The Midnight Train (The Midnight World, #2)(68)

‘Um, Wilbur, what are you doing?’

‘I wasn’t sure if you still lived here. I was nearby and just took a guess.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘There was a thing on. In Clapham. I’d agreed to go and I was in the area and there was a very nice pub and I was onto my third or fourth or maybe seventh glass of Scotch and I thought I would really like to see a friend right now. And so I thought of the best friend there ever was. Charlie Applewood.’

‘Wilbur, it’s after midnight.’

He wobbled just a little as he contemplated this. ‘I know. But when you think about it in terms of the whole world, Claudette, then really it’s mainly daytime right now. It’s’ – he counted on his fingers – ‘nine a.m. in Sydney … and four in the afternoon in San Francisco.’

‘But this isn’t San Francisco. This is South London.’

He thought of something. ‘Charlie used to dream of going to San Francisco. Has he been yet?’

The Dreamer could hardly believe it. ‘What am I doing? Why am I bothering them? This is painful to watch.’

Claudette sighed. ‘Our daughter is asleep. She has school tomorrow. She’s a light sleeper. I think it would be better if you go home.’

Wilbur smiled wistfully. ‘What’s her name again?’

‘It’s Sophie. But, please, Wilbur, I think it would be best if you go home. I don’t know if Charlie—’

‘Sophie is a beautiful name.’

Then Charlie was there in his pyjama bottoms and faded Bowie T-shirt. ‘Wilbur? Bloody hell. What are you doing here?’

‘Maggie left me. And I had no one to talk to.’

It looked like the least surprising news Charlie had ever heard. ‘I’m sorry, Wilbur.’

‘I just wondered if I could …’ He paused for a moment, as if the sentence was a feat of endurance. ‘I just wondered if I could come in and chat.’

Charlie and Claudette shared a look. The subtle language of truly close people.

‘All right,’ said Charlie. ‘But we have to be quiet.’

Wilbur saw a light go on upstairs. He realised he had woken their daughter up and hated himself for it, remembered the Ghost. He also seemed to have sobered up just enough now to realise how ridiculous it was for him to be there.

‘No. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s good to see you. I should be going to bed too, I’m flying to Dublin tomorrow … We’re setting up a shop there.’

Charlie didn’t know what to do with that information. ‘Right.’

Wilbur began walking away towards the main road.

Charlie, concerned, stepped out onto the pavement. ‘Mate, you will be all right, won’t you?’

Wilbur stopped. ‘Did you go in the end?’

‘What?’

He pointed to his T-shirt. ‘The concert. David Bowie. The last time I saw you you’d talked about going.’

Charlie, standing on the pavement in his slippers, gave a look of total perplexity. ‘That was nearly thirteen years ago.’

‘I know. But did you go?’

‘Yes. Yes, I did, actually. Went with someone from work. I got a new job pretty quick after, you know …’

‘I’m sorry about all that.’

‘Water under the bridge.’

The Ghost sighed to himself. ‘Water under the bridge. It’s always water under the bridge … There is a lot of water under that bridge.’

Wilbur, yellow under the street lamp, looked mournfully at his old friend. ‘Was it a good concert?’ he asked.

Charlie nodded. ‘Really good. One of the best … Listen, will you be all right, Wilbur?’

‘Of course! I’ll be grand. Business is booming.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘No. I will be fine, I will be fine …’

‘Listen, call me if you need anything.’

‘Thanks. See you later, Charlie.’

And Charlie stayed out on the pavement watching his old friend walk away, into the night, with an expression between confusion and sympathy. ‘Yes. Maybe. See you.’

And Charlie went back inside. The two unseen observers saw him stroke Claudette’s arm. ‘Well, that was weird.’





The Thing With Love


They were back on the train.

The view outside was speeding up. A blur of offices and speeches and rolling over in bed and feeling for a presence that wasn’t there.

‘The thing with love,’ the Ghost said, ‘is that it can feel so eternal that it can be mistaken for something that will be around for ever. Like a rock formation. Or the sky. But love is like every other human thing – it withers without attention. It’s like what Alfred told us. About it being a garden …’

This annoyed the younger, living, dreaming Wilbur on the train. ‘Oh shut up,’ he said, staring out of the window at his future self as he cried himself to sleep. ‘Just, please, for once, shut up … You said yourself you don’t have all the answers. You seem to have screwed up your entire life, yet here you are acting like some phantom Prospero who knows everything.’

The Ghost shrugged beside him on the velvet seat. ‘I’m just trying to help you.’