Chapter Five
By the time I arrived at Euston at nearly nine on Monday evening, I’d talked myself in and out of my festive fake relationship a thousand times over, but when I saw Callum standing by the entrance to platform one, there was no turning back.
‘That’s him?’ Joel gasped on my left when he spotted the three of us and raised a hand in greeting.
‘Why’s he wearing all black?’ Desi asked on my other side. ‘Who does he think he is, James Bond?’
‘Black hides the blood stains better,’ I replied, waving back to my new boyfriend. ‘Can the two of you behave for one minute? I knew I shouldn’t have let you come.’
‘I wanted to look him in the eye before he takes you off for the ritual sacrifice,’ she said, her steely eyes locked on Callum. ‘He needs to know who he’s dealing with.’
‘A twenty-seven-year-old graphic designer from Kent?’
‘Who can’t even watch The Vampires Diaries on her own because it’s too scary,’ added Joel.
‘I don’t like it when their faces go all veiny,’ she muttered right before I dug an elbow into her ribs. ‘OK, ow?’
‘Hi!’
I broke ranks from my friends, taking a large step forward as Callum strode towards us.
He was exactly as handsome and as tall as I remembered, but his hair was more red than brown now it was completely dry, falling around his freshly shaven face.
And when he saw me, I could’ve sworn I saw his eyes light up, a vibrant blue, shining like sapphires against the dull, dark shades of grey that made up London’s most depressing train station.
‘Right on time.’ He glanced at my escorts. ‘And you brought friends?’
‘Desi and Joel,’ I replied by way of introduction. ‘They’ve come to make sure you’re not a murderer.’
‘How would you know?’ Callum asked, eyes definitely sparkling. ‘Is there a test?’
‘Desi has a sixth sense.’ Joel extended an arm to shake his hand while Desi glowered at my side. ‘She always knows who’s going to get voted off on Bake Off, as well. Seriously, I’ve made so much money off her predictions, she’s never wrong.’
Callum squinted at my friends. ‘You can bet on Bake Off?’
‘You can bet on anything,’ Desi answered when he turned to shake her hand. ‘Bake Off, Strictly, how long it would take me to hunt you down and tear you to pieces if you hurt my friend.’
‘I’m not a murderer,’ he said, his smile tightening by a fraction.
‘Sounds like the kind of thing a murderer would say.’
‘Well, thanks for seeing me to the station,’ I said, clapping my hands together loudly. ‘You can both fuck off now.’
‘I’ve hidden AirTags in all her things,’ she went on, still gripping Callum’s hand like she was ready to tear it off. ‘And you don’t have to submit to a DNA test now but—’
‘That’s enough, Olivia Benson,’ I interrupted, pulling my backpack off her shoulder and hoisting it onto my own back. ‘I’ll be back on the twenty-sixth.’
‘With all her limbs intact,’ Callum promised. ‘Scout’s honour.’
‘Were you a scout?’ Desi asked.
He gave her a dazzling smile. ‘I don’t know, was I?’
‘He’s so hot,’ Joel whispered into my ear as I leaned in to hug him goodbye. ‘I take it all back, poke holes in those condoms, please have his baby. We need that DNA in our bloodline.’
‘Text us when you get there,’ Desi instructed loudly, still eyeing Callum over my shoulder. ‘And call me. A lot.’
‘I’ll make sure she sends you a daily selfie holding the morning newspaper,’ he promised, taking my suitcase from Joel. ‘Unless the two of you want to come with us? I’m sure my parents will make room.’
‘Enough,’ I declared, before they could take him up on the offer. ‘We have to go, don’t want to miss the train.’
After one more group hug, Desi reluctantly let me go, Callum inclining his head to my friends as he rolled my suitcase ahead of us.
‘Nice of your mum and dad to bring you to the train,’ he quipped. ‘If you don’t want to come, there’s still time to back out.’
‘Same to you,’ I replied, pulling my backpack all the way up on my shoulders and fastening the straps tight against my body. ‘If I’m honest, I half thought you might not be here when I arrived.’
He gave a nervous laugh that suggested that had at the very least been a possibility.
‘Then what would you’ve done?’
‘Gone to Scotland without you. Had a lovely Christmas with Derek and Lizzie, convinced them to disinherit you and adopt me instead.’
‘They’d love that,’ he said, almost smiling. ‘A neurosurgeon would be more of a welcome addition to the family than a pastry chef.’
‘If that’s true, they’ve got their priorities all wrong,’ I told him. ‘Most people will never need a neurosurgeon. Everyone needs a pastry chef.’
His smile grew broader as we reached the long line of sleek teal carriages rumbling gently on the platform.
‘Hold on, that’s too big to go in the carriage.’ A man wearing a green suit and a stern expression stepped out of the train to block my suitcase. ‘It’ll have to go in the luggage car.’
‘We’ve got a cabin,’ Callum offered when I blanched at the thought of being separated from my precious things. ‘Is there not room in there?’
He gave my backpack and Callum’s black leather holdall a pointed look.
‘Not with the two of you and your other bags.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said quickly, trying to remember exactly what I’d stashed in my backpack.
After all my years in medicine, I was a professional overnighter.
I never went anywhere without deodorant, a toothbrush and a spare pair of knickers upon my person.
I’d be fine. ‘It’s totally OK, it can go in the luggage car, I don’t need it for tonight. ’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure,’ I nodded. ‘Unless there’s a formal dress code for dinner?’
‘I think you might be overestimating the train,’ Callum warned as the conductor passed my suitcase over to another man in another green suit and ushered us aboard. ‘The Orient Express, this is not.’
But I didn’t want to hear it. I loved the romance of trains, the soothing sway of the carriages, the reliable rumble of the tracks.
All my life, I’d wanted to take an overnight journey.
So what if we were on our way to Inverness instead of Venice?
Visions of polished oak, tartan blankets, heavy-bottomed crystal tumblers full of amber-coloured scotch and whatever other wonders awaited us danced through my head as the conductor tapped a key card against an unassuming electronic lock.
I held my breath, ready to behold the beauty inside.
‘I call the top bunk,’ I exclaimed as the door slid open.
Only there was no top or bottom bunk.
Inside the cabin, was just one bed.
One not-quite-as-big-as-a-double bed, set in a distinctly beige, distinctly plastic cabin with hardly enough room to carry a kitten, let alone swing a cat.
‘Is this it?’ I asked in a defeated whisper.
‘Aye, this is the Caledonian Double En-Suite,’ the conductor confirmed. ‘She’s our finest cabin.’
‘But we’re supposed to have two beds,’ Callum replied as I tried to reset my disappointed face.
‘Afraid not, sir. As I said, you’re booked in the Caledonian Double En-Suite. Double meaning double bed.’
If he wasn’t careful, I was fairly sure I could get around to hating this man.
‘But we need two beds,’ Callum stressed as I began to sweat. ‘Can’t you move us?’
The conductor sucked the air in through his teeth like he was about to tell us our carburettor was buggered and I knew before he spoke what the answer would be. ‘I’d like to help but the whole train is fully booked. It’s very close to Christmas.’
‘Is it really?’ I replied, earning a tiny jab to the ribs from Callum’s elbow. ‘Oh, I know!’ My eyes popped open, ever the optimist. ‘Do you have any of those little rollaway beds?’
Both Callum and the conductor gave me a look and I briefly considered throwing myself under the train. Eyeballing the sliver of space between the bed and the bathroom door, I sucked in my bottom lip.
‘That’ll be a no then,’ I muttered.
‘Grand, glad we got that sorted.’ The conductor clapped his hands together even though we had in fact got nothing at all sorted. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you be. We’ve a full house tonight, as I said, but I’ll be back once we’ve left the station to make sure you’ve got everything you need.’
‘Everything except two beds,’ I muttered as he sailed off down the corridor, leaving us alone.
Turning back, I poked my head into the room once again. It was tiny. It was so tiny and so beige, and there wasn’t so much as a trace of tartan to be found.
‘It’s giving ferry,’ I said, reluctantly stepping inside the plastic pod. ‘It’s giving institutional.’
‘Utilitarian,’ Callum agreed, still in the corridor. ‘Do you think they hose it down between every journey?’
I turned to give him a horrified look. ‘I hope they hose it down between every journey. It’s all very wipe clean, isn’t it?’
With a half-hearted scowl of acceptance, he entered the room and closed the door behind him. It was like being locked inside a Zara changing room with Big Bird’s hot Scottish cousin.
‘Pretty snug,’ I commented, backing in until I hit the window. ‘Pretty, pretty, pretty snug.’
Suddenly silent, my oversized roommate picked a laminated card up from the bed, scanning it quickly then turning it over to read the back while I eyed the rest of the cabin.
Bed, window, little sink, tiny towel, mirrored door that should’ve made the space feel larger than it was but instead reflected an anxious-looking redhead and her equally unnerved giant companion, trapped in an impossibly claustrophobic space.
I couldn’t work out how to take off my coat without elbowing Callum in the ribs but it was too hot to keep it on and even the tiny amount of extra space it took up around my person was too much. We needed every inch we could get.
‘Right,’ Callum said eventually, dropping the card back down on the bed beside what looked like a couple of amenity kits that I was shamefully desperate to claw open. ‘Well.’
‘Well indeed.’