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  He nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I’m at Moreland.’

  I affected a look of surprise. ‘Oh. That’s not too far from here either.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘How is Northam? I hear mixed things.’

  ‘It’s – oh it’s fine,’ I said, at a loss for something new to say.

  ‘Not too stuffy?’

  ‘No, I mean – yes, it can be heavy going, and there are some lecturers who are irritating, but overall …’ My eyes jittered around. My mouth spasmed in a weird, comical gesture of self-deprecation. I knew I was behaving strangely.

  ‘Right,’ said Joe. ‘Yeah.’

  He stared at me sceptically. In a way that made me uncomfortable. Small beads of sweat started to form under my collar.

  I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t really possible for Joe to join the dots. How could he? Even considering the size of the town, the idea was surely too far-fetched to cross his mind. But even so …

  ‘So is that where you’re off to today?’ Jonny interrupted.

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Yeah, as in where are you headed? To Northam?’

  ‘No!’ I burst out. I gave a superficial laugh in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. No dice. ‘I’m … just going to Chipwell. The shops around here are literally empty. There’s some stuff I need to get before going back to university.’

  ‘Aren’t you on the wrong platform?’

  Directly confronted, I found myself able to lie in an instant: ‘No, it’s actually often quicker to go via Durham. The connections are easier there.’

  Jonny looked at me suspiciously. ‘OK …’ he said. Then, after appearing to mull the possibility over in his mind, his features relaxed, and he added a satisfied: ‘Hmm.’

  There was another silence. Both of us looked around the room.

  ‘So you’re at Northam,’ Joe said, again. ‘What do you study?’

  ‘Ah – sorry?’ I said, my fists clenching at my sides.

  I heard the screech of the train wheels outside.

  ‘What do you study?’ he asked again.

  ‘Do you do philosophy? You were so good at it,’ Jonny interjected.

  ‘I-I do English,’ I stammered.

  ‘English?’ said Joe. Again, his mouth twitched. ‘Cool.’

  I stared at him, squinting into his eyes to see whether he had registered anything. I tried to focus on making my own eyes seem less panicked. I needed to gain composure. Had he cottoned on? Why hadn’t I just lied?

  ‘So that’s my train,’ said Joe. ‘I’d better be off.’

  I made as if to move too, but then realized I had told Jonny I was going to Chipwell. Joe grasped Jonny’s hand and they leaned in for a short, punchy hug. They broke apart.

  Joe tapped me with The Economist.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said, opening the waiting room door. He paused for a moment, looked as though he were about to say something else, but just as he opened his mouth, he shut it again. He walked through the door.

  I listened to the sound of his footsteps echoing along the tarmac. I tried not to turn my head after him.

  iii.

  Small-town trains crawl around the countryside. They aren’t like city trains: flying over the skyline, swerving under bridges, always juddering frantically so their passengers know that they’re moving forward, moving towards something. Sat on a country train you can hardly believe you’re moving at all. It feels as though you’re never going to be anywhere but there, on an uncomfortable seat with no legroom, neck stiff against the plastic headrest, watching an endless expanse of grass outside stretching into the foreseeable horizon. I leaned my forehead against the windowpane. I wondered how I’d got myself into that position: on that seat, on that train, staring out at the endless grass.

  After Joe left, Jonny hadn’t gone home like I’d thought he would. Instead he’d stuck around. He’d offered to buy me a coffee while I waited for my ‘train’ to arrive. I rejected the offer – I’d insisted, actually, that I had things to do and politely asked him to leave – but he still lingered. He gave long monologues, to which I gave monosyllabic answers. It was impossible to think of a further excuse that would permit me to get out of there.

  I glanced at the departures board anxiously, panic mounting and then – when the train finally arrived and I heard the gears – I’d felt my feet moving forward towards it, entirely of their own accord, one leg in front of the other along the platform. Then I was hugging Jonny goodbye, I was making my way onto the train, through the carriage, and sitting down in a window seat.

  In real life, things never happened in the way that I had become accustomed to thinking they would. When I was on Facebook or Instagram or Swipe, I seemed to have a level of control over my life. I felt confident that if I structured events to happen in a certain way, then they would unravel as part of the sequence I had predicted, as part of my narrative. I suspect that this level of control was down to the way I could edit my identity; the way I could look at and interact with only those who interested me and shut out opinions that seemed inconvenient. If I ever felt that my concentration might be slipping, or that the boundaries of the hardened world of which I had put myself at the centre were dissolving – then on the Internet I could look at something completely different that would take my mind off it, and I would relax again.

  The distractions of the internet were only a mirage, however. When it came to real life situations – awkward social interactions, inconveniences such as Jonny – I was the opposite of ‘in control’. I couldn’t pull myself out of the current that other people pushed me into. I just went along with the flow, knowing it was a bad idea, knowing that I didn’t want to be there, yet being unable to protest in any way.

  The back of my neck was beginning to sweat against the headrest. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I glanced at it – a series of texts from my mother. She used all capitals and a dated text language, always pointlessly signing off with ‘MUM’.

  WHERE RU!!! MUM

  I flicked the lock button quickly off with my index finger, then flicked it back on again out of habit. It buzzed again – another text. I looked down:

  IT’S BEEN OVER AN HOUR. R U COMING HOME FOR LUNCH? MUM

  HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE 2 BUY STAMPS!!!!!! MUM

  I pressed down hard on the lock button and slid my finger across the screen. It was fine, I told myself. It was fine. I was going away for the day and they would have to deal with it. I’d get off at the next stop. While there I’d think of an excuse, calm down and then go back home to face my parents. In the meantime I would try not to look at my phone.

  I looked out of the window. I thought about Joe and how he had seemed at the station. I dug my fingernails hard into my thigh.

  It is surprising how little you notice when you’re not on your phone.

  You often hear the opposite – that by ‘switching off’ or ‘detoxing’ from technology, you’re suddenly able to recognize the details around you. Everything you usually miss suddenly becomes available – it’s like seeing the world shift from greyscale into colour. But whatever they tell you on your meditation apps, that’s not what happens. At least, it definitely doesn’t happen to me.

  When I was walking around that country town, with the weight of my phone heavy in my pocket, I didn’t pause to reflect on the scenery. I didn’t notice the details on the friezes, marinate in the heady scent of the city and generally feel clear-headed and meditative. Instead I rushed around pointlessly, distracted, antsy, glancing from street sign to billboard to film poster without thinking about what any of it meant.

  Like many small cities near the countryside, this one was large enough to get lost in but small enough not to warrant proper signposting. The town centre was full of high street shops and café chains. There was nothing new or exciting about it. Nothing notably quaint either. After ten minutes of charging around, the icy sting of the January wind in my neck and ears, I went back inside, back into the stati
on. I looked to see when the next train was. Twenty minutes.

  It was now eleven fifteen. I’d been away from my house for close to two hours. Taking the train journey back into account, it would be around three hours in all. This was not long enough, really, for it to be worth the punishment I’d suffer when I got home. I sauntered into a bookshop near the concourse and wondered whether a present would work as a bribe.

  The shop was surprisingly busy – people taking advantage of the post-Christmas sales, I guess. There was a thin-boned lady with a crooked nose, grimacing at a paperback on the crime table; a man with a broad brow and a smirk, using an umbrella as a cane … my eyes scanned across them indiscriminately before they stopped, alarmed, on a face I recognized. It was the jowls that I noticed first, puffing over his collar, slightly damp. My eyes followed up to his pink cheeks, gripped by a set of pudgy fingers. He was smiling slightly, though his brow fell down over his eyelids.

  My eyes followed the direction of his and I noticed what he was looking at: a bright blue paperback, the cover of which was embellished with waxy bold font. I saw the title:

  HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR SMARTPHONE: A GUIDE

  Includes tips on apps, camera features and privacy settings. PLUS:

  What is the difference between iOS and Android?

  How to set up your email account

  A guide to social media

  At that moment the professor turned his head, and his eyes met mine. I noticed the surprise and fear, mixed with a strange glinting recognition – that unique expression that only appears when you recognize someone out of context. Perhaps the look was reflected from my face. There was nothing either of us could do.

  ‘Odd coincidence!’ he spluttered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m just doing some very late Christmas shopping,’ he said, gesturing at the bookshelves. He went on to give a lengthy explanation about buying a book for his 16-year-old niece. His relatives lived in the next town, he said, where they were hosting a party, and he had, of course, forgotten to get a Christmas present until the final hour.

  I smiled patiently and nodded as he told me all this. I looked at his face, noted the strained skin around the eyes, the pronged wrinkle in the middle of his forehead. I made a point of telling myself to remember these details so that I could tell Marina later. It seemed to me typical that the professor should buy something so tragic and dated as a ‘Smartphone manual’ and then attempt to cover it up. Such was his vanity. I thought about exact ways to recount it, ways that would make Marina laugh. Then I remembered, with a thud, that she wasn’t coming back to Northam.

  ‘So, yes …’ Montgomery reached forward towards the bookshelf, selected a pink-spined hardback apparently at random, and pretended to inspect the back. ‘Ah, yes, here we are.’ He gave a satisfied nod.

  ‘Oh good,’ I said.

  ‘Yes … good.’

  A few seconds of stilted silence ensued, and then he looked up, cleared his throat and smiled.

  ‘Anyway, I trust all is well with Marina?’ he said, with unnatural lightness. ‘You two, thick as thieves.’

  ‘Yes, yes I – guess so.’ For some reason I didn’t feel as though I could bring up the fact Marina was not coming back to Northam.

  His eyes flickered.

  ‘I mean,’ I continued, looking slightly past him, ‘I haven’t spoken to her very much recently, it being the holidays. We’ve both been busy I think. Have you seen her?’

  ‘Er, no,’ he said. ‘It no longer being term time that would be …’

  ‘I guess I meant that you might have seen her family.’ My palms felt slightly sweaty. ‘You know, because of her father.’

  He looked at me quizzically. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Because you’re a family friend,’ I said breathlessly. ‘That’s what she told me.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The professor wrinkled his brow.

  ‘I must say that’s a little bit odd,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t say that we know each other particularly well. I was at university with her father who is, as you probably know, Professor Marcus Bede, but we …’ he trailed off. ‘We haven’t spoken in years. Really, years. I only ever see him in professional circles. Very intelligent man, however. Brilliant speaker.’

  Silence fell. I looked at my shoes, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Well,’ the professor cleared his throat again. ‘I’d better be off. Lovely bumping into you, Emma. Good luck in the new term.’

  He made a frantic gesture with his hands – not quite a wave, not quite a handshake – and then he barrelled off towards the counter, where he paid for the book.

  I watched him hand the money to the cashier. There was definitely something artificial in his manner, I thought. Something rushed. His coat flapped behind him, splaying out at spiky angles above his thighs, and as he put the book in his bag, I briefly wondered what his family was like … how he behaved at home.

  There was something off about him. Something I couldn’t put my finger on … I couldn’t entirely understand why, but the thought of touching his hand had made me feel unclean.

  On the train, I dug my phone out of my pocket and switched it on. It had been two hours since I’d looked at it and I wanted to check on Marina.

  I had to know what she was doing, whether she was at home again, whether she was really not coming back to Northam. I wanted to know why she had lied to me about her family’s relationship with the professor. I wanted to tell her about that ridiculous coincidence, catching Montgomery unawares in the teenage section of a train station bookshop, about his pathetic present for his teenage niece. I wanted to tell her about my Christmas holiday and hear her sarcastic jokes about Caroline and Suki. I would message her again, I decided. I would go onto Facebook now.

  I tapped along the screen. I ignored the little Swipe symbol in the corner, and went straight to Facebook Messenger.

  Her name was frozen out: not blue, like the text of the other names, but a light grey. I tried to press the button to contact her, and hit a hard grey wall.

  Instinct told me that something was very wrong.

  I went onto the main Facebook app. I typed her name in the search bar, waiting for her profile to emerge. But nothing came up.

  There was nothing to click on, not even a frozen-out grey screen. Everything had vanished.

  The words rolled through my head. She has blocked me. She has blocked me. I felt something fierce in my chest. Why would she do that? Why would she do that now? Perhaps it meant that she had been thinking about me. Perhaps she had realized that I had tried to hack into her account. I shuffled in my seat. The woman opposite eyed me warily. I typed a message to Henry, unable to help myself:

  Has Marina deleted Facebook?

  Or is it that there’s something wrong with her account?

  I sent several more messages, powerless to stop the flow of questions once I had started asking after her. I wasn’t even conscious of what I was writing, I just sensed my fingers flickering against glass, waiting for the tick to confirm that he’d seen it, waiting for the dots to say that he was writing back.

  I went back into the Messenger app and looked at her frozen name. The Swipe icon flickered in the corner of the screen. Wait. Could that be it? Could Joe have somehow found me out? Had he contacted Marina and told her? My fingers hovered over the Swipe icon for a moment. Then I opened it and read what it said.

  Joe: God this train is long

  That was all.

  I felt a rush of relief, tinged with a kind of disappointment. I asked Joe how it had been getting the train from dead-end Walford station.

  Joe: Delayed, actually

  Was just talking to my cousin for a bit, hanging around

  I felt another stab of disappointment. I wanted him to mention me. I typed back, trying to probe. I asked for more details about the station. I asked him what he had done while he waited for the train. I tried to sound as disinterested as possible but
I figured I was still coming across as fairly intense.

  Joe: I was reading an article actually

  The Economist

  I didn’t reply, so he continued.

  Joe: Basically there’s a rift between two oil tycoons in India

  Their biggest company has been owned by successive generations of one family since it was founded

  And it’s just been taken over by a new guy basically who is trying to shake things up

  He went on like this for some time, unprompted, and my fingers began to itch. They hovered over the screen as the text kept pouring down.

  Joe: So now the new guy has been ousted

  And they’re refusing to trade with the other company

  It’s affecting the rupee, which in turn is gonna be affecting the pound

  Probably

  I felt increasingly irritated, knowing that we were moving away from my target conversation. Clumsily I reintroduced the subject of the station.

  Me: Sounds intense

  So were you boring your cousin with this at the station or did he have an escape clause

  Joe:

  Weird you should say that

  There was someone from Northam there actually

  Me: Oh really?

  Sorry to hear that

  It’s a problem down there

  Joe: middle-class circles

  Me: Northam infestation

  Joe: exactly

  There was a slight pause. I saw the three dots wiggling in the corner of the screen, then they stopped. I decided to take the plunge.

  Me: Well perhaps I know them – did you get a name?

  Joe: Er

  Yes but I can’t remember

  She did your subject as well though

  Which is pretty weird

  My heart beat faster.

  Me: Weird

  I guess it’s a big course

  what did she look like?

  Joe began typing and then stopped.

  Me: Blonde hair? All girls on the course are sloanes

  Joe: Like yourself you mean

  Nah she’s brunette I think

  Brown eyes maybe

  Me: 10/10?

  Joe: Absolutely not

  Just average