A Short Affair

by Simon Oldfield

  So far.

  Stuff changes. Add time to anything and it’ll change.

  And lies – if there’s lying, in time all the lies are found out.

  Ronnie is so noticeable and apparently ill-at-ease that he has cleared a significant ring in the would-be passengers scattered and gaggled about.

  He spins, yet again, to study the figures, the faces behind him. He might almost be at large in a hostile landscape – clinging fronds of alien Viet Cong wetness blocking his view, or expanses of dusty jihadi concealment, Rommelish foxholes . . . so many enemies are available as inspiration. He frowns, his eyes staying calm while his face approaches fury. He’s a quandary to those who do not know him, is Ronnie.

  Not a woman – you can’t – no touching.

  Women are present at the station, naturally. There are women standing in the open carelessly, contained in the crowds.

  Women, old blokes, a priest who might be a vicar or pastor or one of those job titles – you can’t differentiate, can you? – then there’s couples, kids, solo bastards with rucksacks. You always get attitude with a rucksack, you always get smugness about the feats the rucksack owner could perform. And you can see it’s bollocks. You can see it’s just a student taking home washing to his mum.

  That one’s fake military – he’s pretending he’s a squaddie on leave, but he’s not, he’s just a wanker with some army surplus and a fucking rucksack.

  Over towards the shop which sells shit sandwiches and pots of other shit that nobody sane would eat – like you want to eat everything mixed in a bowl; like you’re a cat, or something – over that way towards the shop there’s a man with a beard and a woman beside him. The man looks uncomfortable and Ronnie wants, quite urgently, to be absolutely sure of why.

  Because the woman is shaking.

  Not a hipster-bastard beard and not the full I-have-mice-in-here nonsense, either. Average beard. Not a white bloke trying to show off being Muslim.

  Not that. The way he looks – round shoulders and a little box-set-watcher’s belly – he’s just slack. The beard is because he can’t be bothered shaving. That’s all it is. Laziness growing across him, springing out plain on his face. Evidence.

  The woman is still shaking.

  I bet he says he’s got sensitive skin. Prone to shaving rash and spots.

  I bet he keeps ointments round the side of the bath and is full of weaknesses and talks about them.

  I bet he hasn’t got a bath – shower. Mildew in the curtain and towels with no colour left in them any more. No self-respect.

  I bet.

  The woman is still shaking.

  Ronnie does not like the man with the beard, although they haven’t met and are not going to.

  Fucker. Look at him. Fucker.

  The man is wearing beige cargo pants, slung low beneath what will surely become an ever-larger gut. He has additionally a pair of trainers with show-off-complicated laces and a purple t-shirt showing what might be Japanese characters. He is clearly afflicted by reading magazines of the most arsehole sort and then adjusting himself to fit the world they show him.

  The woman is still shaking.

  He won’t know what the words on his t-shirt mean and probably they’re ‘this dickthistle bought a t-shirt and can’t even read that it’s calling him a dickthistle . . .’

  The man has a backpack lolling against his left shin.

  Little brother of your rucksack, isn’t it . . . ? Just as bad, but half-hearted.

  Ronnie is trying to puzzle out whether the woman beside the fucker is his wife, or girlfriend, or has any other type of connectedness. He is almost decided. The pair are standing over-close if they’re strangers.

  The woman – she’s still shaking.

  She is slender in the way that women who shake in public tend to be. Ronnie peers at her and thinks of bones and breaking. He is aware that he shouldn’t peer, because he fell asleep in his mum’s garden yesterday and has cheeks and a forehead ablaze with sunburn and implied stupidity. He is a redhead. He is visibly someone who should not stay out on a clear day without a hat. But he was tired and relaxed and his mum has two comfy loungers on the patio and either one is an invitation to nod off.

  It bloody hurts, too. Mum laughing.

  Yeah, well, I’m an idiot, aren’t I? Yeah, I know . . . Yeah, go on, laugh then. I didn’t laugh at you when you did the same in Rhyl, did I? Yeah, go on . . .

  His mum had kept laughing while she smeared calamine lotion onto him and he wondered how she got a hold of such a substance. It smelled of his childhood and surely nobody made it any more and if that were the case might her supply not be out of date and ineffective?

  Worked, though, didn’t it? Dabbing at me like a stain. And then it felt the way a blessing ought to. Afterwards. Blessed.

  The woman is now beyond shaking, undergoes deeper disturbances, spasms that rise through her body. Something seems to be lashing at her while she attempts to simply weather impacts she can’t avoid. In certain moments a presence, a vile presence, might be holding her by the waist and tugging, tugging, rattling her, making her teeth meet in her head. It is forcing her to survive it and, meanwhile, her expression is an almost unfathomable mix of flittering emotions: shame, weariness, grief, an angry desire to fight and an understanding of endless defeat. She is managing to stand inside this earthquake no one else can see.

  Only they do see. They’re blanking her, but she’s right here and can’t be missed.

  You’d think the vicar would do something about her, step in. That’s what men of the cloth are for, isn’t it – removing pain, comfort, words? She’s in pain. You’d think that he ought to be walking across to her and consoling.

  The bearded man is the most discomfited by the woman. He edges away from her, then towards and backs off and then heads in again by millimetres, observing her from the tail of his eye as he does so.

  Fucker.

  There are points when it seems the man might speak to her, interject, but then he says nothing, studies the train indications instead. He looks guilty.

  So what did you do to her? What did you do?

  Ronnie rubs the tips of his fingers against his temples, up and down, up and down. This will, he realises, leave his hair bristling, disordered and werewolfish. It’s something he does; occasionally in front of the bathroom mirror. During that situation, his sink will fill with uprooted red and greying strands. He probably will go bald in a peculiar way as a result. He’ll start receding above his ears.

  The bearded man does finally mumble some handful of sentences to the woman, while she breathes in short, animal rhythms. He does this during one of the intervals when her body is not assaulting her, betraying her, and she is tiredly still. She makes a reply and – although Ronnie can’t hear what’s spoken – it’s clear to him that the beardyfuck is, in fact, a stranger to her and that she is shamed by his attention and simultaneously concentrating on stating just a few words with considerable force.

  Then a station announcement breaks in and the bearded man uses its smugly disembodied female noise – someone’s idea of a chirpy nanny saying where you’re meant to go – as cover for a swift retreat. He steps surprisingly lively with his scrawny, lumpy backpack rapidly uplifted and clutched, as if it’s at risk from the woman, as if she will most likely choose to leap after him.

  She is, rather, caught by another wave of shuddering, plainly hauled down by it towards somewhere bleak inside herself and harrowed.

  Bastards. Everyone’s a bastard – ducking their heads and avoiding.

  When you see stuff like this you’re supposed to help out, aren’t you?

  Somebody’s done something to her. And the bastards must have seen it happen. They’ll have stood about and let it, too. That fucker beardman, he’ll have seen it and been closest and ignored it.

  Everybody in this station would step over you if you were dying, I swear.

  At this, the almighty female in the ceiling blared out pressing, if distorted,
instructions for Ronnie’s, now slightly delayed, departure. He didn’t absolutely want to pick up his holdall yet, though.

  Can’t cut and run – that wouldn’t be respectable.

  If you want to be a man who’s respected you do things other people can respect, are able to respect, you make sure to be respectable.

  His substantial footwear gets heavyish with his confusion and is going to give him trouble, root him and force him to miss his train, but then the woman starts up moving. She’s off. She lifts her bag, which is over-stuffed and of the flimsy shopping type; jute with pinky flowers printed on it, insecure.

  The sort of thing you’d give a kid, a girl, so’s she can play at being housewives.

  And then she pauses while the weight of it – which can’t be that much, Jesus – while the weight of it foxes her, distorts her until she appears to be drawing up a heavy bucket from some deep well and losing, staggering.

  Let yourself be lost in a railway station with a little girl’s bag that’s open-mouthed, that would get your stuff wet if it rains and that isn’t suitable – why do that? It’s like advertising so robbery will happen.

  ‘Fuck.’ Ronnie had intended to think this, but instead delivers it out loud to a space near the right shoulder of a young guy in yet another lousy t-shirt, this one emblazoned with a long quotation in curly script.

  Bands. You put the names of bands on t-shirts. You put what music you like on your t-shirt, so people can know who you are. And you only do that when you’re a teenager and won’t manage to give indications in other ways. It’s not complicated, the t-shirt issue. Why make it complicated?

  As Ronnie watches, interested, the young guy reacts to being sworn at, snaps through the first few sections of becoming outraged and maybe combative, but then sees Ronnie being Ronnie and being there, Ronnie being Ronnie and being ready, and changes his mind. Ronnie lets the milky whites of his eyes flare feistily, licks his lips and nods as the bloke half-stumbles back and then onto a sideways trajectory, speeding his bastardly self away, bolting as somebody bloody well ought to, if they’re wearing quotes from poetry.

  The woman has made it a few paces onwards and then buckled, set down her playtime bag as if it contains an impossible burden: compressed hell, a mid-Atlantic chasm, grief.

  ‘Fuck.’ This time the syllable emerges only softly and troubles no one as Ronnie’s masculine boots take him forward and forward until he is only as far from the woman as he would stay from any wild animal, anything trapped. ‘I’m . . .’

  The sound of his voice seems to hit her.

  He begins again, feeling watery in his stomach, ‘I’m Ronnie. Is there something wrong?’

  The woman slow-turns her head, side to side, in such a way that it means both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. It also strongly suggests ‘go away’.

  But Ronnie digs in, because he is the digging sort, ‘No, but there is though, love, and it’s okay and you can tell me and I’ll fix it. Just spent all yesterday fixing the mother’s bathroom tap and I’m not a plumber, but – you know – I’ll try. I try things.’ He cranes himself nearer without moving either of his feet – looks increasingly like a ski-jumper leaving the slope, that big downward slide that looks mad when you see it on the telly. He also finds that his chest is jerking with these sour, shallow gulps of breath. It’s the effort of keeping generally still, of controlling his limbs so he doesn’t threaten, that’s upsetting him.

  But if she’s hiding and down and hurt you mustn’t move. You have to make noises that sound like not killing her and you hold one hand in the other so that neither one of the fingery little sods breaks out and wrecks the atmosphere of calm. Calm – that’s you. Compulsory soothing.

  Ronnie drives on, low-worded, a driving murmur what he’s aiming for, ‘You can say. I don’t mind. I don’t mind anything, me. I’ll have forgotten tomorrow, I’m a stranger, where’s the harm . . . ?’

  Her mouth twitches and he can’t help being angry that she’s dressed in these many layers of fawny, rose-spattered, thin cloth that are only ever going to tell the fucking world she’s a soft target and she has these halfway-ballet kind of shoes on that won’t protect her and the bloody bag – she bought it herself, for herself, because it’s a kid’s thing and she wanted to be a happy kid getting a present – the whole everything of her invites every swine in London to come and have a go. She’s broadcasting from all angles. Reckless.

  Don’t look weak, darling. Never. Not ever. And when you are weak, I mean . . . It’s then that you can’t be forgiven if you let it show. You’ve served yourself up. You’re like a spy doing sabotage behind your defences.

  Silly cow.

  ‘Only I think you’re for the Edinburgh train and so am I and we’ll miss it, if you don’t come with me.’

  She pauses at this. Completely.

  She’s this entire stillness.

  Then her mouth is overwhelmed with the shapes of crying and he gently sets just his one elbow that’s closest out even further to be near her, inviting, and then turns his face ahead so his gaze won’t intrude, gives her privacy for her decision – looks far off at the distance as if he’s about to pull some sledge across the Arctic, or such, and she does, she does, she hooks her arm around into his and lets him take a fraction of her burden.

  He begins to walk her. ‘What is it though you’re doing great lovely what’s wrong though must be something it’s always something is what I find.’

  The unendingness of his talking finally pushes her to interrupt, ‘Panic attacks.’ Her notes are a tone lower than he’d expected and something smoky in the vowels and a sense of a heat there, or heat that she might have contained in other days. ‘I get I get I get them.’

  ‘Say no more. That’s a bastard that is.’ She halfway smiles at this.

  ‘A proper bastard, darling. Yeah.’

  He leads her along the platform while inconsiderates push past with bloody trolleys that either trip you up as they cross your path, or form roadblocks in narrow spaces.

  You take up the room of two people with those things.

  He feels as a spasm starts to hurl itself about in her and battles to keep their progress even as a response.

  Best not to talk. It’s the animal stuff that’s useful now, your demeanour and the way you rest your hands.

  Through the wool of her sleeve he can feel that she’s in a hot sweat. It’s the soak of fear.

  Turns me over – when anyone stinks of fear that way. It’ll stick on me, too. Sinks in for days, that does, curdles your skin.

  She attempts to make some adjustment to their balance, her hand colliding with his fingers and tear-wet, anxiety-wet, and this makes them seem warm and familiar, before they leave him.

  Reminds you . . .

  His shoulder mildly clatters hers and he flinches, doesn’t want a reaction, begins his patter again to waylay her alarm, ‘But you’re okay. You’re all right. It’s your head, isn’t it? Your head is telling you to run off like buggery or hide in a hole, but it’s wrong and you can be polite about it, but you can recommend that it should bugger off because it’s lying. Because you’re okay. This is okay. You’re catching a train. People do that every day.’

  The woman attempts a full smile, or some close relative to that. Ronnie smiles back and catches her eye and the sunny patch this makes between them lasts for a couple of breaths and then the edge of weeping bangs at her again. ‘Thanks.’ This appears as a cough of sound.

  ‘Don’t mention it my pleasure or not pleasure cos it’s horrible for you but I don’t mind . . . only . . .’ They are well along the platform now, level with the carriage Ronnie knows contains his seat. Ronnie always makes reservations, otherwise there’s bother and uncertainty. Ronnie likes a solo seat and a little table, books early and gets cheap first-class.

  Not that cheap. Not that first-class. It’s like it was in Ordinary when I was a kid. That and free cups of tea.

  Ronnie lets his longing for a seat and some peace drag through him. He hal
ts her. ‘See. Here. This is J. This is my carriage.’

  She blinks at him.

  ‘But I’ll walk you up to where you are. Okay? And you remember – J. Okay? You need anything, you have any bother, then you come and see me in J. Or you tell someone to ask for Ronnie in J and I’ll come running. Proper running. Okay?’

  She blinks.

  ‘Where are you, love?’

  Standing apart from him at this – kiddy’s bag in one hand, holding out her ticket like, like she’s my daughter, like she’s . . .

  He takes the ticket and it is damp and unbelievably crumpled, as if she has been worrying at it in her hand as some kind of token to ward off ills. This has made it almost illegible and no use. He frowns at it. Then he unfrowns, because her whole body reacts to frowning by tensing in a way that he can taste.

  Like the smell of those old-fashioned gas fires with the cylinder in the back. Ten quid a cylinder and the dying in your sleep from being poisoned was for free.

  ‘All right . . . E. You’re in E. We’ll nip along there, then.’

  ‘No. I’m fine.’

  ‘I can go with you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I can do more.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  And she heads out for her carriage, nibbling at the distance with child steps in those stupid fucking slippers, with that stupid fucking bag and he wants to have coppers go with her, armed guards. Nice ones. Kind ones. He wants.

  Her shoulders turn a little as they retreat. She’s expecting trouble, but doesn’t stay with him.

  He wants. ‘Fuck.’

  But that’s the end of it. Unless she needs him and does send a message, or walks through and finds him. That’s the end, if she decides it is.

  Ronnie climbs aboard, slots his holdall up aloft, sits in his by-itself seat and looks out of the window. A steward passes, on the way probably to fetch the first big pot of tea. Can’t keep first-class waiting – it needs its beverages.