The Girl On The Train

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-14

Chapters 15-21

Chapters 22-28

Chapters 29-38

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 15-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 15 Summary: “Rachel”

This chapter covers July 23 through August 1, although Hawkins does not include entries for each day, nor both morning and evening sections for all of the days. On July 23, Rachel does not pretend to go into work. In the apartment, she thinks about watching the news the previous day and learning about Kamal. While waiting to hear more, Rachel buys some wine and drinks it. Then, the news includes a report about Kamal being released. Rachel tries to remember what she saw on the night of Megan’s disappearance.

On July 24, Rachel stays in again, and Cathy mentions Rachel missing work. Rachel recalls getting fired because of her drunken behavior at lunch with a client several months ago. She watches the news, and Scott’s face reminds her that she tried to call Scott the night before. Her phone shows missed calls from Scott and Tom. When she returns Scott’s call, he has figured out she is the drunken and mentally unstable witness Riley told him about.

The narrative picks up on July 26, and Rachel is still not taking the train to London in the pouring rain. She has nightmares and writes Scott an email. After walking around in the rain and learning she doesn’t have enough money in her account to buy alcohol, Rachel calls Tom. He asks why she was at Scott’s house, and learns that she still doesn’t remember what happened the night of Megan’s disappearance. She also reveals that her theory is that Kamal harmed Megan.

The next entry is July 29, a Monday, when Rachel returns to her morning train ride, pretending to go into work. She gets off at Witney and looks for the red-haired man in the rain. She sees Scott, and he invites her back to his house. They talk about Kamal being both their prime suspect, Megan’s affair, and Anna’s affair with Tom. Rachel admits she couldn’t conceive and that led to her alcohol use disorder, and Scott tells her that he and Megan argued about having kids.

That evening, Cathy confronts Rachel about pretending to go into work. Her boyfriend saw Rachel’s old boss and learned she was fired for being drunk at work. Rachel cries and Cathy comforts her, but insists she stop spending money on train rides and get a new job.

The narrative picks up on August 1, with Rachel waking up from a nightmare. She finds a bottle she has hidden and puts the remaining wine into a tea mug. When Rachel turns on the TV, there is a report about Megan’s body being found in Corly Wood, uncovered by the rain. Rachel tries again to remember what happened the night of Megan’s disappearance, using freewriting.

Chapter 16 Summary: “Megan”

This chapter covers one day, June 13, broken into morning and evening sections. In the morning, Megan has trouble sleeping and wants to leave Scott and her life in Witney. She feels like talking to Kamal will help, so that evening she goes to his flat.

As they drink wine, Megan tells Kamal about her relationship with Mac. When she was 17, she lived in his cottage in Holkham, and did a lot of drugs. She got pregnant and found out too late for an abortion, so she had the baby. One cold night, Mac and her got into a fight, and he stormed out, leaving her alone with the baby. She was drinking to try to get warm, got into the bathtub with the baby, and fell asleep. After learning about her baby’s death, Kamal hugs Megan. Scott calls and texts. Megan ignores these messages but answers when Tara calls, telling her that Scott is looking for her. After hanging up, Megan kisses Kamal.

Chapter 17 Summary: “Rachel”

On August, Rachel remembers dreaming about walking in the woods. She checks her messages—one from her mom and one from Scott. Rachel decides she needs a drink before talking to either of them. Cathy notices Rachel is drunk when she heads out to meet her mom for lunch, but her mom doesn’t notice when she agrees to loan Rachel some money.

On the way back from lunch, Rachel sees Megan’s picture all over the newspapers that passengers are carrying. The red-haired man sits next to her on the train and asks if she remembers him. She says she does, vaguely, but when he starts to ask if she remembers anything about Megan (as he was too drunk to remember), Rachel gets up and walks to the end of the train. Again, Rachel tries to remember that night, and comes up with an image of Anna walking away from her.

Chapter 18 Summary: “Anna”

This chapter overlaps with the previous one, covering the evening of August 3. Tom went out drinking with friends from the army, and Anna couldn’t find anyone to have a playdate with Evie. Anna avoids the news about Megan and thinks about Rachel being around the night she disappears, suspecting Rachel of harming Megan.

Chapter 19 Summary: “Rachel”

This chapter covers August 4 through August 7. Rachel wakes up on August 4 and thinks about talking to Scott on the phone the previous night, making plans to meet. She goes to number 15 and asks Scott about Anna. Scott replies that he’s now the main suspect in Megan’s murder. Then Scott encourages Rachel to try to remember the night of the disappearance, and Rachel can only clearly remember seeing Anna, as well as other sensations of being hurt and seeing the red-haired man. She decides to see a therapist—Kamal—to try to recover her memories.

On August 6, Rachel has an appointment with Kamal. They talk about her blackouts and Tom’s affair with Anna, but Rachel is unwilling to tell him about her infertility. She is still suspicious of Kamal, but wants to have another therapy session with him.

On the morning of August 7, Rachel wakes from a dream about doing something terrible but being unable to remember it when Tom accuses her. She thinks about him taking an expensive trip to Vegas after telling her they couldn’t afford another round of IVF treatment. She hasn’t had a drink for a few days and doesn’t want to start drinking, so she walks around Ashbury and compares herself to the people she sees on the streets. On her walk, she sees a tabloid headline about Megan being a child killer.

Chapter 20 Summary: “Anna”

On August 7, Anna sees the same headline as Rachel about Megan being a child killer. However, Anna sees it while out with a group of mothers at a Starbucks, and she feels like they are judging her for employing Megan as a nanny. So, Anna goes home and talks to Tom on the phone, who tells her not to believe the press. When Tom gets home that evening, he and Anna get into a fight. Anna wants to leave the house that Rachel and Megan have been in, and Tom argues it is not economically viable.

Chapter 21 Summary: “Rachel”

This chapter picks up in the evening of August 7 with Scott calling Rachel and asking to come over to her place. When he arrives, he tells her the police revealed Megan was pregnant, and they cry. Cathy comes home, so Rachel retreats to her bedroom with Scott. They discuss who the father of the baby is—Scott thinks it’s his, not Kamal’s. After drinking some tea, Scott falls asleep in Rachel’s bed, and she sleeps next to him. When she wakes up, he’s gone.

The next day, Rachel goes to her next therapy appointment with Kamal, and tells him about her infertility causing her depression. He offers strategies for coping and comfort, which makes Rachel feel better and not suspect he is the murderer anymore.

On August 9th, Rachel breaks her recent streak of sobriety and drinks on the train to Witney, enjoying the company of strangers. That morning’s paper included details about police discovering the body of Megan’s baby in Holkham, which caused Rachel to call Scott.

Chapters 15-21 Analysis

Hawkins, following the genre conventions of crime and mystery, offers several red herrings, or false leads. Most characters, including the police, suspect Kamal or Scott as Megan’s murderer. By using only the pronoun “he” in the chapters where Megan engages in her extra-marital affair (until near the end of the book), Hawkins hides the identity of Megan’s lover and killer from the reader. However, there are some subtle clues to Tom’s guilt before he is identified as the nameless lover. When Rachel asks Tom if he saw Megan the night of her disappearance, Tom expresses concern that she remembers something: “‘No.’ He sounds concerned now. ‘Why? Did you? You didn’t do something, did you?’” (151). Tom worries that Rachel might have said something about him to the police. When he learns that she believes Kamal is Megan’s lover (not Tom), Tom “laughs” (151). This laugh is connected to the smile symbolism that runs throughout the novel.

Tom’s laughter is cause for suspicion. Rachel doesn’t pick up on Tom’s laughter as a clue, due to her alcohol use disorder and Tom’s exploitation of it to rewrite her memories. Anna also does not suspect Tom, due to his gaslighting of her as well. However, a smile causes Anna to suspect Rachel is involved in Megan’s death; she thinks “about that horrible, chilling little smile she gave me when I saw her outside the Hipwell’s house. Detective Riley doesn’t know just how dangerous Rachel can be” (178). This is a red herring, like many of the other smiles in the novel. Hawkins setting Rachel up to be an “unreliable witness” (151), according to the police, makes it possible for Anna—and even Rachel—to fear she is the killer.

Drawing on Hawkins’s background as a journalist, newspapers (and other news outlets) connect characters and structure the world in which they live. They are a counterpoint to Rachel’s subjective and limited memories, representing a shared or common account of events. One example is when Rachel and Anna read the same newspaper headline: “WAS MEGAN A CHILD KILLER?” (195 and 196). While this is clearly attention-grabbing, tabloid-style journalism, the memory that Megan tries to repress and hide from everyone, but eventually shares with Kamal, is the accidental death of her newborn. Newspapers create memories—a record of events—for a city’s residents, that can be compared with memories affected by substance use disorders or trauma.

Both Megan and Rachel overtly wish to live in other circumstances, while Anna generally tries to pretend that her life is better than it is. Rachel and Megan associate their desired lives with trains. Megan looks at “the track at the end of the garden with its trains, always taking someone else to somewhere else, reminding me over and over and over, a dozen times a day, that I’m staying put” (163). She is restless in her sexual relationships, longs to be on the beach, and wants to run from her past. Her death, and being buried by Tom in a shallow grave by train tracks, is the final way her movement and agency is limited.

Rachel, on the other hand, craves normalcy. She wants to fit in and be a part of things rather than escape a mundane suburban, and commuting, existence. She says, “it feels indescribably good to be swept along with the crowd” (209). Megan’s loneliness fuels her desire for something different and new, while Rachel’s loneliness fuels her desire to be useful or helpful. Rachel believes in, and desires, the facade that Anna presents about her married life. Anna, meanwhile, tries to feel and appear happy. She believes, in this section, that if Rachel is out of their lives, Tom and her would be normal and content suburbanites.