she might chicken out. But she can’t. And she’s not going to let one train pass by first as a practice. That was her original plan, but she decided the sheer noise and power of it thundering by so close might shock her into changing her mind. No, she’ll have to fight her natural survival instinct to do this, and she’s convinced that will be easier without a dry run. Plus she could get spotted by that initial driver, who’d then be able to warn the next. So it has to be the first one.
She needs to do it without thinking. The time for rumination has passed. She’s weighed up her options over and over again in recent days. She’s made her final decision.
She’s afraid – of course she is. She’s scared death or unconsciousness won’t come as quickly as she hopes and the pain will be excruciating. So she reminds herself that the odds of success are heavily in her favour.
The idea that she’ll never see …
No, she can’t allow herself to even think that name. Not now. Tears start to pour down her face as multiple images of the two of them together flood her mind. But she grits her teeth, squeezes her eyes shut and fights to block them.
‘I can’t. Not now,’ she says under her breath. ‘I have to do this. I have to do this. It’s the only way.’
And then she hears a rumbling in the distance. This is it. She knows it is, without question. A train is fast approaching from her left. She can’t see it yet, but it’s definitely coming, so as late as she dares she moves from a crouch into a standing position. The sound quickly gets louder and, as she stares in that direction, hunched, waiting, her heart is like a jackhammer, her breaths tight and shallow, her whole body trembling.
After a fleeting hesitation, she steps on to the track, her determination pushing her forward despite the continued resistance of her body.
Time crawls until the front of the train reveals itself, the noise deafening now, and she stares it down.
She can see the alarmed driver’s bearded face looking at her as he does the only thing he can and sounds the horn. She feels for him in that split second, knowing this must be his worst nightmare – something that will scar him for life – and wishing she didn’t have to be the one to put him through it.
But although it’s his face racing towards her, at the last moment her tortured mind replaces it with another: the one person she loves more than anyone or anything else.
‘I’m sorr—’
Hannah Cook was glowering at the computer screen, tempted to delete the pathetic collection of words staring back at her, when she heard the doorbell.
Her eyes darted to the clock in the corner of the display: 4.07 p.m. Who could be calling round at this time of the day? It was way too early for Mark to get home. Not that he’d use the bell anyway, unless he’d left his keys at the office or lost them somehow. And it would be unlike any of their friends to turn up unannounced. It was 2019, for goodness’ sake; there was no need to risk catching people unawares in this time of constant connectivity. In fact, to do so was verging on rudeness.
Hannah decided it must either be a delivery – despite the fact she wasn’t expecting anything – or someone selecting the wrong apartment number. In case of the latter, and since the bell had only sounded once so far, she waited for a moment.
It wasn’t like she didn’t want to get away from her laptop. She’d already found countless reasons to do so throughout the day, procrastinating like a pro. The problem was that if she did so now, this late on a Friday afternoon, she’d probably not get back to it. And then she’d feel guilty all night and into the weekend, maybe even making herself work on Saturday or Sunday when she ought to be spending time with her husband.
She’d once read somewhere that being an author was like having homework for evermore. She’d laughingly dismissed this at the time, when having a book published had been her heart’s desire: a dream she’d never expected to realise. But already, now, even though she technically wouldn’t become a published novelist for several more months, she understood the truth of that statement. A dream job was still a job. And this particular one had expectations and deadlines that didn’t disappear when she left the office at 5 p.m., because there was no office, nor regular business hours. There was just Hannah.
The bell rang again, longer and more insistent this time. Hannah saved her work, ignoring the reckless, frustrated part of herself who told her it wasn’t worth saving, and walked out of the lounge into the hallway.
‘Hello?’ she said into the telephone-style intercom next to the apartment’s entrance. As she did so, Hannah looked into the mirror opposite and frowned at the grey roots already showing in her shoulder-length, wavy brown hair.
There was a pause as the person on the other end of the line cleared their throat. Then, like a muffled gunshot, came the last words Hannah was expecting to hear: words with the power to flip her world on its head.
‘Hannah? It’s Diane.’
‘So,’ Hannah said a short while later, breaking the latest uncomfortable silence in a conversation so stilted she felt a desperate urge to run out of her own home to escape it. ‘You’ve changed a lot since I last saw you, Mia. You were just a tot then.’
‘She’s still as beautiful as ever,’ Diane said, ‘but for some reason she likes to hide it away behind all that war paint.’
Mia scowled at her mother, next to her on the couch, who was chewing a fingernail like her life depended on its removal. The teenager gave a fleeting glance towards Hannah, perched on the armchair opposite, and shrugged her shoulders. Then she dipped her head forward so her green eyes, lined with dramatic, dark make-up, disappeared behind the long fringe of her straight, shoulder-length black hair. Although she was young to do so, Hannah was convinced she must have dyed it, as it had been dark brown when she was little.
Hannah had almost passed out at the sound of Diane speaking on the intercom earlier. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her sister for nearly eleven years. She’d all but resigned herself to never seeing her and her niece again. And now here they both were, sitting in her lounge.
It had taken Hannah a few moments to get over the shock of hearing her sister’s voice after so long. She’d actually dropped the intercom handset and let it swing against the wall on its coiled cord while she stood there wide-eyed, frozen to the spot; covering her open mouth with her hands, desperately trying to grasp what was going on.
Then she’d heard Diane’s voice again: a faint, tinny version this time, leaking from the speaker of the dangling telephone.
‘Hannah?’ she’d said. ‘Are you there or not? It’s Diane. I know you’re probably surprised to hear from me after so long, but I really need to see you. It’s important. I have Mia with me. Hannah?’
And so she’d reached over and buzzed them in. It was all she could manage at that point, needing the extra time it took the lift to reach the eighth floor to find her voice. And even then, seeing the pair of them appear at her door in the flesh – Mia unrecognisable from the child she’d adored – Hannah had struggled to find any words.
Instead, despite everything that had gone before, she’d instinctively hugged them both in one go and proclaimed how wonderful it was to see them. It had felt weird and awkward, so she’d ushered them inside, sat them down in the lounge and rushed to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Because what the hell else was she supposed to do?
That was exactly the question she’d intended to ask her husband when, while in the kitchen alone, she’d phoned his mobile. Unfortunately, she’d got his voicemail, meaning he was probably in a meeting.
‘Mark,’ she’d said, trying to keep her voice steady as she left