Our Stop(74)

And so the night went on. Fancy people talking fancy talk, with surprisingly good red wine and waiters dressed in bow ties serving tiny Yorkshire puddings with roast beef on them.

Daniel couldn’t shake the fact that Gaby had brought up a Nadia, and as she caught him before he left, delayed by searching for his gloves that he could have sworn he’d put in his pockets, he couldn’t help but ask: ‘Gaby, weird question. But your friend Nadia – what’s her surname?’

‘Fielding,’ Gaby replied. ‘Why?’

Daniel shrugged. ‘No reason,’ he said. ‘I just wondered if it was the Nadia I knew. Small world and all.’

‘And is it?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Daniel said, actually having no idea if it was or it wasn’t. He’d never known what ‘his’ Nadia’s surname was.

‘Okay, well. Goodnight. See you at the February party?’

Daniel nodded. ‘See you at the February party. Let me know if I can help with anything?’

‘Will do,’ Gaby said, turning her attention to another departing guest she wanted to say goodbye to.

Daniel googled NADIA FIELDING as soon as he stepped outside, his fingers bitterly cold, but the task at hand too important to delay. A series of photographs came up of the Nadia he knew – the Nadia from the market, and the train, and who he’d seen last night. He had a surname now, and from that he had a LinkedIn profile that confirmed she worked at RAINFOREST. He could hardly believe his luck. Gaby knew her! He was supposed to have been introduced to her months ago! All the signs pointed to the fact that he was absolutely supposed to meet her. It seemed their fates were unavoidable.

I feel it, he thought to himself. This time, I won’t mess it up. He couldn’t wait for the ad to run – he was so excited to finally, at last, meet her. They were meant to be! He couldn’t believe he’d almost missed the love of his life.





45


Nadia


‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit.’

Nadia Fielding launched down the escalator of the tube station, her new winter boots hitting the steps with force. Coffee held precariously in her hand, bag slipping from her shoulder, beret beginning to move from the top of her head down to the side, Nadia was a mess – but she’d be damned if she wasn’t getting the 7.30. Today was a do-over on The New Routine to Change Her Life. She was getting on that damned train, she was going to have a superb day, and she was going to be a woman in charge of her own life. The air was different, today. She was different, today. Possibility for the adventure of her own life splayed before her. I’m going to meet Waistcoat Guy again, she continued to tell herself. I see it. I feel it.

She made it onto the platform, into her usual spot, before the train pulled up, and was thrilled she did because, amazingly, perfectly, OH-MY-GOD-I-CAN’T-ACTUALLY- BELIEVE-IT-EXCEPT-THIS-IS-WHAT-I-VISUALIZED-LY – and there HE was. @DannyBoy101. The guy from the cinema event. The man she’d stalked on Instagram and willed to cross her path again.

Shit, Nadia thought. It really is him! He was cuter than she remembered. She had literally been on his Instagram only that morning, sneaking a peek to see if he had uploaded anything since the movies. He hadn’t. Nadia had been frustrated, wanting a titbit about his life to fuel her interest in him, but his mysterious online ways gave her nothing.

She took a breath.

She looked across to the left as the train slowed to a stop.

The train doors opened.

@DannyBoy101 looked up.

Their eyes met.

‘Hello,’ he said, and as people pushed around her to board the train, she walked towards him, slowly, relieved that he seemed to recognize her.

‘Hi.’

They stood and smiled at each other like they had done the other night, until the forward movement of the train forced Nadia to stumble slightly. As a knee-jerk reaction, @DannyBoy101 held out his arm and she grabbed it, waiting for the train to pick up speed before trusting herself to regain her centre of gravity. His arm was rock solid. She didn’t want to let go.

‘I almost didn’t recognize you fully clothed,’ she smiled, and @DannyBoy101 laughed.

‘Yeah, I tend to save the leather waistcoat for when I’m not about to meet with my boss, and my boss’s boss, and my boss’s boss’s boss.’

Nadia made a big demonstration of being impressed. ‘Big day for you then.’

@DannyBoy101 swallowed and, holding her gaze and without blinking, said, in a voice that felt all loaded and heavy and deliberate: ‘Apparently so.’

The way he said it was so laden with meaning that she felt her nipples get hard as her cheeks flushed. She smiled, willingly herself to rise to the occasion of the moment. She didn’t want to be shy, or let this pass her by. She had to be brave. She was securing the name and telephone number of this man, confidence wobbles be damned.

Nadia was vaguely aware of the intrigue from the people around them. The London Underground was famed for being notoriously unfriendly. Several campaigns had been instigated over the years, typically from people Not From Here, to encourage chit-chat and smiles, including but not limited to badges that said ‘Talk to Me!’ in the red, white and blue colours of Transport for London (ostensibly not, in fact, issued by them) to buskers asking people to sing along, to American tourists trying to drum up conversations with locals only to be met with a stony silence and a pointed seat change. But – Londoners had a nose for romance. They loved a ‘Tube Meet’. Nadia was quite sure one young woman had even taken off her headphones to listen in to them more closely.