The Last Train to Brighton – Part 1

The doors of the 00:22 to Brighton closed eleven seconds before Jess reached the platform.

She stood there with her record bag on her shoulder and her heels in her hand and watched the red lights of the train slide away into the dark, and said a word that made the man next to her laugh.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. I said the same thing about five seconds ago.” He pointed at the departure board. “That was mine too.”

He was tall, with a beard and messy brown hair and a waterproof jacket that looked like it had seen several oceans. He was holding a takeaway coffee and a large book about whales.

“Next train’s at 5:32,” Jess said, reading the board. “Brilliant. Five hours in Victoria station.”

“Or,” said the man, “five hours in London.”

She looked at him properly. He looked back, friendly, a little shy.

“I’m Oliver,” he said. “I’m a marine biologist. I’m mostly harmless. Unless you’re plankton.”

Jess laughed despite herself.

“Jess,” she said. “DJ. I’m mostly harmless unless you request Mr. Brightside.”

---

They walked.

Down to the river, along the Embankment, past the dark Houses of Parliament and the London Eye standing still and silver against the clouds. London at 1 a.m. was strange and quiet, the streets wet from rain earlier, the bridges glowing.

He told her about whales. About the humpbacks off the coast of Cornwall he’d been tracking for three years, and how their songs change every season, and how a song can travel across a whole ocean.

“So they just sing,” Jess said, “and hope someone hears?”

“Pretty much.” Oliver smiled. “Same as you, really.”

She thought about that. About standing behind the decks in a dark club, playing songs into the noise, watching faces, hoping.

“Yeah,” she said. “Same as me.”

They bought chips from the last open shop in Soho and ate them on the steps of a church. A fox trotted past and looked at them with great contempt. They both laughed so hard Jess nearly choked.

---

At 3 a.m., on a bench by the river, she told him.

She hadn’t planned to. She never planned to. Usually, with men, there was a moment, sometimes early and sometimes late, when she had to decide whether to say it, and how, and brace herself for whatever came next. Sometimes it was fine. Sometimes it was very much not fine.

But Oliver had just told her about his sister, who had died when he was sixteen, and how he still sometimes talked to her on the beach, and he had said it simply, without any embarrassment, and Jess found herself wanting to give him something true back.

“I’m trans,” she said, looking at the river. “I just. I like you. And I wanted you to know before I liked you more.”

She waited. Her heart was going very fast.

Oliver was quiet for a moment.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said.

She turned her head. He was looking at her, not at the river.

“That’s it?” she asked.

“Is there more you want to tell me?” he said. “I’ll listen to all of it. Or none of it. Whatever you want.” He paused. “I think I’ve liked you since you swore at the train.”

Jess stared at him. Then she laughed, a shaky, surprised laugh, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“That was a really bad word,” she said.

“It was a great word.”

---

She told him more, in the end. Not everything. But a lot. About growing up in a small town in Kent. About the years of pretending. About the first time she had played a set as herself, in a tiny club in Brighton, and how the whole room had danced and nobody had cared and she had cried in the toilets afterwards from pure relief.

Oliver listened to all of it. He asked good questions. He never once asked anything that felt like it was for his curiosity instead of hers.

At four, it started to rain again. They ran, laughing, into the empty entrance of a closed hotel and stood under the awning, shoulder to shoulder, watching the water pour off the edge.

“Jess,” Oliver said. “Can I kiss you?”

She looked up at him. At the beard and the whale book and the kind, nervous face.

“Yes,” she said.

It was soft. Careful. A question in it, and an answer. When they pulled apart, the rain was still falling, and Jess was smiling so much her face hurt.

---

They caught the 5:32 to Brighton.

The train was nearly empty. They sat together in a four-seat bay, her head on his shoulder, watching London turn into fields and the sky turn from black to grey to the palest pink. Neither of them slept.

At Brighton, the sun was just coming up.

“My flat is near the seafront,” Jess said, at the station exit, suddenly shy again. “If you want. For coffee. Just coffee. Or not just coffee. I don’t,” she stopped. “I’m very tired and I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“I live in Hove,” Oliver said. “Twenty minutes away. I’ve lived here for three years.” He laughed. “I can’t believe we never met.”

“We met now.”

“We did.”

He took her hand. They walked down to the sea together.

Her flat was small and full of records, with a big window looking out over the grey-green water and the old pier. She made coffee. Neither of them drank it. What happened next belonged only to them: to the morning light and the gulls crying over the beach and the slow, gentle way they learned each other, with laughter, and questions, and a lot of care. For once, Jess didn’t have to brace herself for anything at all.

---

At noon, they walked down to the beach.

The tide was out. The sun was shining. Oliver found a long piece of driftwood and wrote something in the wet sand in huge letters, then stepped back so she could read it.

THE LAST TRAIN IS THE BEST TRAIN.

Jess laughed.

“That’s terrible,” she said. “Is that a whale thing?”

“It’s a me thing.” He dropped the stick. “I have a confession.”

“Oh no.”

“I could have caught the 00:22,” Oliver said. “I was on the platform early. I saw you running. I stood back.”

Jess stared at him. “You missed your train on purpose?”

“You were swearing at it,” he said. “Before you even reached it. I thought, I need to know who that is.”

She looked at the man on the beach, and the words in the sand, and the sea behind him, and started laughing so hard she had to sit down on the pebbles.

“That’s the most romantic thing,” she said, “and also the stupidest.”

“That’s a whale thing,” Oliver said, and sat down beside her.

The tide came in slowly and washed the letters away. They stayed until it was gone.

---

Next: Part 2, Whale Song. A trip to Cornwall, a recording from the sea, and Jess’s biggest set ever.