All The Lonely People - David Owen Page 0,52

to see it anyway,’ said Safa, leaning the placard against her shoulder. ‘But I thought I’d get into the spirit.’

They had enough time before the train for Safa to loudly lament their inability to purchase coffee. When it arrived they sat facing each other diagonally in a four-seater at the end of the carriage. The windows were fogged with cold. It was hard to tell, but she was sure Safa appeared a little more faded than the night before.

‘It’s getting worse,’ Kat said.

‘It’s progressing, the way it’s supposed to,’ corrected Safa. ‘Yours too.’

Kat examined her hand. There was no scale to judge it by. If she had faded further – and there was no reason to believe she wasn’t following Safa – it was subtle enough to be almost undetectable. Maybe that’s how it would be; a steady ebb, like the tide receding down a beach, noticed only when you no longer hear the crash of the waves.

‘Why are you so bothered about this march, anyway?’ asked Safa.

‘I believe in it,’ said Kat. ‘And I know it’s exactly the kind of thing that would piss off the guys whose car we stole last night.’

‘I definitely support pissing people off.’ Safa put her feet up on the seat opposite as if to prove the point. ‘But it’s not like it makes any difference if you’re there or not.’

‘If everybody thought that there’d be no march at all.’

‘No, I mean literally nobody but me will know you’re there.’

This had already occurred to Kat, and it was probably why she had the courage to go in the first place. After all, nothing could go wrong if nobody could see her. It was frightening how liberating that could feel.

‘I’ll know I’m there,’ she said.

Safa smiled in return, and Kat wondered if her heart would ever stop tripping over its own feet.

As they drew closer to central London the train steadily filled with fellow protesters chattering excitedly and snapping photos of signs, alongside weary weekend workers and befuddled tourists. Every seat was taken except for those beside the invisible girls. It would have been lonely, if Kat hadn’t already been completely happy with who she was with.

‘Do you believe in an afterlife?’ she asked.

‘I keep telling you we’re not dying.’

‘You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it during all this,’ said Kat. ‘My mum believed that when we die we go back to the time we were happiest and just . . . stay there for ever. That’s what heaven would be.’ Absentmindedly, she ran a finger through the cold condensation on the window. ‘I asked her where she would go, and she said back to when she was a teenager, in her final year of school. I remember thinking it was messed up she picked a time before she met my dad, or had me and my sister. Maybe that was a warning.’

Safa pushed herself higher in her seat. ‘I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t want to ask about her in case she was dead.’

‘Not quite. She left.’ No point saying more than that. ‘Where do you think you would go?’

Across the aisle a man began hissing into his phone – you said it would be done by Thursday! – as if that was quieter than shouting. Safa watched him closely, tilting her head quizzically.

‘When I was a kid, I had this friend for one summer. We spent every day together, riding bikes, watching TV, begging money for sweets. It’s the last time I can remember not having to worry about anything.’ Safa sighed, and it sounded more angry than wistful. ‘Good memories are bullshit though, aren’t they? I was probably bored, and we probably argued, but you don’t remember that stuff. Maybe I wasn’t happy at all.’

Kat waited a moment before she asked, ‘What happened to your friend?’

Straightening up as if she’d been caught slacking on a job, Safa frowned. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘You must—’

‘Did you know scientists have been tracking a single whale since the 1980s because it sings at a frequency no other whale in the world can hear?’ Safa kept her eyes on the foggy window. ‘It swims across the world, singing out to any other whale it meets, but nobody will ever reply. It’s been lonely far longer than we have.’

There was an edge to her voice that made Kat wonder if she had pried too far. The thought of scaring Safa away was unbearable. She needed to set them back on course.

‘The whale was your friend for a