what have you been up to while I’ve been away?’ Isla asked.
‘Work’s busy, busy, busy, and I’m volunteering at an animal shelter on Sundays.’
‘Aw, that’s lovely.’
‘I know. The dogs are so cute. I want to take them all home.’
‘Hey, what about the cats?’
‘Them too.’ Roxanne paused. ‘So are you free Tuesday?’
‘Definitely. What time shall we meet?’
‘Say, seven-thirty at the tapas bar?’
‘Sounds great.’
‘OK, gotta run – see you then, Isla. Have fun tonight. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
The train continued to roar through the blackness of the evening, picking up and spewing out passengers as it went. Isla gazed at her reflection in the window, and a train thundering by in the other direction made her jump. She was more on edge than she’d realised.
A youth with a lip and nose ring, and a sweatshirt with the word ‘Evil’ splashed across it, had joined the train, and now sat opposite her. He paused from jabbing his phone screen and leered. She tugged at the hemline of her skirt, cringing with embarrassment, her neck tingling. Thankfully, before she crumbled completely, the train arrived at Cambridge Station.
Incessant rain hammered down from the night sky as the taxi she’d jumped into pulled up outside The Regal, a building that still resembled an old cinema. Isla paid the driver, and with a sigh of relief got out of the back seat. Avoiding puddles, she dashed across the pavement and through the doors of Wetherspoon’s.
‘A large Sauvignon Blanc, please,’ she said as she reached the bar, her hand trembling slightly as she rummaged in her bag for her purse. What had possessed her to come?
She scanned the bar as she paid, looking for the almost-strangers she was about to spend the evening with. But as she drifted away from the bar, sipping wine in the hope it would relax her, she grew more anxious. Half of the tables were filled with people eating – enjoying Friday night out – and her head began to throb with the noise of chatter and laughter. Men’s voices grew louder as they tried to make themselves heard: ‘Shall we order a bottle of red?’, ‘I don’t fancy yours much’, ‘Did you see the match?’ and snippets of women’s conversations jabbed Isla’s ears: ‘Oh my God, really?’, ‘Fuck, what a bitch’, ‘When are we going to eat? I’m starving.’
Isla pulled out her mobile phone. It was gone seven-thirty. Surely one of the uni crowd should have been there by now.
In fact, why wasn’t Trevor there to greet her? It didn’t make sense.
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