Follow You Home, Page 2

  ‘What about you?’ Ion asked me.

  ‘I’m a developer,’ I said. ‘I created an app for iPhones and iPads and sold it to one of the big tech companies.’ As ever, I was concerned about sounding modest, rather than boastful, when talking about this.

  ‘Which is how we could afford to come on this trip,’ added Laura.

  ‘Which company?’ Ion asked. ‘Let me guess—Google? Facebook?’

  ‘No, Skittle.’ Skittle were one of the biggest of the new crop of tech companies that had sprung up over the last couple of years, specialising in mobile apps.

  ‘Wow. That’s beyond awesome. Did you hear that, Alina?’

  She dragged her attention away from the window and nodded at me. ‘Great.’

  ‘So, are you famous in England?’ Ion asked, eyes shining.

  ‘No! I’m barely even famous in my own flat. What do you two do?’ I wasn’t allowed to talk about my app until it was officially announced; I had signed a confidentiality agreement. I deliberately aimed the question towards Alina, whose reticence was making me uncomfortable.

  But Ion spoke up before his girlfriend had a chance. ‘Alina’s an illustrator.’

  ‘Really? What kinds of things?’

  ‘Comic books,’ she said, meeting my eye. For the first time, I saw a spark of something other than boredom. Pride, plus a hint of defiance, as if she expected to be mocked.

  ‘That’s so cool,’ I said, genuinely impressed.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ion. ‘We’re going to collaborate on something, aren’t we?’ He rubbed her knee.

  ‘So, what, you’re a writer?’ I asked.

  Before he could open his mouth, Alina said, ‘He does nothing.’

  The volume was turned down on his smile. ‘That’s a little unfair.’

  This was interesting: the sudden crackle of tension between them.

  Ion turned his smile up again, but removed his hand from her knee. ‘OK, so I am between jobs at the moment. But I’m writing a book. Along with the, you know, thing with Alina.’

  ‘What’s it about? The book?’

  ‘Oh, just, like, my personal philosophy. Thoughts I’ve had about . . . stuff.’

  Laura had gone to the toilet. I made a mental note to tell her about Ion’s book, knowing she would find it amusing.

  As Ion was about to elaborate on his work in progress, the train pulled into a station. It was almost deserted, just a man in his sixties with an enormous, boxy suitcase.

  Alina, to my surprise, jumped up and slipped through the door, helping the man onto the train, carrying his case into the carriage. The old man, who looked strong and fit enough to be able to handle the suitcase himself, thanked her in his own language then headed off to a seat at the other end of the carriage.

  The four of us chatted for the next hour. Ion wanted to know all about the app I’d developed and we talked about that for a while, while Laura and Alina, who had come out of her cocoon after helping the older man, chatted about travel. Flattered by how interested and impressed Ion seemed—I was used to my friends’ eyes glazing over when I said anything at all about the app—I temporarily forgot all about my confidentiality agreement.

  Towards the end of this conversation Hungarian border guards, wearing blue jackets and yellow high-visibility vests, got on the train and checked our passports. They studied Alina’s passport for a long time before finally passing on to the next passenger. Like the police at the station, they had guns on their hips.

  After they’d gone and I’d put our passports and tickets back in my backpack, Laura whispered in my ear, ‘That guy was staring at me again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s looking at my reflection in the window.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not being paranoid?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ She flexed her shoulders and arched her neck. ‘I’m so tired.’

  ‘I know. Me too.’ I yawned.

  ‘But this seat is too uncomfortable.’

  Ion, who had just returned from the toilet, overheard. ‘Hey, there’s an empty sleeper compartment just down the corridor. Why don’t you go and have a nap in there?’ His voice was hushed, conspiratorial. ‘It will be a couple of hours before the Romanian guards come through and we can keep an eye out for you, come and wake you just after we cross the border.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Laura said.

  ‘It will be fine,’ Ion said.

  ‘I think it’s a good idea,’ I said to Laura.

  She pulled a face, torn between her desire for sleep and her dislike of breaking rules.

  ‘Go on, Laura,’ Alina said. ‘I promise we’ll wake you.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘I’ll set an alarm on my phone too. What time are we due to cross the border?’

  Ion checked his watch. ‘We left Budapest forty minutes late, so it will be about three-ten. You’ve got just under two hours.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Laura said. ‘Thank you.’

  She glanced across the carriage and I saw what had made her mind up. The man was staring at her again, the tip of his tongue resting between his lips, one leg jiggling up and down. Slowly, he looked away, a smirk on his face.

  Chapter Three

  The sleeper compartment was tiny, containing two narrow bunks with a gap of around three feet between them. Outside the window: blackness. We were deep in the Hungarian countryside now. I could hardly even imagine what the landscape would look like outside the window. Forests? Plains? I pressed my face against the window. I couldn’t even see any stars. If it wasn’t for the occasional flicker from an isolated building, the train could be hurtling through space. We could be anywhere. We could be at the end of the world.

  Laura kicked off her boots and flopped down on one of the bunks. I sat opposite her and took my phone out of the front pocket of my backpack. The battery was almost dead—the bloody thing was always almost dead—but I set the alarm anyway, hopeful that it would last.

  ‘So what do you think of our two new friends?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. He is a little in love with himself. Can’t wait to read his book.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘But Alina’s graphic novel sounds interesting. She was telling me it’s about female power, a kind of feminist twist on the typical superhero story. She said she’d send me a copy.’

  ‘Cool.’ I moved over to her bunk and bent to kiss her. ‘You said you’d always wanted to have sex on a train.’

  ‘You’re priceless. Now, if you’d booked a sleeper like this for the whole night it might have been different. But the point of coming in here was to have a nap.’

  ‘Come on, it will be exciting. Could you’—I leaned forward to kiss her—’be persuaded?’

  ‘Mmm. Maybe.’ She kissed me back. I slid my hand up her smooth thigh and her breathing grew heavier; I could feel her heart fluttering as she pressed against me. ‘Lock the door,’ she said, breaking away. The flesh that covered her collar bone was flushed.

  I stood up as best I could and tried the lock. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. It’s broken. It won’t lock.’ That was probably why this compartment was empty.

  ‘You’d better take a cold shower, then.’

  She gave me another of the little smiles that I loved, turned away and faced the wall. I couldn’t help but laugh. Foiled by a broken lock. I lay down on the opposite bunk and watched as her breathing changed. Within minutes, she was asleep.

  I was determined to stay awake and took my phone out again to play a game, even though it was draining the battery. I had a plug converter somewhere in my backpack but was unable to gather the energy to heave myself off the bunk and find it. I was going to stay awake anyway, in case anyone tried to come through the unlocked door, so it didn’t matter if my phone died soon. I’d charge it before we got to our destination, a
ssuming I could find a socket.

  I had dropped my phone in Italy, cracking the screen. I played the game for a while, peering through the spiderweb of cracks, aware of the growing heaviness of my eyelids. I told myself I would stop playing in a minute, move around, have a drink of water. The train rattled and rocked me on my bunk. I needed to stay awake.

  Closing my eyes, deciding it would do no harm to rest them.

  I sat bolt upright. I was cold and sweaty and my mouth felt like the inside of a grave. My phone dropped to the floor with a thud. I’d been dreaming I was in a coffin and someone was knocking on the lid.

  BANG BANG BANG.

  Laura rolled over and opened her eyes, just as the door was yanked open and a thickly accented voice said, ‘Passports.’

  Chapter Four

  I blinked at the guards, my sleep-sodden brain refusing to function.

  The one in front had his arm outstretched. ‘Passports.’

  Laura sprang into action before me, crouching on the floor and unzipping the front pocket of my backpack.

  The guards watched her. The one in front was in his thirties, overweight with a bald head and patchy stubble on his chin. His colleague was a little younger, with a neatly trimmed beard and intense blue eyes. They both wore the same impatient, pissed-off expression, like they had just been told their wages were being cut. The guidebook said the Romanian border guards were welcoming and friendly, so I smiled at them and nodded. They didn’t smile back.

  Laura looked over her shoulder at me, an anxious expression on her face, then unzipped the front pocket on her own backpack. She rummaged inside, then turned back to me, her face pale.

  ‘They’re not here,’ she said to me.

  ‘What?’

  The guards watched as I scooted onto the floor beside her, sticking my hand into the front pocket where I always kept our passports, tickets and money.

  ‘They were in here,’ I said quietly. ‘Definitely. I put the passports back in here after the Hungarian guards checked them.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Laura hissed.

  ‘Yes.’ I was aware that my voice was trembling slightly. ‘Didn’t you see me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her eyes were wide, panic creeping in. ‘I wasn’t really looking.’

  ‘Come on,’ the bald guard barked.

  I held up my hands. ‘Sorry, one moment.’

  He tapped his foot metronomically, a hollow sound that echoed around the compartment, as I searched the side pockets of the backpack, finding nothing but some chewing gum and various screwed-up receipts and leaflets. As Laura searched her own backpack, I stuck my hand into the main compartment. My hand touched something that felt like a passport and my heart leaped for a moment, but it was just a pamphlet I’d picked up in a museum in Barcelona.

  I thought hard. Had I definitely put the passports back? Perhaps I had absent-mindedly set them on the ledge where we’d been sitting with Alina and Ion. No. I remembered unzipping the backpack because the zip had got stuck and required some yanking before it would fasten. I had definitely put them back in the front pocket.

  The guard’s foot continued to tap. I glanced up at Laura. She had gone even paler.

  ‘They’re gone,’ I said, the second word sticking in my throat.

  The bald guard said something in Romanian to his colleague, his voice bear-deep and humourless.

  I stood up. ‘Our passports, our tickets . . . They’ve been stolen.’

  The guard glared at me, then at Laura, who stood beside me. I reached out for her hand, squeezing it. The guard noticed this and sneered.

  ‘We’re British,’ I said, as if this would make some sort of difference, and now they both wore sneers. A part of me was tempted to make my ludicrous comment into a joke, mention the Queen, Harry Potter, Manchester United. I bit my tongue.

  ‘What are your names?’ Bald Guard asked.

  We told them. Daniel Sullivan, Laura Mackenzie.

  I was confident this could be sorted out. They would be on our side. We were victims of a crime, and the thief must still be on the train. Had it stopped briefly to let the guards on? I hadn’t noticed. Whatever, we were the ones who had been wronged and these men, these figures of authority, would be able to help us. OK, so we weren’t supposed to be in the sleeper compartment, but it had been empty. In England, if you travel in the wrong part of the train or without a ticket, you are asked to pay the difference or get a penalty fare. This would all be OK.

  ‘Someone must have come into the carriage while we were asleep,’ I said. ‘Stolen our things.’

  I had no idea if the guards could understand me. They stared at me blankly. Then Bald Guard, who appeared to be more senior, said something to Bearded Guard, who left the compartment, stalking off down the corridor.

  Bald Guard picked up my backpack and began to pull items out of it. My clean T-shirts, the Europe by Rail guidebook, my sunglasses. There was a carrier bag full of dirty laundry at the bottom of the bag. I saw him lift it out and open it, then grimace and recoil. He dropped it with the rest of the items he’d removed on the bunk and grunted, then picked up Laura’s bag. He unzipped it and peered inside, throwing her make-up bag onto the floor.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You can’t do that.’

  Ignoring me, he rifled through Laura’s backpack, pulling out her carrier bag of dirty clothes and pushing it back in immediately. Then he pulled out a clean black and pink bra, held it up and looked straight at Laura’s chest. I stepped in front of her and he laughed, throwing the bra on to the small pile of our possessions, dropping the backpack beside mine.

  Laura sat down on the bunk and began stuffing our things back into the two backpacks. She was shaking and all I wanted to do was comfort her, make it all better. Make this stop.

  I felt the need to say something to the guard, to appeal to him, make him understand, but before I could think of anything useful to say the bearded guard returned. With him was another man, this one tall and thin with a grey face. He was wearing a rail company uniform. In his hand was a long sheet of paper containing what I assumed was a list of bookings. He ran his finger down the list and shook his head.

  The railway guard and the two border guards exchanged sentences rapidly.

  Bald Guard pointed at me, groping in his memory for the English words he required, and at that moment Alina arrived.

  ‘Thank God,’ I said. Someone who could speak Romanian. She would be able to explain everything to them. I had never felt so pleased to see someone.

  ‘Alina, we’ve had our passports stolen, and our tickets and all our money. Can you explain to them? I don’t think they understand.’

  I wanted Alina to appear business-like, calm, but she seemed nervous, jittery. She spoke to the men in their mother tongue, the words fast and hard.

  Bald Guard shook his head, pointing at us and then at the list that the railway guard held.

  Alina listened, then turned to us. ‘They say you’re not supposed to be in here. That this compartment should be empty.’

  Well, yes, I wanted to say to her. Perhaps you could tell them it was your boyfriend’s idea? But where would that get me?

  The man in the rail uniform spoke. His voice was thin, emphysemic.

  ‘They’re accusing you of being . . .’ Alina groped for the word, came up with something she must have remembered from movies. ‘Stowaways?’

  ‘Fare dodgers,’ I said. ‘But we had tickets. Ordinary tickets. They were stolen. Please tell them we’re sorry, we know we shouldn’t have come into the sleeper carriage. But we bought tickets. We’re the victims of a crime.’

  She nodded and, I assumed, relayed this to the men.

  The bald guard exclaimed a universal word: ‘Hah!’

  Alina spoke to him again, raising her voice, her nervousness giving way to anger. I could tell from the way they were looking
at her—at the leather jacket, her boots, her hair and make-up—that they thought she was some kind of freak. Had she been dressed smartly, or been older, more conservative-looking, perhaps everything would have been different. Or perhaps it was her manner. Alina, I realised too late, was not the best ambassador, and soon they were arguing, she and the bald guard, both their voices increasing in volume, their words piling on top of one another, neither listening to the other.

  A man in the adjacent compartment poked his head out and the bearded guard shouted at him, prompting him to shut the door quickly.

  The argument between Alina and the guard escalated, firing harsh words at each other. Suddenly, the guard put up his hand and spat out a single syllable—‘Stop’ or ‘Enough’?—and said something to the railway guard, who nodded and scurried away.

  The bald guard pointed at Laura and me and said, ‘Come.’

  Alina protested and he pushed her, propelling her along the corridor. She kept trying to turn back, still arguing, but he put his hand between her shoulder blades and shoved her.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I said, following behind. ‘Alina?’

  She didn’t reply, just continued to pour forth a stream of Romanian.

  ‘The train’s slowing,’ Laura said in a hushed voice.

  She was right. We were slowing down as if we were coming into a station, the brakes squeaking. The guard yanked open the door that led into the area between the carriages, and pushed Alina through, ordering ‘Come, come,’ to Laura and me.

  The train continued to slow, and the vast blackness outside was punctuated by a few weak lights. The train slowed and halted, brakes emitting a high-pitched whine, and I rocked back, banging my shoulder on the wall. The train came to a standstill and the doors hissed and slid open. I looked out past the guard and Alina at a small, open-air station, the platform a foot below where we stood.

  It was only then that I realised what was happening. I said, ‘No,’ but the guard ignored me. He pushed Alina off the train, causing her to fall onto her knees on the dark platform, and then he yanked Laura’s arm, propelling her off the train too. She made a gasping sound as she half-fell, half-jumped, landing on her feet and managing to stay upright. Finally, the guard shoved me off the train. I turned to shout at him, to plead, and he threw our backpacks off after us. They landed with a thump.