Let's Meet on Platform 8

by Carole Matthews

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Jamie!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed an inadequate thing to say in the circumstances. ‘I’ll phone for a taxi.’

  ‘Look, I’ll come and get you. I’ll see if Melanie’s around to look after the children.’

  ‘Can’t you tell me what’s wrong?’ There was a feeling of dread rising in him, darkening his mood.

  ‘It’s Charlie,’ was all she said.

  ‘I’m in room 405,’ Jamie offered. ‘Pamela, are you still there?’

  Her voice was barely audible. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

  Chapter 23

  Charlie lay deathly still on the bed. His face was as white as the hospital sheets, and there were dark, unnatural circles round his closed eyes. His normally effervescent curls were plastered flat to his head with sweat, making it look as if someone had shaved his skull. He looked older and more haggard than he normally did after a night on the town—and that was really saying something. Upturned on the bed, his wrists swathed in bandages still seeped tell-tale lines of blood.

  ‘Good grief,’ Jamie said. ‘You look like Uncle Fester from The Addams Family.’ He pulled the nearest plastic chair over to Charlie’s bed and sat down heavily.

  Charlie opened his eyes and smiled. It was a weak, feeble smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m here on behalf of the Mutual and Providential management, to make sure that you’re not just faking.’ Jamie picked some grapes off the bunch from the bedside table next to Charlie’s. The occupant was asleep and unaware that his fruit was being pilfered. ‘Actually, you asked for me when you were coming round. Richard phoned to tell us.’

  Charlie stared at the ceiling, where a whirling fan made an ineffectual attempt to provide a breeze in the stuffy, disinfectant-scented heat.

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Charlie. I had no idea.’

  He looked squarely at Jamie. ‘What—that I was gay, or that my lover had left me?’

  ‘Both, you silly bugger. Oh, sorry.’

  Charlie grinned. ‘It’s all right, dear boy, you can still be politically incorrect with me.’

  Jamie sighed. ‘So how long have you been…’

  ‘Homosexual? Years, dear boy.’

  ‘But I thought we were best friends, Charlie! How come you never told me? I thought you were one of the lads—a man’s man and all that sort of macho crap.’

  ‘Some of us are.’

  Jamie’s brow was furrowed. ‘And what about all those busty blondes you brought to the office parties?’

  ‘All front, old chap—me, not them.’

  He looked at Charlie’s mutilated wrists and twitched his head. ‘So what caused this?’

  ‘Richard left me—two weeks ago.’ He cleared his throat. ‘We’d been together ten years. He came back last night to collect his things. That’s when I decided to do a re-enactment of Psycho with me playing Norman Bates and Marion Crane.’

  Jamie looked puzzled. ‘Marion Crane?’

  ‘She was the one in the shower,’ Charlie explained. ‘Janet Leigh. It was her finest moment. Don’t tell me you’re too young to remember. If I remember, so should you.’ Jamie still looked blank.

  Charlie shook his head impatiently, then sighed heavily and bit his lower lip. ‘I made a terrible mess of the grouting.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘Richard’s set up home with a twenty-one-year-old television presenter called Jez with pierced nipples and a sperm whale tattooed on his penis. How can I compete with that?’

  Jamie shook his head incredulously. ‘I’m not sure that you should want to.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Charlie said listlessly.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something, damn you! You should have said you were feeling so…’

  ‘Suicidal?’ Charlie smiled ruefully. ‘You can’t just drop something like that into the conversation. Besides, you’ve got problems of your own, love.’

  Jamie stole some more grapes. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d take kindly to my moralising if you’d realised that my own life was more tangled and shredded than clothes in a clapped-out washing machine.’

  ‘I didn’t take kindly to your moralising anyway, but only because what you were saying was true.’

  ‘This is the sort of thing that happens, Jamie, when love goes wrong.’ Charlie held his wrists up. ‘This is the reality of affairs. The pain of broken promises. It’s not all hearts and flowers and forgiveness and friendly little tête-à-têtes over the custody arrangements. Speaking of which—where is the lovely Pamela?’

  ‘The lovely Pamela is sitting in the rather seedy-looking café just down the hall, nursing a coffee and probably contemplating which particular vice of mine to cite on her divorce papers. Do you want me to get her?’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘I’d rather she didn’t see me like this.’ He plucked disdainfully at his hospital nightie. ‘Just give her my love.’

  ‘I think I need to give her my love before anyone else’s,’ Jamie said wearily.

  ‘Are things any better?’

  ‘I don’t think they’ve ever been worse,’ Jamie admitted. ‘She knows about Teri.’

  Charlie winced.

  A look of concern crossed Jamie’s face. ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘No. I’m wincing for you, not me.’ Charlie waved his bandaged wrist dismissively and winced again.

  Jamie settled back in his chair and popped another grape in his mouth. ‘Do you think things can ever get back to normal?’

  ‘What’s normal, dear boy?’

  ‘Now there’s a question.’ Jamie rubbed his chin. It was heavy with stubble. ‘You know, just Pamela, me, the kids, the mortgage.’

  ‘I think that’s really down to you, Jamie.’

  Jamie stretched and yawned till the tears came to his eyes. ‘You don’t fancy getting out of that bed and going for a walk, so that I can have a nice lie down?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that.’

  ‘It’s time you were running along—you don’t want to keep Pamela waiting. I’ll be all right.’ Charlie glanced at the slumbering occupant in the next bed. ‘It would be nice if the fractured femur had some grapes left when he woke up, too.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay?’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘Has anyone else been to see you?’

  ‘No. I’ve told Richard to stay away.’ He gestured at the nurses. ‘These poor creatures have enough to deal with, without my histrionics.’

  ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘Mater and Pater? They don’t know my circumstances. Old school, you know. Not sure that women should have the vote, men should still do national service, bring back hanging. I don’t think they’d understand. They think I’m a reprehensible rogue, nothing but a debauched dilettante. And I do have my reputation to keep up.’

  ‘I’ll come again tomorrow.’

  ‘That would be nice.’ He looked exhausted. ‘Bring some grapes.’

  Jamie put his hand on top of Charlie’s. ‘I love you, Charlie.’ His voice was choked with emotion.

  Charlie’s eyes widened. ‘That’s a poofy sort of thing to say.’

  ‘Naff off, Charles.’ Jamie was embarrassed. He brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I’ve never fancied you anyway. You’re not my type.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘Go on, go and be nice to your wife.’

  Jamie stood up. ‘I’d shake your hand—’ he nodded at the bandages ‘—but I’m afraid it would come off.’

  ‘Still firmly attached, old boy. I’m not much good at that either,’ he said sadly.

  ‘Stick to insurance then.’

  ‘I’ll take your advice, if you take mine.’

  ‘No more amateur butchery?’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, dear boy.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you tomorro
w.’

  Charlie closed his eyes. ‘Tomorrow.’

  Jamie patted Charlie’s hand and walked slowly down the ward. Charlie opened his eyes and watched him—his broad straight back and his mop of dark, unruly hair even more unkempt than usual. He saw the nurse’s eyes follow him, her attention distracted from the mundane task of tucking the man with the bandaged head and two black eyes back into his bed.

  Charlie put his hand to his mouth. ‘I love you too, James,’ he said quietly.

  Chapter 24

  Neither Jamie nor Pamela noticed the car parked just farther down the road in Fraughton-next-the-Green. Teri had been sitting there for half an hour already. She had lured her mother from the house with the promise of an hour’s shopping in Marks & Spencer, but Mrs Carter was less than pleased when rather than the girlie expedition of retail therapy she expected, Teri had dumped her at the store’s doors and promptly disappeared.

  It had taken her ages to find Fraughton-next-the-Green. She knew her way to the shopping centre and back with her eyes closed, but once you strayed off the beaten track in Milton Keynes, you were in uncharted territory. You could end up going round and round in circles for days and never find the place you wanted. All the houses looked the same, all the roads looked the same. And not knowing whether you wanted to be Vertical or Horizontal was a bit like not knowing your elbow from another part of your anatomy. She had even taken the precaution of studying her map book before leaving, but it was out of date, and Fraughton-next-the-Green was marked as a pink blob with the words Undeveloped Land stamped unhelpfully on it.

  Eventually, she had stumbled across it by accident, and at first she had thought it was a mirage brought on by severe disorientation. Fraughton was indeed next-the-Green. It was also next-the-olde-worlde-pub and next-the-village-pond, across which two swans swanned majestically. White-clad men played cricket on the Green, while people sat around in deck chairs and straw hats and clapped genteelly. Wild flowers grew in the neat grass verges, and there was no litter or graffiti on the bus shelter. It was as if Milton Keynes had been involved in a head-on crash with Stepford.

  Jamie’s house was set farther down the road than the Green—away from the main ‘action’. He was right when he said the house was a mix of architectures. It looked as if someone had cut several pictures out of Homes & Gardens, thrown them up in the air and then built what landed. There were pillars and porticoes, balconies and balustrades, all topped with a thatched roof—a peculiar blend of Regency, Georgian, Suffolk and Southfork.

  The house had a circular gravel drive with a circular lawn in the middle of it, and in the middle of that Jamie pushed about a lawnmower with purpose. Behind him Francesca followed with a child-sized rake. Jack sat in a plastic car with blue wheels and a yellow roof, and Pamela helped him as he struggled to steer it through the gravel. She looked how she sounded. Cool, confident, controlled.

  Collectively they looked like something out of Disney. All the scene needed was a few talking flowers and some cartoon rabbits hopping about, and they would have had their next blockbuster on their hands.

  Pamela disappeared indoors and reappeared moments later with a tray of drinks. The family huddled together as she benevolently dished them out. Jamie took his drink and squeezed her affectionately round the shoulders. He squeezed Teri’s heart painfully at the same time. Mr and Mrs Bun the Baker and their chubby-cheeked children Master Bun and Miss Bun had been less of a happy family than this lot.

  How could she ever have thought that she was destined to share any part of his life? This was her dream—big house, two big cars, two angelic children, a look of quiet contentment and a hunk of a husband. This was what she thought about when she lay awake at night in her seventies box, imagining Jamie’s humped shape slumbering beside her in the bed. It was her dream—but someone else was living it in her place.

  So much for his wife not understanding him. It was the oldest line in the book, and she had fallen for it. He was never going to leave all this for her. She must have been a fool to think that he ever would. Clare would put on her Sister Mary Bernadette voice and say, ‘I told you so.’

  As far as she could tell, Jamie had made only three lapses from utter perfection in his life. One was marrying another woman before he’d given himself the chance to meet her. The second was buying this house—which wasn’t so much a statement of sartorial taste as a demonstration of cash over common sense. It was a house that screamed ‘First Division footballer’—not ‘insurance executive’. She could picture the architect now—the type of man who would park a Ferrari in the drive and would consider circular houses de rigueur. The type of man who would design the rooms with the lounge in between the kitchen and the dining room without a thought to the mess the transient food would make on the shag pile. It must be more his wife’s style—although she’d had the good taste to marry Jamie.

  The third slip was the flea-bitten hound that had just bounded into the Disney film set. It should have been white and fluffy and wagged its tail in time with the catchy signature tune written by Tim Rice that also should have been tinkling away in the background. This mutt was a cross between a doormat and the sort of Afghan coat that was briefly fashionable among the less discerning hippies during the late seventies. A conglomeration of indiscriminate canine sexual activity. Its fur stood on end, giving the impression its nose had recently been pressed into a live electric socket, and its tail wagged erratically in short staccato bursts that enhanced the effect. This dog was the only thing that bound them all to earth. Its tatty presence reassured Teri that she hadn’t slipped quietly into a virtual reality game of Mr and Mrs Perfect and Their Perfect Lives. This dog was the only anchor to sanity.

  She looked away from the tableau in front of her. How was she going to face Jamie on the train tomorrow? It would be best to avoid him, but she needed to find out what had happened yesterday. She could consider commuting by coach. There was a coach that left from the end of her road at some ungodly hour in the morning. It took hours to get into London, but it was a fraction of the cost and they all drank whisky and played poker and had wild affairs with each other to pass the time. The locals called it the Love Coach. She had tried it once. Whether it was the lure of cheap travel, whisky or the possibility of a wild affair, she was unsure now. On the first morning she had been violently sick just outside Hemel Hempstead and the driver had been forced to stop for her. Everyone had been very cross and unsympathetic and late for work, and she hadn’t dared try it again. Not one of the men had looked like potential affair material anyway.

  She drove away from Fraughton-next-the-Green unsure why she had come, and now that she had come, unsure exactly what she would do about it. Her biological clock was ticking away as loudly as the clock in the crocodile’s mouth in Peter Pan. Except that unlike Peter Pan, this clock was reminding her that she was ageing. She could feel her collagen fibres binding as she spoke. Her hormones were hurtling her headlong into hirsuteness—her oestrogen was on the way out and her progesterone on the verge of pulling the plug. That was why she was so desperate for a promotion; if she had fulfilment at work and a grotesque amount of money, perhaps there wouldn’t be this empty yearning inside her, this desire to wear Laura Ashley smocks and float round the garden cutting roses, this ache to know that Braxton Hicks wasn’t a character in Dallas but a kind of contraction, and talk about breaking waters and not mean the seaside.

  Her mother, spent up at Marks & Spencer, for once had the sensitivity not to break the solemn silence in the car. The deluge would probably come, but she seemed to realise that now wasn’t the time, and Teri’s heart went out to the chubby, elderly lady next to her who had the unfortunate affliction of sharing the Queen’s hairdo.

  The telephone was ringing as they pushed through the pile of free newspapers and leaflets advertising double-glazing bargains behind the front door. Teri was sure that every time she went out—even for five minutes—people leapt out of hiding in her bushes and pushed free newspapers and junk
mail through her door. When she answered the phone, it was Clare.

  Her friend sounded bright and bubbly, which made Teri feel even flatter. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t phoned, Teri. I’ve been terribly busy.’

  ‘I thought you were sulking.’

  ‘Me? No! I know that you can be thoughtless, heartless and totally selfish when you want to be, Therese, but I’m not one to bear grudges. Besides, I’ve been far too busy to sulk.’

  ‘Go on then. What have you been doing?’ Teri settled herself on the bottom stair. Her mother made a capital T with her fingers and Teri nodded.

  ‘David came back to me!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Oh, Clare, I’m so pleased for you,’ Teri said gaily. Her heart sank deeper into the pit of her stomach. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, I decided to play it cool, after a month of sweating by the telephone, forcing myself not to ring. You know, Teri, I’m sure that giving up someone you love is worse than trying to give up chocolate—the withdrawal symptoms are terrible.’

  This was just what Teri wanted to hear. Her mother opened the door and passed her a cup of tea. Teri mouthed, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Anyway, after a month of no contact whatsoever— I didn’t reply to his solicitor’s letters, estate agents’ calls, no midnight tearful phone calls, nothing—he simply abandoned the nubile bitch Anthea and begged me on bended knee to take him back. Can you believe it?’

  ‘I’m really pleased for you,’ Teri said numbly. ‘What made him change his mind?’

  ‘Sex,’ Clare stated baldly. ‘They were having it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with only a break for a Pot Noodle in between. And as you well know, Teri, Sister Mary Bernadette always used to say “man cannot live by Pot Noodle alone”.’

  Teri twisted a tendril of hair round her finger. ‘Actually, I think it was bread.’

  Clare was affronted. ‘I thought that was Marie Antoinette?’

  ‘Er—that was cake.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Clare said dismissively.

  Teri changed the subject. ‘So how’s it going now?’