And then, one day, as she was wondering to herself, wandering down the lane by the meadow, how on earth it could possibly still be light at ten thirty in the evening, she opened the latest note in his familiar dark hand, written as if the pen was too small for his large paw.

Saturday, it said simply. No sleeper.

Her heart began to beat faster immediately. What had been delicate, a little courtship played out in an unusual way, had suddenly changed into something far more real.

Every night, she’d gone to bed thinking about Marek, about his gentle, strange foreign ways, his unflappability. And this unexpected relationship that had somehow sprung up between them. She knew that the railway tree, ailing as it was, was just as important to him as it was to her. His notes, filled with poetry and the occasional snatches of his own language, felt to her deeply rich and romantic, and she had saved them, every one.

Nights when he was not working or there was nothing on the tree were wholly disappointing. Nights when a bag rocked gently in the wind filled her utterly with delight.

But now . . . to meet. To be with each other in person once again. Her heart sped up in her chest with excitement.

Surinder, predictably, was unimpressed.

“What are you going to do, snog on a train? What if you get covered in coal?”

Nina swallowed hard. “Of course not. It’ll just be . . . it’ll just be a chance to stop and chat, that’s all.”

Surinder snorted.

“Oh come ON, Soors. It’s just . . . it’s been so long.”

“What about Ferdie?”

“Ferdie doesn’t count.”

Technically Nina’s last boyfriend, Ferdie had been a faintly cadaverous poet who’d hung around the library in Birmingham after an event because she was the only person who would listen to him. They’d ended up kind of dating, although he got very upset if he didn’t feel she was listening properly to his poetry, which was convincingly awful and squarely of the dead crow/I hate you, Daddy school. On the other hand, this had made it far easier to break up with him; Nina had simply indicated that she hadn’t really understood the metaphors in his most recent work, entitled “All Is Black (17),” and he had flown into a rage and declared her a philistine. She’d heard that after that he’d given up the poetry, cut his hair, and taken a job in a bank in Aston, but she didn’t know if that was true.

“Well, he certainly hung around my kitchen for long enough.”

“That’s not a real relationship, is it? And Damien, in university.”

“Yes, you told him you were leaving him so that you could take on the world and go out and do lots of different things, then you sat upstairs in your bedroom reading for the next eight years.”

“Well, exactly. And now I’m here, and it’s all exciting and full of possibilities! You’re the one always telling me to get out there and do more.”

“Yes, but not with some guy you met on a train.”

“Why not? People meet each other in all sorts of places. You met the Gus in a barn!”

“Yes, and then we hung out together and got along.”

“You use my luxury pad to screw in!”

“That’s hanging out! We don’t moon about and leave poetry on treetops and behave like funny little people in a story or teenagers or something.”

“Well, that’s what this is about. We’re going to spend some time together. Get to know each other.”

“Why doesn’t he just come up during daylight hours?” said Surinder.

Nina couldn’t answer that.

“See? It’s because he’s as hooked on the entire thing as you are. This little fantasy life you’ve got going where he sends you pretty flowers, which he can do as long as he likes because it’s all in your heads. I’m sure it’s fun and everything, but it isn’t real. And neither is meeting at midnight in a freight shed.”

“It’s not a freight shed. It’s a train crossing. It’s . . . romantic.”

Surinder rolled her eyes. “Well, good for you. The Gus is coming around and we’re making a takeaway—which would be like getting a takeaway if there was anywhere to get a takeaway, which there isn’t—and watching a movie.”

“Hang on, have you moved in here? With the Gus?”

“I’m on vacation,” said Surinder severely, in the same tone of voice she used every morning when the office rang to ask politely if she was considering coming back at any point.

“Are you going to find out the first part of his name?” said Nina.

“I don’t feel it’s very important at this juncture.”

“Okay, well try and learn it before you get married.”

They were now coming to the very height of summer. Although you still needed a jacket after the sun went down, the fields were ridiculously awash with glory: wildflowers, ripening crops; waving long grass, soaked during the long winter, and now sprouting profusely in every hedge and space it could find; an orgy of blooms and growth everywhere, the entire countryside spilling over.

It was how Nina felt herself; that after a long, long winter she too was ready to emerge, proudly casting off her old clothes, her protective coating of books and heavy tights and downcast head. She was nervous to absolute distraction, couldn’t help it. And she was cross with Surinder, too; wasn’t she always saying she had to live more? Stop burying herself away? Well, here she was. Going out. Into life. And a big life too, not takeaway and telly. Not listening to someone complain about the lack of opportunity for poets in Birmingham, and how misunderstood they were. This was great buckets of flowers; of poetry, real poetry; of, she truly believed, deeply held feelings. She was catching the night train.

Chapter Twenty-one

It was, unusually, warm enough for Nina to sit, swinging on a gate, and she did so, enjoying the gentle creak against the other sounds of the wood at night. She felt as if she were in the Magic Faraway Tree, with the forest saying wisha-wisha-wisha.

She closed her eyes and wished very hard, a smile playing around her lips, her heart beating nervously in her chest, the countryside alive around her; and when she awoke from what had in reality been half a dream, the lights of the great train, with its groaning axles and heavy wheels, were suddenly there in the distance.

Nina’s heart sped up as the train slowed down. She checked. Makeup on. Matching underwear . . . The fact that she’d come prepared felt a bit strange. But on the other hand. Well. This was a date. A peculiar type of date. But a date nonetheless. It was finally happening. She wasn’t just reading about it: she was doing it. She wiped her hands on her skirt. It was a wide fifties-style one, with a belt, and she was wearing a plain top with a cardigan over it.