As the train drew nearer to Stockwell and the first of Lawrence’s shortcuts, he shifted about in his seat.
‘OK, if you’re so bothered, why don’t you go?’ Holly said sarcastically. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
Lawrence’s big blue eyes widened. He stood up. ‘OK, here’s the plan. No really, this’ll be fun. You take the Northern line all the way. I’ll change to the Victoria line and back again. Then finally we’ll know the DEFINITIVE answer of which is quicker! This age-old debate will have been answered, once and for all!’
‘Oh, Lawrence… I was kidding. Please sit down,’ she scolded before noticing that they now had an audience the size of a small fringe venue. All they needed now was a man in a tux selling programmes and overpriced ice creams.
‘Aren’t you just a bit curious to know who’s right?’ Lawrence said. As he dispatched one of his daintier breeds of kisses onto her forehead (the ones he liked to call ‘fairy kisses’ when no one else was listening), she couldn’t stop the smile from creeping across her face.
Lawrence shot up from his seat, his eyes pogoing with excitement. The doors were opening. The old lady across the carriage seemed, from her enormous grin, to be egging them on.
‘You’re a freak,’ Holly replied by way of acquiescence. Then, reluctantly: ‘But listen, this has to be a fair test. We walk at a normal pace. No running up the escalators!’
Lawrence nodded. ‘I love you,’ he whispered, the doors beeping.
‘Love you too. Twat,’ she said as he bounced off the train and the doors began to close.
Flushed with a mixture of anxiety and humiliation, Holly Braithwaite watched as Lawrence stepped onto the platform and grinned back at her. Then she pulled into a tunnel deep beneath the River Thames, sank into the tired upholstery and leaned against the window.
She pictured the scene of her boyfriend sitting on the other train, staring with intent at the stopwatch on his phone. Lawrence’s diehard competitiveness was one of the things that most riled her about him. Or was it loved? Who knew, she wondered as she pulled her black beret out of her bag and folded it into a makeshift travel pillow. She wedged it beneath the cushion of her thick brown hair, and rested her head against it. She listened to the voice reading out the names of the stops and closed her eyes. She began replaying the imaginary scene of the actress in the sound booth. She’d had that slightly clipped, RP accent, evocative of another era. Perhaps she’d done the recording many years ago, dressed in forties get-up, her hair in victory rolls? She couldn’t help smiling, until a bleak thought occurred. The recording sounded so dated that there was a strong chance the owner of the voice was no longer alive. In which case, these slightly tetchy TFL announcements could be the only echo of her that remained in this world? Her legacy. Holly struggled to think what she’d be remembered for, were she to shuffle off this mortal coil right now. An insalubrious flat-share, a dysfunctional relationship, and an intellectually emaciated TV show about a regional discotheque. Ball bags, Holly thought, looking upwards with pleading eyes and hoping it wasn’t too late for her to make a proper contribution to the world.
Half an hour later, the train reached Tufnell Park. Holly rubbed her eyes and breathed a quiet sigh of relief to be north of the river again, and closer to home. Leaving the platform, she found herself jumping the stairs two at a time. She cleared the Oyster machines and ran through the ticket hall, where she could see that – bugger it – Lawrence was standing beside a lamp post on the street. She could tell by the position of his thumbs and the rapid movement of his eyes that he was playing Candy Crush on his phone. As she walked towards her man, she began playing a favourite game of her own, imagining it was the first time she’d ever seen him. She pretended to check him out, to assess if she still wanted to jump the bones of this stranger before her. She surveyed the optimum amount of stubble across his face and the dark brown hair that was perennially in the just-got-out-of-bed style. She studied his tall build – athletic without even trying – and his weathered Che Guevara T-shirt. She smiled. Yep, he definitely still had it. Despite being annoying in a multitude of ways, Lawrence Edward Hill could still turn her stomach to mush.
‘See?’ Lawrence said without looking up, his voice drunk with ‘I told you so’.
‘All right, well done.’
He stared at her expectantly.
‘Yes, you were right.’
He smiled. ‘So, since I won, maybe you can get the wine for dinner?’
‘You’re all charm,’ Holly said, poking him in the ribs, then beginning to walk up the road.
‘But not just yet…’ he said, tugging at her arm. He bent down to kiss her and they smooched under a street lamp like teenagers.
‘Hey,’ Holly said, breaking away. ‘Don’t laugh, but, if for instance I should, you know, die in some sort of freak accident tomorrow – what would you remember most about me? My eyes? My voice?’
Lawrence’s thick brown eyebrows crinkled towards each other. ‘Well, since you ask, your laugh. I think it’s the most beautiful sound ever. But what is this? Have you gone wonky with motion-sickness again?’
‘I just got a bit hypnotized by that Tube announcer’s voice, hearing it over and over. I didn’t have a book to read, so for some reason I went off on one, and started overthinking things.’
‘That doesn’t sound like you,’ he said, before smiling, ‘although, you did have a much longer journey than me.’
‘Ha ha, very funny,’ Holly said, as they walked hand in hand towards Boozenest – the 24-hour convenience store she lived above with her two flatmates.
‘But just imagine, what if you actually knew her? What if you were her boyfriend and she’d up and left you one day? Would it be really painful hearing her voice every time you travelled? Or – what if she did these recordings years ago, and now she’s six feet under?’
Holly crouched on the pavement and began opening bags at random. Lawrence bent down to assist her in The Great Key Hunt. ‘Well, if that were true, it’d be a bit like she’s been accidentally immortalised by Transport for London.’
‘Exactly! I mean, imagine if she’d left behind a widower. Do you think the poor guy would ride the Northern line, just to hear her voice again, as a way of being with her again in some way? Or maybe he’d always avoid it, as it would be too painful?’
‘The Northern line is always painful,’ Lawrence said as his fingers pulled out something sharp and metal. ‘Et voilà!’
Holly smiled, took the keys from him and began unlocking the door, just as her phoned beeped with a message.
‘Shut the front door!’ she said, stopping on the stairs to re-read the text.
‘I just did,’ Lawrence replied, shooting her a puzzled look before noticing her mouth drop open. ‘Oh. What’s up?’
‘It’s Olivia. No wonder she wanted to come over for dinner all of a sudden. She’s just broken up with her boyfriend. I can’t believe it. She and Ross were an institution at university.’
‘How awful. Who’s Olivia?’
‘You know Olivia. From Uni. Wow, I really thought they were in it for the long haul,’ she mused as they stood up and began to hike up the stairs.
‘Hello?!’ Holly shouted over a booming Ella Fitzgerald song as they reached the internal front door and she pushed it open. They headed up more