tube map, his lips moving as he whispers a prayer. Some people start to push, with urgency, through the crowd. I see a couple of the hen party scurry guiltily towards the exit, still wearing wigs and glasses.

  Charles begins to weep, sobs shaking into his hands. It’s a sight I can never unsee – as frightening as witnessing the tears of an adult when you’re a child. A reminder that chaos is closer than we think and the people we love can be as fragile as paper. I want to go to him, but his grief looks so private, so intense, I can’t bring myself to impose – or to risk his rejection. Someone from the Transport Police comes over and helps him to his feet. I tear myself away, but I promise myself it won’t be for long.

  When I get back to the estate, the dealer is standing at the main entrance, as usual. Ellie used to call him that, although we’ve never seen him deal anything, strictly speaking. He spends his time hovering at the entrance to the block of flats as if he’s waiting for something or someone. He can’t leave the premises because he’s tagged, as he once showed us. He’s a skinny man with a grey complexion and hair growing in patchy tufts across his face – not unfriendly, but I’ve noticed Branwell, my cat, always walks in a wide circle around him. Ellie said Branwell could smell trouble.

  ‘All right, Franny,’ he says. ‘Been out on one of your secret jaunts?’

  I stare at him for a moment, still shaking. I’m in shock, I realise. The reality of what I’ve witnessed is only just sinking in.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got something on your face.’

  He touches his left cheek and I mirror him, raising my right hand to mine. My first thought is: blood. I have Dickie’s blood on me.

  Then I remember that that’s impossible. There wasn’t any blood. Not that I could see.

  Retrieving Mother’s compact from my handbag, I inspect my face, but it’s only a speck of vomit. I’d held off until I was out of the station and the fresh air hit me. Clusters of passengers were regrouping in the flickering blue light of the emergency vehicles. Friends rubbed each other’s backs or called their families. One of the women wept, her make-up trailing down her face in glittery train tracks.

  I wipe my cheek and put the compact away. I was too far away from Dickie to have been spattered by blood. It’s just the shock. I’m not thinking straight.

  ‘You OK?’ the dealer asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I witnessed an accident.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, fishing some tobacco paper from his pocket and starting to roll a cigarette.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I say, watching him roll, grateful to have someone to talk to. ‘Not mine, either – I just happened to be there.’

  He glances up. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I saw a man fall under the tube. Someone I knew from school.’

  I’d be more careful usually, but it’s not as if the dealer and I have mutual friends. I don’t know why, but I think of Charles and Dickie as schoolboys. Laughing as they walked back from the rugby pitch, their legs muddy, their faces pink after a match.

  ‘Was he a mate of yours?’ The dealer puts the cigarette to his lips and lights it.

  ‘No,’ I reply, ducking to pet his dog – a brute of a thing to look at, but as gentle as a lamb. ‘Not a friend.’

  In my flat, I strip down to my underwear and put everything in the washing machine. I know the noise at this time will annoy my neighbours, but I want to get rid of every trace of what happened tonight.

  I put on a greying down-to-the floor nightgown and climb into bed. I check if the news has broken and there’s already a story under the headline: ‘Man hit by tube train at South Kensington.’ They don’t identify Dickie, nor do they confirm his death, but it doesn’t look good. They’re calling it an accident. I think of his wife and their daughter, of poor Charles having to make that phone call.

  As I get up to put my laptop away, I retrieve an old photograph from my tuckbox at the bottom of the wardrobe. It’s a photograph of the First XV at Chesterfield in 1997. The back row has its arms folded; the boys in the front sit with their legs splayed, hands on their knees. Only Charles is marked out as different – the captain, holding the ball neatly on his lap; his fair hair pushed back off his face, he looks confidently at the camera. He is flanked by the hulking figure of Tom Bates on one side and Dickie on the other. I close my eyes. Who did you see on the platform, Dickie?

  That day, us girls had loitered nearby, pretending to be intrigued by the photographer at work, but really gazing at the boys, as usual. Juliet, standing behind the cameraman, had lifted her shirt just as the photograph was taken, revealing a red satin bra.

  You can tell from the expressions. A couple of the boys are smirking at the sight of her, one is laughing out loud; Charles, ever the gentleman, looks ahead, ignoring her exhibitionism. I remember the hoots of laughter as the photos were laid out in the dining hall for us to see. Dickie’s loudest of all. ‘Slapper,’ he said, digging Juliet in the ribs.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she murmured. ‘It was the wind.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Dickie. But I noticed he put his name down to buy a photo. His own personal keepsake.

  In private, I asked Mother if I could buy one too. Not for D
ickie, of course, but for Charles. ‘Fran,’ she sighed. ‘Do you really need it?’ It was a big request on her salary.

  ‘Please,’ I pleaded. ‘I never ask for anything.’ That was true, I was a thrifty child.

  She conceded in the end – ‘but not a framed one’ – and was discreet enough not to let on to anyone else. Not even Mrs Morgan, her dearest friend. The only person I showed the photo to was Ellie, and it was her idea, later, to get a coin and scratch off Dickie’s face.

  3

  It’s Ellie, more than anyone else, I want to talk to the next day. By the time I wake, the news of Dickie’s death is beginning to spread. Juliet has already posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: Dreadful news about my old school friend, Dickie Graham. My heart is broken. There are no words.

  She seems to have found a few though, as well as a proliferation of emojis. She’s rebranded herself now as Jules – a minor celebrity with an interior design show on Channel 4. She always seems to be on social media these days, but I avoid her pages, unless I’m desperate for information.

  I think, again, of Dickie’s wife, Caroline, and try to imagine the kind of night she has had. She hasn’t posted anything herself yet. Nor has Charles, though I wouldn’t expect it – his Facebook page has been dormant since 2014. The last post I can see is still the one asking for sponsorship for the Blenheim Palace triathlon three years ago. I’d made an anonymous donation of fifty pounds and written, I believe in you! Run like the wind! Almost immediately, scrolling through other people’s three-figure sums and casual exhortations, I’d experienced a flash of regret. Thank goodness, I hadn’t used my name. It’s something Dickie would have picked up on and, even though I wouldn’t have been able to hear his mocking words, I could well imagine. Why couldn’t I learn to be more casual? Fit in more neatly.

  Charles is only on Twitter in an official capacity for his work at the museum, which usually doesn’t make for interesting reading, though I keep an eye on it for upcoming events. He hasn’t mentioned Dickie there, of course, and, in fact, most of the tributes aren’t by close friends, as far as I can tell, but acquaintances and colleagues. They all say how fun he was. It’s a word that comes up a lot, but it didn’t feel fun to be on the receiving end of his jokes. Dickie and Juliet could be a deadly combination. I took care passing the pair of them in the corridor at school the way you might tiptoe past a wasp nest. In more fragile moods, if I saw them heading towards me, I’d dart into a classroom or loo to escape the sting of their words as they walked by.

  I want to tell Ellie, just in case she hasn’t seen yet. I want to say, ‘Dickie’s gone.’ I wonder if it would help. I don’t think she will cry when she hears, but Ellie rarely does. ‘So that’s that,’ she might say, drumming her fingers against her laptop. ‘It’s over.’ Then I hope she gives Rose a big hug, squeezing her close, breathing her in, promising her that no one will ever hurt her.

  I start an email to Ellie, but for now it remains in limbo in my drafts folder. I need to gather my thoughts first, to decide how much to tell her. The memories of last night itch at me like sand in my clothes. I should have lingered longer, I realise now. I should have gone to Charles.

  Most of all, I should have found out who Dickie had seen.

  To distract myself I decide to take Charles a coffee at work before I start my own shift. It’s not something I would usually do, but I can’t stop thinking about the way he wept on the tube platform. The horror of what he saw last night. I buy him a coconut latte at Pret, hurrying to the museum so it’s still warm when I deliver it. Charles discovered coconut lattes by accident when he was having a brief spell off dairy and then he found he liked the sweet taste. I hope it helps with the shock.

  I love that he works in the V&A, the most beautiful museum in London. True, it’s only on the finance side of things, but better, much better, than when he was in the City. I’ve always had a weakness for beauty.

  A security guard waves me down at the main entrance.

  ‘No hot drinks in the museum,’ he says.

  ‘But this is for Charles,’ I say. ‘Charles Fry. He’s a director here.’

  He folds his arms, standing firm.

  ‘It won’t take a second,’ I persist.

  He shakes his head. ‘I can’t let you through.’

  I wait for a moment to see if he might budge, but he keeps his arms folded and looks at the door as if to suggest that’s where I should be headed.

  Disappointment weighs heavily on my chest as I walk to work. I take tiny sips of the latte, so as not to waste it, but coconut milk isn’t my thing. Nor is coffee for that matter.

  When I get to the shop, my spirits lift momentarily. Even after all this time, I still get a thrill out of the fact I work with books. The smell of them. Unloading a delivery and touching the Next Big Thing before anyone else can. A poster in the staffroom reminds us to think of our customers as fellow book lovers. It’s something I try to keep in mind, even when they wander up to us, as they do every day, and say: ‘I’m looking for a book.’ To which we always have to resist replying: ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place.’

  If we’re lucky they’ll remember the title or the author’s name or even, on occasion, both. At other times, we’ll pause, our hands hovering over the keyboard of our search system, while they say helpful things like, ‘The author’s name begins with T – or was it V?’ Or, ‘I think it has a green cover.’ Actually, one brilliant time, I knew just the book they were talking about – a bestseller in a lurid shade of green – and I bounded towards the two-for-one table with a spring in my step to fetch it.

  As I reach the till, I can tell from the way Brenda and Gareth fall silent that they’ve already heard something.

  ‘We were talking about the tube accident last night.’ Brenda glances down at her phone. ‘It’s on the Metro website. He went to your school, didn’t he?’

  I fish out my own phone and start to read. The report says Dickie was out for a drink with an old school friend and links Charles to the V&A, identifying Dickie as an advertising executive. There are a couple of quotes from witnesses. One complains about the crush on the platform; another describes watching Dickie fall. ‘He wasn’t looking where he was going,’ she says. I realise she’s referring to the way Dickie glanced over his shoulder. But at whom?

  ‘How awful,’ I murmur, realising that Brenda and Gareth are still waiting for me to say something.

  ‘Was he one of the ones who bullied you?’ asks Brenda sympathetically.

  ‘No.’ I wish I’d never told her. ‘Nothing like that. I didn’t really know him.’

  I shove my phone into my pocket. ‘We shouldn’t really have these on the shop floor, should we?’ I say pointedly.

  ‘Didn’t you say you were going out around here last night too?’ asks Gareth, not looking me in the eye. I can’t tell from his tone what he’s suggesting.

  ‘No,’ I say again. ‘I changed my mind and stayed at home.’

  Making my way to unload a trolley, I try not to think about the fact that I’ve lied twice in less than two minutes. I pick up an armful of books, my mind preoccupied. The Metro report has nudged a memory of Dickie at school, spotting Ellie at a rugby match. The way he raised a hand to greet her. He was happy then, and nervous too. He didn’t wave yesterday but his expression was the same – he’d seen someone he knew.

  4

  Dickie was so easy to read – that was his problem, I think, as I sort through the books on the trolley and put them on the shelves. He couldn’t dissemble. That look of recognition would have been clear to anyone who knew him. His crush on Juliet had been just as transparent – the way he’d always rush to claim his usual desk in the back row, next to hers, but then try to act all casual, as if it was neither here nor there to him. My own favourite spot in English was the far corner, second from the back. It’s no good being at the very back – you’re in the firing line just as much as the front.

  The day it started, the only remaining seat was
the one next to me. We had been given an assignment to pick our favourite passage in Wuthering Heights and argue why it was important. I was first to speak and I’d decided on the pivotal ‘I am Heathcliff’ passage and marked it up in my book, underlining certain phrases and jotting down my arguments in the margin. It was a book I knew well – one I’d read with Mother the year before. Later, she’d played us the Kate Bush song and Ellie – never one for reading, or sitting still for that matter – made us laugh with her dancing.

  Up until this point, three weeks into my first year at Chesterfield, nobody had actually spoken to me. The teachers talked to me, of course, but apart from asking for the salt at mealtimes or whispering ‘bless you’ when someone sneezed in the library, I hadn’t exchanged much in the way of words with my peers.

  I wasn’t sure how to get started. It never seemed straightforward to me: the matter of making friends. I might make a comment about a book someone was reading in the prep room or attempt to amuse with some wordplay at supper – a good example being when Dickie Graham was mock-fighting with Tom Bates; they knocked into the fruit bowl and a lemon bounced out. ‘There’s no lime or reason to it,’ I quipped, but the boys looked at me with blank faces. That was usual: blank looks, incomprehension or, worse, sniggers.

  I might be out of my depth everywhere else, but in English I felt I had the advantage. Mother had raised us on books, particularly books and writers with a link to Yorkshire – the Brontës and Alan Bennett, Dracula and The Secret Garden. So I had an advantage when it came to Wuthering Heights, and I’d hoped it might be an opportunity; that people would realise I had something to say.