The Midnight Train (The Midnight World, #2)(37)

‘What do you argue about?’

She laughed at him.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Just the way you said it. Like I’d just said something totally normal. Like you didn’t laugh.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I liked it. It means you’re like me. My biggest argument with my mam’s grave was when I quit teacher-training. But that was your fault.’

Wilbur felt his heart race at this. Either worry or excitement that he was a part of her life. ‘What? How was that my fault?’

‘Can you remember when I told you I wasn’t drawing any more?’

‘Um—’

‘You made this disappointed face. You didn’t mean to, but you did. And I kept thinking of that while I was at college and it helped me realise I didn’t want to be a teacher. I wanted to do art. And design. And create things. Not just drawings. I make posters and things now. I like it. To take something in your head and make it real. I’m doing what I really want.’

‘I’m pleased, Maggie. Really pleased.’

‘I think the trouble with life is we do things because we should. We act for outside eyes. I’m trying to live it the other way round. To do what feels right deep down even if it shouldn’t be.’

‘It sounds like a good philosophy.’

‘And in a way the art thing … It was talking to you that helped me clarify something. Can you remember? The concert?’

He nodded. Did the tiniest involuntary flinch. She realised what she had said. She looked over at Dougie’s headstone. ‘Oh God. Sorry. I know that’s when it happened. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s no bother, Maggie. I like what you said just now. About love. I just hate that when you lose someone when you’re young you’re going to have to spend more time missing them than with them.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I like that you were there that night.’

Her eyes shone. ‘Why’s that?’

‘It puts something else in the memory. Does that make sense? It helps divert my mind away from the darkness. What was that word you told me about? The art word. You know, the one that explains light and dark in old paintings.’

‘Chiaroscuro?’

‘Yes. That was it. Chiaroscuro.’ He inhaled deeply, steeling himself. ‘See, that was what you were that night. You were the only shining thing.’

The Ghost looked beyond them as an elderly woman placed some carnations beside a grave. He felt the speed of time. Maybe right here, his young self had a moment of feeling it, of not wanting things to slip away without appreciating them.





The Starling


Maggie looked down at Wilbur’s hand. She gave it a little reassuring pat. ‘I think it’s incredible, to see you now. Doing so well. It’s brave, you know. It feels brave just to live sometimes.’

‘I know what you mean. But I don’t feel brave.’

‘Well, just imagine you are. What would you do right now if you had no fear?’

Wilbur studied her a moment. Then, without thinking, he blurted out an honest answer. ‘I’d ask for your phone number.’

She sat back and laughed.

Wilbur felt the prickle of embarrassment rise through his body and settle as heat in his cheeks. He pushed through it. ‘It’s just sometimes it would be good to talk to someone who understands … you know … what it’s like.’ He gestured to his brother’s grave.

Maggie gave an understanding smile. ‘Sure. My dad always answers. Are you all right talking to my dad?’

‘Aye. Sure.’

‘He’s suspicious of lads. Well, he’s all right with Edward now. My boyfriend. We’ve been on and off, but we’re on at the moment.’

The Ghost watched Wilbur trying to mask his crushing disappointment. Maybe Maggie noted it too.

‘Ah. Your man. What’s he like? What does he do?’

‘He’s an architect. Well, studying to be one. Seven-year course at the uni. He wants to build cities in the sky. Into all those new Sheffield tower blocks. He takes me on dates to the Park Hill estate just to look at the lifts. He’s a nice lad and my mam would like him because he speaks proper and went to a posh boarding school down south, and Mam was superficial, bless her. In fact that was one of the arguments I had with her grave. After we last broke up.’

‘Why did you break up?’ he asked, as flatly as he could manage.

Maggie shifted nervously and cast her eyes to the ground. ‘I’d like to say there was something wrong with him but there wasn’t really. I mean, he eyed up Claudette a couple of times but Claudette’s beautiful and it can’t be helped.’

The Ghost watched Wilbur say nothing, and remembered how much he wanted to tell her just how beautiful she was and that she should never doubt it.

‘And he talks down to people without realising it sometimes.’ She gave a guilty look. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just my own insecurity over not knowing much about Le Corbusier. He’s a good person, really. He cares about me.’

Wilbur nodded slowly, his response stuck in the air and never quite spoken. She seemed a little disappointed in him at that moment, as if wanting some kind of reaction.