Page 22 of The Christmas Express

Cali

I slept fine. I slept fine! I probably snored more than Sara did, anyway. The cabin was cosy, like my flat in London, and the bunk beds made it feel like camping, and the train moving along was like being rocked to sleep.

And I only went into a spiral of resentment once as I lay there awake, thinking about how in the hell Luke had ended up getting a compartment to himself when the rest of us had to share.

None of us are really talking yet, on this trip. It’s fine. It’s like the past five years, really, so I guess no big deal. The corners of my mouth droop at that thought, though.

Actually, two of us are talking, in a way.

Through the wall are the unmistakeable voices of Joe and Joss bickering.

It’s been like that for the last hour, and I could get up and go to the celestial carriage, but Sara’s gone up there with her book so I’m enjoying the solitude and the view from the window.

We’re still moving through the forests of Ontario today, the sunlight low in the sky and streaming through tree branches, sparkling against the white snow which seems to thicken the further we get into Canada. It’s beautiful, like the glittering lights of Regent Street at Christmastime.

Click. Was that Luke’s compartment door opening, behind the other wall? I sit up like a meerkat. Where’s he off to? Maybe I need to take a walk too?

Don’t you dare get off this seat, Cali. Glue those butt cheeks to the chair if you have to.

I wonder how he slept. Did he take the top or bottom bunk? Probably the bottom. I remember he used to sleep all drapey, arms and legs melting off the sides of the mattress, breathing slow and relaxed.

That first morning, after all those months (years?) of flirting and eye contact and imagining scenarios, when we woke up together in my bed it was summer and the sun was already up and streaming around buildings and through my window even though it was early, and I just watched him sleep like a delirious little weirdo.

The night before we’d been doing something so insignificant, so ‘normal’ for us, just reading books on the sofa, leaning together, him smelling of vanilla, me probably smelling of the raspberry ripple ice cream I was eating straight from the tub.

Then I remember he just put down his book on his lap, lost in thought.

I asked him what it was, what was happening in those pages?

And he just turned in his seat, reached over, and put his fingers behind my neck.

I remember sucking in my breath, my hands clasping the ice cream tub, and unable to keep the smile off my face as he came in for a kiss.

Reader, I dropped the ice cream.

We were inseparable that week in a way we’d never been before, and the icing on the cake was supposed to be the fact that at the weekend we’d be going on holiday with all our best friends and we could tell them and they’d be all supportive and we’d be like Ross and Rachel and happily ever after would begin.

‘How’s Luke?’ Sara asks, coming back into our cabin and looking like she’s too cool to care less how Luke is.

‘What? I don’t know. He’s only just left his room, I think. I heard something, it could have been any door really. How was the celestial car?’

‘Not our Luke, your Luke. Weren’t you going to call him?’

Bollocks. ‘Oh yeah, he’s fine. Great, actually.’

‘What did you get him for Christmas?’ She sits down on her bed, now folded back into a chair.

‘Just the usual boyfriend stuff,’ I answer. Am I blushing? I’m definitely blushing. Perhaps now would be a good time to go for a walk around the train. ‘You mentioned you were seeing someone, but nothing serious?’ I deflect.

She’s about to answer when an announcement comes over the speakers to say the train is about to stop at Sioux Lookout and that we all need to get off, which I don’t mind because who doesn’t love a lookout?

Sara and I cease conversing and busy ourselves converting our cabin back into its seats for the day and putting our belongings back in our bags. I go to clean my teeth in the shared bathroom down at the end of the carriage. She goes to make a call.

I scrub my gnashers slowly, lazily, observing my chin spots as I do so, that same heaviness coming out of me in the form of a long, frothy sigh.

Once my dramatic exhale has completed, the sound of a mumbling voice outside the bathroom door fills any quiet.

Is that Luke’s voice? It sounds like Luke... I press my ear against the door, my toothbrush dangling from my hand.

‘Yep, alright. Will do. Yep. Buh-bye. Love you.’

He loves her! Well, obviously. I’m not jealous.

I lean over the sink and let the minty foam dribble from my mouth. Everything in me feels heavy.

I knew that, coming on this trip, things probably wouldn’t go back to anything romantic between us.

Too much time has passed. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t hope, if I’m honest with myself.

How could I have been so stupid, all that time ago, to have finally got together with the only guy who’s ever made me feel like this, only to push him away as soon as things got hard?

And now he’s in love with someone else.

I stand up straight. He’s in love with someone else, time to let go of the fantasy, and not be an Ember about it.

Not long after, I’m stepping down from the train, and the cold air greets me like a chilly hug, the light seeming brighter, the ground stiller. Obviously. Ahhh. I stretch my arms overhead and open my minty mouth to take a gulp of the frosty air.

We’ve been travelling on the train for over twenty-four hours now, and tomorrow is Christmas Eve. It’s a weird thought that it’ll be Boxing Day before the journey is over, and we’ve made it to Bryn’s wedding.

I don’t know if she’s going to get her wish that we’re all getting along like best buds again, though.

Luke steps off the train behind me and squints into the sunshine, stubble on his face, dishevelled, hunky.

Who does he think he is, some kind of nineties movie star?

Some kind of... heart-throb heartbreaker from a boy band?

I scrunch my nose at him, and I give him my best glare until he starts to look over and then I turn my back so he doesn’t see me.

By the time we’ve all crunched over the thick Canadian snow, taken some photos of the surroundings, and pettily queued up separately to buy identical coffees from the kiosk, it’s time to get back onboard, where we’ll remain until a longer stop for refuelling in Winnipeg tonight.

But just as I’m taking my seat back by the window, a commotion outside the carriage catches my eye, and ears.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ I mutter, getting up again and rushing to the train door.

‘I cannot spend another second with you.’ Joss is seething, baring her teeth at her brother, the two of them squaring off on the platform like two duelling panthers about to strike. Beside Joss is her suitcase, which Joe keeps trying to grab.

‘Joss, what are you doing?’ I call from the steps.

‘Leaving. Like I should have done before I ever even went along with this ridiculous plan,’ she spits, without looking at me, her glare focused on her brother.

‘Why are you leaving?’

‘None of your business!’ This time she swings around with such anger it makes me step backwards, right into Ember, who’s appeared behind me.

A rush of cold blood seems to race through my veins.

I blink at Joss, a deer in headlights, my fingers reaching up to my chin, and for a second, I’m back in Spain, on the last day of the holiday, and even though half a decade has passed, Joss seems just as mad at me today as she did back then.

All my words have deserted me, darted into dark corners of my brain, afraid of the wrath of Joss. A whistle sounds further up the platform.

Joe lunges for her case again. ‘Look. I would rather tie myself to these tracks and let the train run me over than share a compartment with you again, but if you shut up for five seconds and get back on the train then I’m sure we can figure something out for Queen Joss.’

‘Nope,’ she says, snatching her case out of his way. ‘You can go without me. You can all go without me.’

‘What, are you going to live here? Become a forest-woman? Hitchhike to Vancouver?’

‘Maybe I will. I will hitchhike across all of North America before I get back on the train.’

‘You are so... !’ Joe growls in frustration.

‘No, you are so , we do not work well together,’ she spells out through snarly lips. ‘You go your way, I’ll go mine.’

‘Oh my Godddddd .’ Joe lifts his hands to his hair. ‘Is this about the business, again?’

‘No, it’s not about the business, because if it was about the business I’d be reminding you that not only are you an awful roommate but a shitty colleague, too.’

Behind me, Ember mutters in recognition. ‘Oh yeah, the failed business.’

‘Fine,’ Joe spits, reaching across and pushing her case over so it thumps onto the tarmac. A small crowd is forming now, people looking out of train windows, passengers pausing halfway up the steps. ‘Fine! Stay here. I don’t care.’

‘Fine!’

Joe turns and strides towards the train. Another whistle blows, and along the platform I can hear people being shooed back inside, and carriage doors being slammed closed.

‘Whoa, hold on,’ I say, putting my hand up in front of Joe and stopping him before he can board. ‘Joss, come on, we have to go.’

Joss, suitcase handle gripped, marches away, her back to me, lifting her middle finger into the air.

‘Oh my God, let her go,’ Ember mumbles behind me.

‘No! What?’ I say, then shout back out to Joss. ‘Oi, come back here this instant!’

The train conductor man is approaching our door.

‘Bye, everyone, have a great life,’ Joss calls back, and you know what, I don’t think she means that.

‘Joe, get her!’ I cry as he pushes past me onto the train.

The train conductor man appears in front of me. ‘Excuse me, miss, we need to close this door.’

‘But our friend, she’s not back on board yet.’

‘The one leaving the station?’

‘She’s coming back, just one second, Joss !’

Joss doesn’t turn, but down on the far end of the carriage, Luke jumps down the steps, jogging over to her.

Oh, bloody hell, now that’s two of them we’ve lost.

In this momentary distraction, the conductor has closed my door, and now me, Ember and Joe are squeezed in the window frame, the cold air on our faces.

‘Luke, leave her, mate, get back on board,’ Joe shouts.

‘I’m not leaving her,’ Luke calls back.

‘She’s not going anywhere, she’s just being dramatic, as usual.’

‘You don’t think she wants to leave?’ I ask Joe.

‘No, of course not, that case felt pretty empty to me.’

The train blows what I can only assume is a final whistle, because the train chap is now shaking his head and closing the door Luke leapt out of.

Oh my God, Luke. My heart speeds up, my lips dry. Don’t go without Luke. Joss... well, if she really wants to go... ‘Luke, hurry!’ Then I shake my head. ‘And you, Joss, come on.’

Luke’s reached her and they’re talking intensely. She’s looking into his eyes, her forehead in a frown, and for a moment the anger seems to be replaced with sadness, and I see the old Joss again, the one who just wanted to be involved, who was a bit socially awkward but always made the effort.

Train man is at the final carriage now, with one door to close.

Come on, come on, come on.

‘Hurry up!’ Ember shouts in my ear, an unexpected note of genuine concern. My eyebrows dart upwards.

I know this is selfish, don’t judge me, but I’m not ready for Luke to be left behind. I want to talk to him. I want to get back... something... of what we used to have. Even just as a friend. He has to make it back to the train.

‘Joss, for crying out loud, that’s enough,’ Joe shouts.

‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a child,’ she shoots, but in the same moment she angles her body back towards the train, and Luke takes her case, picking it up and then darting an amused look directly at me that makes my heart burst into a little flame (in a good way), and the two of them begin walking to the train.

Luke’s walk swiftly becomes a jog and Joss tries her hardest to appear nonchalant but also speeds up a little bit. The train man throws his hands in the air, having closed the final door, as Luke pulls open the one he jumped out of again and ushers Joss inside before climbing in himself.

Seconds later, the vista begins to move, and the train drifts out of the station.

Joe and I bump our way down the carriage, meeting Luke and Joss outside Joss’s compartment.

She sticks her chin in the air, cheeks flushed.

Her lips twitch for a moment, and then she flicks her hair back and strides to her seat, sitting down with a humph .

‘We’re switching up the sleeping arrangements,’ she declares, her voice quieter, her eyes on the retreating Sioux Lookout landscape.

‘Fine.’ I let out a satisfied exhale, and catch Luke’s eye.

He grins at me, a shared humour that sparkles between us, unspoken, unmistakable.

It only lasts a moment, then he remembers himself and nods at me, just a hint of a smile remaining on his lips, and turns away.

But it’s enough to remind me that there he is .