It was hard for Andrew to believe that it was only five years since he’d been standing in that windswept street, trying to take in what Cameron had just said. It felt like a lifetime ago.
He stirred listlessly at the baked beans currently spluttering in the travel saucepan on the stovetop, before depositing them on a crust of whole wheat he’d cut with his one still-sharp knife, its plastic handle warped and burned. He looked intently at the square of cracked tiles behind the cooker, pretending it was a camera. “So what I’ve done there is to combine the beans and the bread, and now I’ll just add a blob of ketchup (I use Captain Tomato but any brand is fine) to make it a tasty trio. You can’t freeze any of the leftovers, but luckily you’ll have wolfed it all down in about nine seconds and you’ll be too busy hating yourself to worry about that.”
He could hear his neighbor humming downstairs. She was relatively new, the previous tenants having moved out a few months ago. They were a young couple—early twenties, both startlingly attractive; all cheekbones and toned arms. The sort of aesthetically pleasing appearance that meant they’d never had to apologize for anything in their lives. Andrew would force himself to make eye contact with them and summon up a breezy greeting when they crossed paths in the hallway, but they never really bothered to reply. He was only aware that someone new had moved in when he heard the distinctive humming. He hadn’t seen his new neighbor, but, oddly, he had smelled her. Or at least he’d smelled her perfume, which was so strong that it lingered permanently in the hallway. He tried to picture her, but when he tried to see her face it was just a smooth, featureless oval.
Just then, his phone lit up on the countertop. He saw his sister’s name and his heart sank. He checked the date in the corner of his screen: March 31. He should have known. He pictured Sally checking her calendar, seeing a red ring around the thirty-first and swearing under her breath, knowing it was time for their quarterly call.
He took a fortifying gulp of water and picked up.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hey,” Sally said.
A pause.
“Well. How are you, little bro?” Sally said. “Everything cool?”
Christ, why did she still have to speak as though they were teenagers?
“Oh, you know, the usual. You?”
“Can’t complain, dude, I guess. Me and Carl are doing a yoga retreat this weekend, help him learn the teaching side of it and all that jazz.”
Carl. Sally’s husband. Usually to be found guzzling protein shakes and voluntarily lifting heavy objects up and down.
“That sounds . . . nice,” Andrew said. Then, after the sort of short silence that clearly denotes it’s time to move on to the most pressing matter: “And how’s it going with your tests and everything?”
Sally sighed.
“Had a bunch more last month. Results all came back inconclusive, which means they still know sweet FA, basically. Still, I feel much better. And they think that it’s probably not a heart thing, so I’m not likely to do a Dad and kick the bucket without warning. They just keep telling me the usual BS, you know how it is. Exercise more, drink less, blah blah blah.”
“Well, good that they’re not unduly concerned,” Andrew said, thinking that if Sally shouldn’t talk like a teenager he probably shouldn’t talk like a repressed Oxford don. He’d have thought that after all these years it wouldn’t feel like they were strangers. It was still that simple checklist of topics: Work. Health. Family (well, Carl, the only person who came close to a shared family member). Except, this time, Sally decided to throw in a curveball.
“So, I was thinking . . . maybe we should meet up sometime soon. It’s been, like, five years now after all.”
Seven, Andrew thought. And the last time was at Uncle Dave’s funeral in a crematorium opposite a KFC in Banbury. And you were high. Then again, he conceded, he hadn’t exactly been inundating Sally with invitations to meet up since.
“That . . . that would be good,” he said. “As long as you can spare the time, of course. Maybe we could meet halfway or something.”
“Yeah, it’s cool, bro. Though we’ve moved, remember? We’re in Newquay now—Carl’s business, and everything? So halfway is somewhere else these days. But I’m going to be in London seeing a friend in May. We could hang then, maybe?”
“Yes. Okay. Just let me know when you’re coming up.”
Andrew scanned the room and chewed his lip. In the twenty years since he’d moved into the flat barely a thing had changed. Consequently, his living space was looking not so much tired as absolutely knackered. There was the dark stain where the wall met the ceiling in the area that masqueraded as a kitchen; then there were the battered gray sofa, threadbare carpet and yellowy-brown wallpaper that was meant to suggest autumn but in fact suggested digestive biscuits. As the color of the wallpaper had faded, so had the chances of Andrew’s actually doing anything about it. And his shame at the state of the place was only matched by the terror he felt at the thought of changing it or, worse, living anywhere else. There was at least one benefit to being on his own and never having anyone around—nobody could judge him for how he lived.
He decided to change the subject, recalling something Sally had told him the last time they’d spoken.
“How are things going with your . . . person?”
He heard a lighter sparking and then the faint sound of Sally exhaling smoke.
“My person?”
“The person you were going to see. To talk about things.”
“You mean my therapist?”
“Yes.”
“Ditched her when we moved. To be honest, dude, I was glad of the excuse. She kept trying to hypnotize me and it didn’t work. I told her I was immune but she wouldn’t listen. But I’ve found someone new in Newquay. She’s more of a spiritual healer, I guess? I bumped into her while she was putting up an advert next to Carl’s yoga class flyer. What are the chances?”
Well . . . , Andrew thought.
“So, listen, man,” Sally said. “There was something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Right,” Andrew said, instantly suspicious. First arranging to meet, now this. Oh god, what if she was going to try to make him spend time with Carl?
“So—and I normally wouldn’t do this as I know that . . . well, it’s not something we’d normally talk about. But, anyway, you know my old pal Sparky?”
“No.”
“You do, bud. He’s the one with the bong shop in Brighton Lanes?”
Obviously.
“Okay . . .”
“He’s got this friend. Julia. She lives in London. Crystal Palace way, actually, so not too far from you. She’s thirty-five. And about two years ago she went through a pretty shitty-sounding divorce.”
Andrew held the phone away from his ear. If this is going where I think it’s going . . .
“But she’s come out of the other side of it now, and from what Sparky tells me she’s looking to, you know, get back in the saddle. So, I was just thinking, that, like, maybe you might—”
“No,” Andrew said. “Absolutely not. Forget it.”
“But, Andrew, she’s super nice from what I can tell—pretty too, from the pics I’ve seen—and I reckon you’d like her a lot.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Andrew said. “Because I don’t want . . . that. It’s not for me, now.”
“‘It’s not for me.’ Jesus, man, it’s love we’re talking about, here, not pineapple on pizzas. You can’t just dismiss it.”
“Why not? Why can’t I? It’s not hurting anyone, is it, if I do? If anything it’s guaranteeing that nobody gets hurt.”
“But that’s no way to live your life, dude. You’re forty-two, still totally in your prime. You gotta think about putting yourself out there, otherwise you’re, like, actively denying yourself potential happiness. I know it’s hard, but you have to look to the future.”
Andrew could feel his heart start to beat that little bit faster. He had a horrible feeling that his sister was building up the courage to ask him about something they’d never ever discussed, not for want of trying on Sally’s part. It was not so much the elephant in the room as the brontosaurus in the closet. He decided to nip things in the bud.
“I’m very grateful for your concern, but there’s no need for it. Honestly. I’m fine as I am.”
“I get that, but, seriously, one day we’re gonna have to talk about . . . you know . . . stuff.”
“No, we don’t,” Andrew said, annoyed that his voice had come out as a whisper. Showing any sort of emotion was going to come across like an invitation to Sally to keep up this line of questioning, as if he secretly did want to talk about “stuff,” which he definitely, absolutely, didn’t.
“But, bro, we have to at some point, it’s not healthy!”
“Yes, well neither is smoking weed your whole life, so I’m not sure you’re in any position to judge, are you?”
Andrew winced. He heard Sally exhale smoke.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t called for.”
“All I’m saying,” Sally said, and there was a deliberateness to her tone now, “is that I think it would be good for you to talk things through.”
“And all I’m saying,” Andrew said, “is that I really don’t feel like that’s something I want to do. My love life, or lack thereof, isn’t something I feel comfortable getting into. And when it comes to ‘stuff,’ there’s really nothing to say.”
A pause.
“Well, okay, man. It’s up to you I guess. I mean, Carl keeps telling me to stop bothering you about it, but it’s hard not to, you know? You’re my brother, bro!”
Andrew felt a familiar pang of self-loathing. Not for the first time, his sister had reached out and he’d basically told her to take a running jump. He wanted to apologize properly, to tell her that of course it meant a lot to him that she cared, but the words stuck in his throat.
“Listen,” Sally said. “I think we’re nearly ready to sit down to eat. So, I guess . . . speak to you later?”
“Yeah,” Andrew said, screwing his eyes shut in frustration. “Definitely. And thanks, you know, for the call and everything.”
“Sure. No problem, bro. Look after yourself.”
“Yes. I will. Absolutely. And you too.”
As Andrew made his way the short distance from the kitchenette to his computer he nearly walked straight into the Flying Scotsman, which chugged on unconcerned. Of all his locomotives, the Scotsman seemed to carry itself with the most cheerful insouciance (compared to the Railroad BR InterCity, for example, which always seemed petulant at being made to travel at all). It was also the very first engine, and the very first part of his model train collection as a whole, that he’d owned. He’d received it as a gift when he was a teenager, and he was instantly infatuated. Perhaps it was the unexpected source of the present rather than the thing itself, but over time he began to appreciate just how perfect it was. It took him years before he could afford to buy another engine. And then another. And then a fourth. And then track and sidings and platforms and buffers and signal boxes, until eventually all of the floor space in his flat was taken up with a complicated system of interweaving tracks and various accompanying scenery: tunnels made to look like they were cut into mountains, cows grazing by streams, entire wheat fields, allotments with rows of tiny cabbages being tended to by men wearing floppy hats. Before too long he had enough scenery to actively mirror the real seasons. It was always a thrill when he felt the change in the air. Once, during a funeral attended exclusively by the deceased’s drinking pals, the vicar had made reference to the clocks going back as part of a clunky metaphor in his eulogy, and it was all Andrew could do not to punch the air with joy at the prospect of a whole weekend of replacing the currently verdant landscape with something much more autumnal.
It was addictive, building these worlds. Expensive, too. Andrew’s meager savings had long since been spent on his collection, and other than rent, his pay packet now went almost exclusively to upgrading and maintenance. He no longer worried about all the hours, or sometimes whole days, he spent browsing the Internet for ways to improve his setup. He couldn’t remember the point at which he’d discovered and then signed up to the ModelTrainNuts forum, but he’d been on it every day since. The majority of people who posted there made his interest seem positively amateurish, and Andrew thoroughly admired every single one of them. Anyone—anyone at all—who thought to log on to a message board at 2:38 a.m. and post the message: PLEASE HELP A NEWBIE: Stanier 2–6–4T Chassis CRACKED. HELP?? was nearly as much of a hero to him as the thirty-three people who replied within minutes offering tips, solutions and general words of encouragement. In truth, he understood about 10 percent of all that was talked about in the more technical conversations, but he always read them post by post, feeling genuine joy when queries, sometimes having lain dormant for months, were resolved. He would occasionally post on the main forum with general messages of goodwill, but the game changer was after he began regularly chatting to three other users and was invited—via private message no less!—to join an exclusive subforum. This little haven was run by BamBam67, one of the longest-serving members of the site, who had recently been granted moderator rights. The two others invited into the fold were TinkerAl, by all accounts a young and passionate enthusiast, and the more experienced BroadGaugeJim, who’d once posted a photo of an aqueduct he’d built over a running stream that was so beautiful Andrew had needed to have a lie-down.
The subforum had been set up by BamBam67 to show off his new moderator privileges (and Bam did like to show off, often accompanying his posts with photos of his train setup that seemed to be more about letting them see the size of his very beautiful home). They discovered early on that they all lived in London, except for BroadGauge (the enthusiastic, avuncular member of the group), who had been “keeping it real in Leatherhead” for over thirty years, but the idea of their meeting up in real life had never been raised. This suited Andrew (who went by Tracker) just fine. Partly because it meant there were times when he could modify his online persona to mask his real-life inadequacies (this, he had realized early on, was the entire point of the Internet), but also because these were the only (and therefore best) friends he had, and to meet them in real life and find out they were arseholes would be a real shame.
There was a marked difference between what happened on the main forum and the subforum. A delicate ecosystem existed in the former. Conversation had to be strictly on topic, and any user who flouted the rules was duly punished, sometimes severely. The most infamous example of this had been when TunnelBotherer6 had persistently posted about baseboards in a gears topic and had been branded a “waste of space” by the moderator. Chillingly, TB6 never posted again. But in the subforum, away from prying main-board moderator eyes, a slow shift occurred. Before long, it became a place where personal issues were discussed. It felt terrifying at first. It was like they were the Resistance poring over maps under a single lightbulb in a dusty cellar as enemy soldiers drank in the bar above. It had been BroadGaugeJim who’d been the first one to bring up an explicitly non-train issue.
Listen, chaps, he’d written, I wouldn’t normally want to bother you with something like this, but to be perfectly honest I’m not quite sure who else to ask. Basically, my daughter Emily got caught “cyberbullying” someone at school. Mean messages. Photoshopped pics. Nasty stuff, from what I’ve seen. She tells me she wasn’t the ringleader and feels really bad (and I believe her), but I still feel like I need to make sure she understands she can’t be part of anything like that ever again, even if it means losing her mates. Just wondered if any of you might have any advice for a useless duffer like me!! No worries if not!!!!!
Andrew’s scrambled eggs went cold as he waited to see what happened. It was TinkerAl who responded first, and the advice he gave was simple, sensible, yet obviously heartfelt. So much so that Andrew felt momentarily overwhelmed. He tried writing his own response, but he couldn’t really think of anything better than what TinkerAl had said. Instead, he just backed up Tinker’s suggestion with a couple of lines, and resolved (perhaps a little selfishly) to be the helpful one next time.
Andrew logged on, heard the reassuring sound of the Scotsman rushing past behind him, and waited in eager anticipation of the little breeze that followed in its wake. He adjusted his monitor. He’d bought the computer as a thirty-second birthday present for himself. At the time it had seemed like a sleek and powerful machine, but now, a decade later, it was impossibly bulky and slow compared to the latest models. Nevertheless, Andrew felt an affection for the clunky old beast that meant he’d cling on to it for as long as it still spluttered into life.
Hi, all, he wrote. Anybody on for the night shift?
As he waited for the reply he knew would come within a maximum of ten minutes, he maneuvered carefully across the rail tracks to his record player and thumbed through his LPs. He kept them in a wonky pile rather than in neat rows on a shelf—that diminished the fun of it. In this more ramshackle style of ordering he could still occasionally surprise himself. There were some other artists and albums in there—Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespie—but Ella vastly outnumbered all of them.
He slid The Best Is Yet to Come out of its sleeve but changed his mind and put it back. When he altered his railway landscapes that was because of the changing seasons, but there wasn’t as straightforward a logic when choosing which of Ella’s records to listen to. With her, it was just a case of what felt right in the moment. There was only one exception—her version of “Blue Moon.” He hadn’t been able to play that particular song for twenty years, though that didn’t stop the tune from filtering into his head on occasion. As soon as he recognized the first notes, pain would grow at his temples, his vision would fog, and then came the sound of piercing feedback and shouting, mixing with the music, and the uncanny sensation of hands gripping his shoulders. And then, just like that, it was gone, and he’d be looking at a confused pharmacist or realizing he’d missed his bus stop. On one occasion a few years before, he’d walked into a record shop in Soho and realized that the song was playing on the shop’s speakers. He’d left so hastily he’d ended up in a tense encounter with the shopkeeper and a passing off-duty police officer. More recently, he’d been channel-hopping and found himself watching a football match. Minutes later he was desperately searching for the remote to turn it off, because apparently “Blue Moon” was what the Manchester City fans sang. To hear the actual song was bad enough, but fifty thousand people bellowing it out of sync was on another level. He tried to tell himself that it was simply one of those unusual afflictions people suffer and just have to tolerate, like being allergic to sunlight, or having night terrors, but the thought lingered that at some point, probably, he would have to talk to someone about it.
He ran his fingers down the uneven record pile. Tonight it was Hello Love that caught his eye. He carefully dropped the needle and went back to his computer. BamBam67 had been first to reply.
Evening, all. Night shift for me too. House to myself thankfully. Seen they’re repeating that BBC thing from last year tonight? James May sitting in his shed rebuilding a Graham Farish 372–311 N Gauge steam loco. Apparently they did it all in one take. Anyway, don’t bother with it. It’s awful.
Andrew smiled and refreshed. There was TinkerAl right on cue:
HAHA! Knew it wouldn’t be your c.o.t.! I loved it I’m afraid!
Refresh. Here was BroadGaugeJim:
Evening shift for me too, squires. I watched the May thing first time around. Once he’d argued in favor of cork underlay over ballasted I’m afraid I couldn’t really take the rest of it seriously.
Andrew rolled his head around on his shoulders and sank down low in his chair. Now that the four of them had posted, now that Ella was crooning and a train was rattling around the room, defeating the silence, he could relax.
This was when everything came together.
This was everything.