Eggshell Days by Rebecca Gregson Page B

them.”
    â€œIs the right answer.”
    That now beatified journey of her youth on the Paris-to-Rome sleeper had been Hitchcockian in its potential for menace. Nineteen years old, alone in Europe and picking her way in the dark over twisted heaps of travel-weary bodies and scuffed rucksacks, she had almost been able to hear the soundtrack. It had been no surprise at all when the Moroccan guy leaning against a carriage partition had swung his pitted oily face in her own and blocked her path with his reeking body.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œBeer? Spirit? Drink with me?” he’d slurred, waving a bottle at her. “Pretty girl.” He had rubbed against her breast.
    She could still remember the lack of effect her then seven-and-a-half-stone frame had against his hot, sweating bulk, but at least the struggle had caused enough commotion to wake the sleeper at her feet. And when that sleeper had stood up, the relief of seeing someone a good foot taller than her aggressor was immense. It might even have been love at first sight.
    â€œYou havin’ a problem there?” His hair was sticking up in clumps for want of a good wash, but his brand of personal hygiene, or the lack of it, was immediately familiar. Student-based. Non-threatening. Welcome.
    â€œBeer, lady? You want beer? Drink with me?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think she does, mate,” the sleeper had said, “and she’s with me, okay?”
    So her first date with Niall had been a trip to a railway loo at midnight, and he’d held the door for her while she tried her best not to make a sound or pee all over the floor. Then they’d returned to her carriage, sat together with their legs on their bags, smoking and talking and strumming until Turin, where they’d kissed on the platform and arranged to meet in Milan.
    And that was it. It wasn’t the pregnancy that broke the beautiful spell of the next two years, it was the abortion. She was twenty-one in the summer after her finals and Niall was twenty-four.
    â€œI’m going mad,” she’d told him two months after it was done. “I think our love was encapsulated in the baby and now we’ve chosen to get rid of that we’ve also got rid of ourselves.”
    â€œWe’re still here.”
    â€œNo, we’re not. We’re in the medical wastebin with our baby. You’re not, and I’m not, but we are.”
    There wasn’t anywhere else they could go with that, so they’d walked away from their shared bedroom in a shared house and left everything, absolutely everything, behind.
    Weird that it had taken another train to bring them home again, to another shared house, with other shared bedrooms. Except that he shared his bedroom with someone else now. Only at weekends, though. And they never referred to it . Ever. But it was okay. It really was okay.
    She smiled at him again.
    â€œWhat’s on the other side of this?” he asked, tapping the solid stone. He knew those smiles and they usually meant trouble.
    â€œThe kitchen.”
    â€œPerfect. We’ll knock through. I’ll get my brother to draw up the plans for free, and Murphy can come and build it.”
    â€œBuild what?”
    â€œHow about a sitting room people actually want to sit in.”
    â€œDon’t you like the one we’ve got?” Emmy felt icy panic claw at her chest.
    â€œI don’t know. It’s too cold to stay in there long enough to assess.”
    â€œIs it a disappointment here? Did you think it would be better than this? I wish it was the middle of summer—it’s so beautiful here when it’s hot and sunny. Give it a few weeks and—”
    â€œGod, Emmy, relax. It’s just feckin’ cold in the sitting room, that’s all.”
    â€œDo you think I should get some heating put in? I know it’s already nearly May but even if we don’t stay until the winter, it might, you know, well, at least then