Читать книгу Our Stop - Laura Jane Williams - Страница 10

When Nadia got on Daniel’s train before work two days after he’d overheard her speak at the market, first he gave a word of thanks to the universe, or maybe his dad, or whoever was up there doing him this very solid favour, and then sent a swift gloating text to Lorenzo.

Had she been on the Northern line this whole time? (Yes.) Why was he only just noticing her now? (He had been in his own, grief-fuelled world.) He knew he had to do something about it. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her, and had even gone back to the same lunch spot the next week to see if she was a regular, which was a bit much but true nonetheless. She hadn’t been there, of course. It was a lot to expect she would be.

Seeing her on the train felt like being given a second chance at a first impression. He looked out for her the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that – greedily, he wanted his third chance, and his fourth. The tube trains were huge and there were so many people on the platform and he couldn’t be sure, obviously, that she hadn’t got on one of the others whizzing through the underground every morning. She could have been on the 7.28, or the 7.32, or the 8 a.m. or 6 a.m. People didn’t always stick to the same schedule like he did. Daniel was anally retentive in a lot of ways, and thrived off routine and certainty. But for Nadia to be on the same train as him, even that once? He decided to hold onto that as a sign.

In total he’d seen Nadia (though he actually couldn’t decide in his head what to call her. Nadia was her name, after all, but having not been formally introduced it seemed presumptuous, even in his imagination, to refer to her like that. But then, why would he call her ‘woman on the train’ when he knew her name? It was confusing, and mostly meant he just imagined her face and didn’t really call her anything) seven times, always around 7.30, always seeming a little frazzled in a ‘Working Woman with A Lot To Do’ kind of a way. Three of those times she’d been in his carriage, once he’d seen her on the platform at Angel, and three times he saw her on the escalator at London Bridge. Twice he thought he’d seen her in and around the general Borough Market area, but it hadn’t been her, it had only been wishful thinking.

When he did catch her, she always had her phone in her hand, but unlike a lot of other commuters, she didn’t wear headphones to listen to music as she travelled. Daniel knew if he spoke to her one day, out of the blue, at least she’d be able to hear him. But then, he didn’t want to screw up his one shot at getting to know her. He worried that simply striking up conversation on a crowded tube – a place notorious for how anti-conversation it could be, where even a smile could make you seem demented because it just isn’t the done thing – he’d seem slimy and pervy. A woman had every right to get to work without fending off advances from men who thought she was hot. He knew that. He wanted to give her a nod of encouragement so she could let him know if she was interested as well. It was Lorenzo who had joked that Missed Connections was the place to do it. Lorenzo was kidding around, but as soon as he’d suggested it, Daniel knew that was how he wanted to get this woman’s attention. He’d seen her reading the paper before. It could be just the ticket.

‘But why this woman?’ asked Lorenzo. ‘I don’t get it. You don’t know her!’

How could Daniel explain to Lorenzo that, above all else, he just had this feeling?