Read Online Orkney Twilight by Clare Carson - Free Book Online Page B

Passengers were milling around, climbing on board the train, jumping off again, sticking their heads out of the small gap at the top of the carriage windows, shouting at each other to go and fetch that bag from the car before the guards drove it on to the trailer. She checked the slip road. Perhaps Tom had got cold feet. Perhaps she was better off without a travelling companion anyway. After Becky she had drawn a blank, decided she would tell Liz, definitively, that she couldn’t find a friend to accompany her and she certainly was not going with Jim alone. And then Tom had phoned. Tom Spiller; only son of a doctor and a Marxist sociology lecturer at Manchester University. She had met Tom through Becky and Becky had met Tom when he came down from Manchester for a march in London. Becky fancied Tom, invited him down to stay, but it came to nothing because, it turned out, he had a steady girlfriend in Manchester. Let’s be friends, he had said and that was the end of it as far as Becky was concerned. It was Sam who stayed in touch with Tom long after Becky’s sights had shifted elsewhere. Sam didn’t care about the girlfriend. In fact she preferred it that way. She didn’t fancy Tom. He wasn’t her type. He was too porky and ginger. Although he was tall. And he was a laugh. They had fun together. Which was why she liked him.
    He had phoned to find out what she was doing over the summer. His girlfriend had flown to California for a few months to earn some money as an au pair and he was loafing around Manchester looking for an attachment or an internship or a job on a local paper, but he hadn’t managed to find anything yet. She hadn’t realized before then that he wanted to be a journalist; maybe he had told her and she hadn’t really taken any notice. She still wasn’t taking much notice when she asked him whether he’d like to come to Orkney with her to keep an eye on Jim. He had said yes instantly, pleased with the offer of a free holiday and the chance to meet Jim because Tom had always been curious about her dad.
    ‘The thing that’s interesting about you,’ he had said one evening when she was thrashing him at backgammon, ‘is that everyone else I know has grown up with liberal parents, but your dad is an authoritarian.’ It had rankled, his observation that what was interesting about her was Jim, but she had let it drop.
    ‘It would be more accurate to describe him as an authoritarian liberal,’ she had replied.
    ‘How does that work then?’
    ‘He has liberal views about the world. But if anyone disagrees with him, he tells them to fuck off.’
    At least Tom knew the score then, when he said yes.
    As soon as she had put the phone down she suspected she had made a mistake; she felt breathless, panicked. Tom, she reminded herself too late, asked too many questions, he didn’t leave you alone, he didn’t let up, she would have to spend the whole week fending him off, losing him. She wanted a sidekick, a supporter, not an inquisitor. She phoned him back to say Jim had cancelled the trip, but he was already out for the evening and the next day she was out with Becky and didn’t have time to call. After that it was Thursday. Departure day. And as she stood waiting on the platform she reassured herself with the thought that he might ask lots of searching questions, but he never took much notice of the answers because he was always more interested in forwarding his own theories than listening to anything anybody else had to say. Anyway he lived at the other end of the country, so if it all went wrong she would never have to see him again.
    And there he was now, loping self-consciously towards her. Scuffed Adidas trainers, black Peter Storm windcheater, duffle bag slung over sloping shoulder, one hand in pocket. He didn’t look like someone who might have hidden ambitions. Although he did look different from the last time they had met up. He seemed taller, sharper, clothes hanging not clinging. He had lost