Walk This Way

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Rowan

I sprint down the platform at Euston with all the grace of a giraffe on roller skates, ungainly in my borrowed hiking boots and bag, my stomach churning from the excess of wine I downed last night. Strangers leap out of my way, shooting me disapproving looks.

“Terribly sorry!” I shout as I speed past. “I’m late for my train!”

Brilliant, Rowan. I’m sure they’d never have guessed that given that you’re in a bloody train station, running for a bloody train.

Which is closing its doors in – I check my phone – less than two minutes.

Fuck. I put on another burst of speed, breaking apart a couple holding hands and shooting another apology in my wake. Ten metres. Five. I hurl myself through the doors with seconds to spare. My heart beats a million miles a minute. My shoulders ache from the bag straps. My calves are in agony.

This level of fitness does not bode well.

For the hundredth time this morning, I curse past Rowan and her terrible choices.

What seemed like a great idea tucked in the back room of The Lord Grosvenor, me and my best friend Marnie’s favourite pub, after four hours of drinking and precisely no dinner, has become in the cold light of day a monumentally stupid set of decisions.

Decisions that I have – apparently – already booked and paid for.

I walk down the train until I find my reserved seat, dump my bag and collapse, burying my head in my hands.

What am I doing here?

I don’t do spontaneous. I barely even do considered.

And now I’m on a train to Scotland with my housemate Erica’s hiking gear, heading towards a walk I’m not remotely prepared for.

I don’t know why I’m here. Why, when I woke up this morning, I didn’t roll straight over, think fuck it, and fall back to sleep.

My phone buzzes.

MARNIE: Christ. I feel like a dragon ate me for dinner and shat me out.

MARNIE: How are you doing? I’m here if you need anything. Want to come over and watch Legally Blonde? Rot in bed together?

MARNIE: Remember: Ethan’s a fuckwit. DO NOT CALL HIM BACK.

MARNIE: I had this mad dream that you decided you were going to hike to Sophie’s wedding. Crazy, right?

MARNIE: You, the girl who almost had a panic attack when you woke up with a spider on your nose. Lololol.

MARNIE: Let me know about Legally Blonde. Brian says he’ll make us hot chocolate! Love youuuuu xxx

Instead of replying, I snap a picture of the bag opposite and send it her.

Less than ten seconds later, the train has left the station, and my phone is ringing.

“Oh my fucking god. It wasn’t a dream?” Marnie’s voice is low and rasping, muffled as if she’s still in bed.

Her cool two-bedroom Hackney flat is the stuff of London housing dreams. Her boyfriend, Brian, lucked out big with Bitcoin and bought it before gentrification hit and property prices soared.

Marnie insists she isn’t dating him for the flat, but she’s at least as in love with it as she is him. And she’s head over heels for him.

“First off, I did not almost have a panic attack. I had a very reasonable, not at all inappropriate reaction to an arachnid trying to crawl inside my face. See how much you like it the next time you’re dozing, and you feel a spindly leg creeping up your nasal cavity.

” I take a breath. “And no. It wasn’t a dream. ”

“You’re really on a train to Scotland?”

“I really am.”

There’s a rustle as Marnie rolls over. Brian murmurs in the background, and she shushes him.

“But… hiking, Rowan. You barely even like walking. You once hailed us a cab to go around the corner because it was raining. Your favourite hobby is literally the sofa. Last month, you changed your laptop background to a forest because – and I quote – ‘then no one can give me shit about never leaving the city anymore’.”

I wince. “I’m aware I can be a little bit… particular.”

“Particular? At the Christmas party, you were voted least likely to survive in an apocalypse. By the entire Design department!”

“Can we move on from my failings yet?”

“Have you come to your senses yet?”

My bag easily takes up both seats, and its practical, ocean-blue judgement weighs heavily on me. This is the bag of a doer. A goer. Someone who remembers their keys and never cries because the barista put two sugars in their coffee and they only wanted one.

Someone who gets promoted, instead of being called into a humiliating two-hour meeting where Linda explains in excruciating detail why Andrew – he asked us to call him Andy, though, gosh he’s such a charmer – from Accounting deserves the newly created Associate Creative Director role more than she does. The worst part is, I didn’t even apply.

Someone whose boyfriend would not be caught dead with a leggy blonde’s Louboutin heels wrap around his buttocks in the flat she moved into less than a month ago, after giving up her really rather nice Bethnal Green place because he thought they’d connect better if they spent more time together, and he is a little worried about her tendency to isolate herself.

When I think about it, maybe I do know why I’m here. I certainly can’t be there. Ethan didn’t come home last night, but it’s his flat too. And if I stay there, it’s only a matter of time until I have to face him.

In less than a week, my sister Sophie will be walking down the aisle at the wedding of her dreams. And me? Passed over. Cheated on. A failure again.

A five-day hike isn’t me. It’s so not me it’s practically someone else.

But maybe that’s what I need. To be someone else. At least for a little while.

“No.” I try to say it with conviction, but the words are drowned by another swell of tears.

The clouds have been rolling in for months, and the last twenty-four hours have done nothing to slow them down.

“No, I don’t think I have.” I sniff, prompting a glare from the woman at the next table. “But I do have a favour to ask.”

“Is it rescuing you and dragging you back to London? Because I’ll do it, but I really was planning to turn into a vegetable today. I told you Brian is making hot chocolate, right? You know how I feel about his hot chocolate.”

Marnie’s heart can be ordered thus: Brian’s dog, Rufus, Brian, Brian’s flat, Brian’s hot chocolate, the smell after it rains, her parents, and then possibly me, although I’ve never been brave enough to ask how I rank in case it’s lower.

It doesn’t leave much room for anyone else, but it suits her fine, so long as she isn’t deprived of any of the items on the list for any length of time.

More tears roll down my cheeks. I don’t bother to wipe them away.

“That’s sweet of you, but I don’t need you to leave the nest. You don’t even like Scotland. When you went last year you called it the greenest place you never wanted to visit again.”

“It was the rain,” she moans. “It got into everything. Even my thong! You know how I feel about having a wet thong!”

“Oh, I quite like it when your thong gets wet,” I hear in the background.

“Brian!” A slapping sound. “Not when Rowan is crying. For the hundredth time: we’re only allowed to rub our eternal state of bliss in people’s faces when they’re…”

“Wankers?”

“Happy, Brian! For fuck’s sake. When they’re happy. Does Ro sound happy to you?”

“Not really. She sounds a bit like a drowning whale. Which is impressive, considering that whales can absorb ninety percent of the oxygen in each breath. Ninety per cent! We only absorb five. Honestly. When you really start to think about it, it’s amazing the human species has survived this long.”

“Sorry, Ro,” Marnie interjects. “He’s been on an Attenborough spree again. I swear I dream in Attenborough these days.”

“As you should! He’s a national bloody treasure, is what he is. Watch some Blue Planet, Ro. That will make you feel better. Always works a treat for me.”

“Thanks Brian,” I choke down the phone.

“Ah, you’re welcome, love.” His accent slips up the country as it tends to do when he’s expressing concern.

He’s Lancashire born, like me. It is one of the things that warmed me to him when Marnie brought him into our lives.

That and the dog. I bloody love that dog.

“Now, remember: he’s a bastard and he doesn’t deserve you.

You go to the Highlands and you find yourself a proper man.

One with a sexier accent than Yobbo McYobboson over there.

Must have been like having sex with a pickled plum.

Marnie and I used to joke about it sometimes. Put on his voice, like—”

The sound of Brian’s voice cuts off when Marnie, presumably, begins to suffocate him with a pillow. After a short tussle, she returns to the phone, out of breath and triumphant. “Sorry about that. Now… you were asking about a favour?”

“Right. There isn’t any room in this bag for my wedding things, which is astonishing considering the size of it – honestly, if you saw it in person…

I mean, it’s fucking huge, but it turns out tents and sleeping bags take up acres of space, not to mention the stove, which I’m a bit nervous about, really, as I’ve never used one before.

I guess there’s a first time for everything… ”

“Rowan, you’re rambling.”

“Oh, yes, sorry. What I’m trying to say is would you mind taking my stuff to Sophie’s friend’s Stef’s place? I’ll text you the address. It’s all packed in the bedroom in my orange suitcase. I’d come back down after the walk, but it seems a waste of time and I don’t know if I can…”

And there I go again, tears trickling down my cheeks like someone has turned on the tap.

The idea of going home. Looking at the bed again. Reliving the moment.

I can’t bear it.

Marnie’s voice goes soft. “You leave it with me. I got you. You focus on surviving this walk!” She hesitates. “Sophie’s going to be really upset, Ro. You know that, right?”

“She won’t be that upset.” My voice goes sharp. “We barely talk.”

“You’re her maid of honour.”

“Only because Mum made her!” I take a breath. “I- I need to do this. For me.”

I can’t think about my sister. The hen do I’ll miss. The wedding preparation I won’t turn up for. But I’m not wrong. We don’t talk. She’ll probably be grateful I’m not there, that she can spend the week with her real friends, instead of her loser sister, who always messes everything up.

“Well, we’re on the other end of the phone if anything goes wrong. Love you, Ro. Take care of yourself.”

We end the call, and I let my phone fall on the table as I flop my head down on my arms.

“Tissue, love?” The woman who’s been glaring at me proffers a pack.

I sniff again and take one, preparing to be eternally grateful for her kindness in my hour of need.

“There you go. And if you could keep the yapping to a minimum from now on, that would be appreciated.” She taps a sign next to her head. “This is the quiet carriage.”

My phone buzzes again, earning me another disapproving look. I flip it over.

ETHAN: Ro, I’m sorry.

ETHAN: Please. Can you let me know you’re safe?

ETHAN: Can we talk?

I leave them unread.