Remember Why You Fear Me

by Robert Shearman

  She had had enough of her tantrums, and had picked her up, and marched her down the aisle, and to the window, and chucked her out. And he could imagine the little girl’s screams being cut off as she was sucked into the night, and how her body would have fallen down the side of the speeding train, as if she were flying, as if she were a witch, a little witch who’d lost her broomstick, falling until her head smashed against the track.

  And then the mother had calmly returned to her seat. And all the while since had been staring out into the blackness. The blackness into which she had tossed her child.

  No.

  That couldn’t be it.

  Think.

  He had had his eyes closed. And what had happened, surely—yes—was that the girl had walked past him to the other end of the compartment—tiptoed past, probably, unusually quietly, but girls were peculiar things, weren’t they, maybe she was playing some sort of game?—she was now no doubt terrorizing another compartment altogether. And the mother? The mother who had just sat in her seat the whole time (half an hour more like, really) whilst her daughter ran amok somewhere without supervision? That made her a bad parent, perhaps, but he could live with that, he wasn’t the best parent in the world either, was he, was he? She could be a bad parent, that still made more sense than that she was a murderer.

  He sighed with relief, and only then realized he’d been holding his breath. And he closed the toilet door; he couldn’t do anything especially useful in there, but he splashed some lukewarm water on to his face, he wiped it off with a paper towel. It was better than nothing, better that than he’d had a wasted journey.

  And with full confidence he walked back down the aisle to his seat at the other end of the compartment. And he was going to sit down, he really was, and that would have been the end of the matter—but there was just a moment’s hesitation, the need to satisfy some stupid lingering doubt—or maybe it was something to do with velocity, he was already on a trajectory to the next compartment, why stop short, why not walk straight on and look?

  The electronic door wouldn’t open for him. He tugged at it. It wouldn’t budge.

  It wasn’t locked, nothing like that, what would be the point? But it was jammed, very definitely jammed, and there was probably nothing suspicious in that, no cause for alarm, it wasn’t as if his compartment had been deliberately segregated from the rest of the train (why on earth did that pop into his head?). But he pulled at the door with all his might, he grunted with the effort. Until he became convinced that all the passengers behind him were watching, and laughing. And then he stopped, and he turned about, and of course no one was watching, no one even cared.

  He stood there, bit his lip. Tried to work out what to do.

  The girl was small, maybe she was hiding somewhere in the carriage? (Silently, for over half an hour?) He walked down the aisle again, and he looked this way and that, he looked underneath the tables and upon all the rows of seats. And he thought, has she got off? Could she simply have got off? The train hadn’t stopped at any stations yet, it was two hours’ journey until York—but maybe they had reached York; he hadn’t thought he’d fallen asleep when he’d closed his eyes before, but maybe he had without realizing it, he was jetlagged to tiny bits, maybe they’d passed a dozen stations and he hadn’t even noticed, maybe the train had stopped and the little girl had got off—late at night—on her own—and her mother had stayed onboard and waved her goodbye—for some reason—and—

  “Excuse me,” he said softly to the old woman with the magazine, “has the train stopped anywhere yet?”

  The old woman looked up, at last, and stared at him, and she didn’t reply—and it didn’t seem to Andrew that she was being rude, there was utter blankness in that expression, maybe she didn’t understand English? (Although the magazine was in English, wasn’t it?) She continued to stare, she wouldn’t look away.

  And he said, “What happened to the little girl?” And at that her mouth began to open, very slowly, it was almost as if he could hear the creak of those old lips parting, and muscles that had lain dormant for so long began to grind as they were forced into action—and suddenly Andrew didn’t want to see what would happen next—he didn’t want to see that mouth open—he didn’t want to see what might be inside—and he whipped his head away from her, he backed off, he fought down a sudden swell of panic and breathed and breathed again and felt his heart steady. He looked back at the old woman, he forced himself to, and she was once more staring intently at her magazine, it was as if he’d never approached her in the first place.

  He saw that her eyes weren’t moving, she wasn’t reading anything, it was all staring, just stares. He walked past her and turned around to look at the pages, and saw that across the centrefold was a picture of a young woman, a model, prettier than the old woman could ever have been. He wondered if she’d been gazing upon this one picture for the entire journey. He wondered why.

  He went back to the end of the carriage. He pulled down the window, and took a deep breath of fresh air, and felt better.

  And he could see that it was possible, look. See how the window opened nice and wide? A little girl could squeeze through there, no problem. He himself could squeeze through, probably, if he hunched his shoulders a bit. That was all it would take, and then he’d be with the girl, they’d both be off this train and the wretched journey would be over. And the blackness was perfect, he could see the beauty of it now, this close up, his face so close it was grazing it. So shiny, new even—and the little girl hadn’t suffered, he could see that now, she had just flown away into the dark and would never have hit the ground, the wind so fast and carrying her off safely. And he knew then that he would do it too. He would do it. He would do it. He would step out into the blackness. He would do it. He would never see his wife or daughter again, but then, was he ever going to have seen them anyway, what, really? Because he couldn’t believe that, he couldn’t picture that, the three of them together, around a Christmas tree, laughing, hugging, it was beyond imagining, it seemed so fake—and there was nothing fake about the blackness, that was the only truth, why not accept it? He would do it. And the wife and daughter might be sad, for a bit, he wondered if they would. But they’d never find his body, it’d be lost within the black.—And he wondered whether his luggage at least would make it home, he had Christmas presents for his family, he’d like them to have something nice to open on the

  big day.

  He stepped forward. He felt something hard under his foot. He toyed with it for a moment, rolled it under his sole, then frowned, wondering what it was. He lifted the foot to see.

  There were two crayons. One blue, one yellow.

  He picked them up. He looked at them for a while.

  When he walked back into the compartment the lights seemed dimmer somehow. As if the darkness had seeped in from somewhere, or was it just because he was tired? Because he was so tired. And the old woman was asleep now, her head slumped awkwardly, uncomfortably, and she’d dropped her magazine on the floor—and Andrew thought he should pick it up for her, but he never wanted to go near her again, and as he passed her down the aisle he pressed his body hard against the opposite row of seats.

  Everyone was asleep. Except the mother, who was no longer looking out of the window, she was looking at him. And smiling.

  “Ssh,” she said, and she put her finger to her lips. “Let’s not wake them.”

  “No,” said Andrew.

  She tapped at the seat next to her. “Come and sit down,” she said. And Andrew did.

  The woman took out her flask and poured herself a tea. She asked whether Andrew would like one. He thanked her, said no. And she nodded at that, as if that was what she’d been expecting, and smiled, and sipped at her tea, and looked back out of the window again, as if her audience with Andrew was at an end.

  Andrew felt he should leave her, get up, return to his own seat. But he felt so heavy.

  He was still holding the crayons, bu
nched together tight in his fist.

  “Excuse me,” he said, and the woman looked at him. “Excuse me,” he said again, and held the crayons out to her.

  He wondered what she’d do. Whether the woman would look shocked. Or remorseful. Whether she’d get violent, or cry, or confess. But her face didn’t change at all, it was most disappointing.

  “Is that some sort of Christmas present for me?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Andrew. “No. I mean. For your daughter.”

  “Do you have a daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you give your presents to her?” And her eyes twinkled, because she was teasing him—was she teasing him?

  “No,” he said. “I mean. You don’t, I. I thought. I think your daughter may have dropped them.”

  She took them from him then, looked at them hard, studied them even. “I don’t think these can be my daughter’s,” she concluded finally, and handed them back.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t have a daughter.”

  Anymore, thought Andrew—he dared her to say it, anymore. “Oh,” he said.

  The woman smiled. And went back to the window.

  “No,” said Andrew. “I mean. Hey.”

  She looked back.

  “You don’t have . . . ?”—and he so much wanted to ask directly, he’d seen her with her, hadn’t he, the whole carriage had—although he knew that if he woke them up they would all deny it, he knew that with sudden cold certainty, if they even talked to him, if they even acknowledged him at all. He wanted to say, but I saw you with the girl, the girl you got rid of, what did you do to her? And instead he said, “You don’t have a daughter? Well, have, have you ever wanted one?”

  The woman raised her eyebrows at that, amused, and Andrew blushed.

  “I don’t have anyone,” she said. And she held his gaze this time, daring him to contradict her—but, no, it wasn’t that, she wasn’t daring him at all, she spoke with the confidence of utter truth, she knew he wouldn’t contradict her, why would he try?

  “I’m sorry,” said Andrew. “So, you’ve no one to spend Christmas with?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.” And he felt an urge to invite her home, she could stay with his family, she could be his family, he felt it rise up inside him, if he had been breathing more freely then it might even have popped out.

  She stared out at the night. He stared at it too. And it seemed to him they were hurtling through a void, they were nowhere at all, nowhere, that the tracks would end and the train would fall into the void deeper and deeper and they would be lost, it seemed to him this may have already happened.

  “Are you seeing your family for Christmas?” she asked.

  And he told her.

  He told her of the presents he had for them in his suitcase. For his daughter he had some dolls bought specially in Boston, all of them famous figures from the American Revolution, she wouldn’t find them anywhere else! And for his wife he’d picked up some perfume at duty free. But now these gifts felt a bit paltry. What would his daughter want with a figurine of Paul Revere? But little girls were so good at playing games, weren’t they, he had seen her have hours of fun with a cardboard box, she had pretended it was a car, and a dinosaur, and a spaceship, and she’d said to Andrew, play with me, pretend with me—but Andrew wasn’t very good at pretending, when his daughter shot him with her fingers and Andrew fell over he always tried a bit too hard and he was sure she was embarrassed by his efforts; she had taken that cardboard box, pretended it was a time machine, and a zoo, and a father, he’d come home once and she’d got a box and was pretending it was him. He didn’t know what to do with his own daughter, and each time she’d grown, and aged, and changed. And what would his wife want with perfume? But he had a better present for them, something he couldn’t wrap, should he tell? He’d be coming home for good. For good. No, not this time, but soon, very soon. Because for the last year and a half he’d been doing these trips to the States, and his wife had said to him, you’re missing out on your daughter’s childhood! and he had said, but it’s my job, I have to go where they tell me, do you think I have any choice? But now he was coming home for good, by April he’d be back in Britain, they said some time in the spring, it’d be May at the latest. He’d be home, and his wife had said, you’re not only running out on her childhood, you’re running out on me—and she wouldn’t be able to say that anymore. She wouldn’t be able to complain about a bloody thing. And when he told them both, and he’d tell them on Christmas morning, he’d keep it as a proper present, how happy they would be! Because his wife was wrong, he wasn’t trying to avoid her, that was ridiculous, he loved her, he was pretty sure he loved her, being at home with her again would take some adjustment but it would be worth it.

  He was scared. Of course he was scared. He couldn’t remember his wife’s name. How odd. The jetlag. His own wife’s name, and he was fairly certain she’d had one. He couldn’t remember his daughter’s name. He wondered whether he might have written them down somewhere, maybe they were on his mobile phone, along with the names of his bosses and his secretarial staff and all his clients, but no—no—he’d call them now, he’d ask—but there was still no signal, the phone said it couldn’t find a network provider. And he was scared, because he knew when he got home there would be that conversation, because that conversation always happened when he got back, sooner or later. And when he’d tried calling his wife recently she’d been so curt with him, she sounded so very far away—and when he told her he’d be home for Christmas for a whole two weeks she sounded almost sarcastic—”Great,” she’d said—that was all—”Great.” And she never let his daughter come to the phone anymore, she was too busy being asleep in bed or playing with cardboard boxes or being dead. And he knew then. Oh God, he knew then. His wife didn’t love him. Not anymore. She had once. Not anymore.

  And his daughter. His daughter, his daughter was dead. She was dead. And his wife hadn’t even told him! She hadn’t told him, because he was in Boston, what good would it do? She hadn’t told him because she was angry with him, she’d had a daughter, and she’d slipped through his fingers, she’d got lost in the blackness of the night. Though, to be fair, maybe she had told him, didn’t he remember that time—wasn’t there a phone call—wasn’t there a conversation, and a lot of tears, and he’d had to go to a meeting, they were waiting for him, he wasn’t going to listen to this shit, “Bastard!” she’d said, she’d screamed her tears out, he hadn’t realized you could scream tears out like that, “now, now,” he’d said, “I’ll be home for Christmas, we can talk about it properly then.” “Great,” she’d said. Oh God. Oh God. He’d had a daughter, and she was lost, and he was lost too.

  The woman who had never been a mother and had never had a daughter took his hand. She smiled. She asked if he would like that cup of tea now. He said yes.

  “Wipe away your tears,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She poured him a cup. It was steaming hot. It tasted bitter.

  “You get some sleep,” she said. “Don’t you worry. I’ll wake you when you get home.”

  “Yes. Thank you. Yes.”

  He settled back in his seat. It felt so soft suddenly, and it was peaceful, there wasn’t a sound. And the train rocked from side to side as it sped down the void, it made him feel like a baby, it made him feel drowsy.

  “Can I keep the presents?” she asked. He didn’t know what she meant for a moment. “The crayons?” He gave them to her. She put them in her pocket. She smiled again, took his hand again, squeezed it. She let him sleep.

  It wasn’t the woman who woke him up. It was a station guard, shaking his shoulder gently. “Come on, mate, end of the line,” he said. There was no one else in the compartment, and the lights were on full. “Come on, some of us have Christmas to get home to!”

  Andrew fetched his luggage from the rack. It felt lighter than he remembered.
He stepped out on to the platform. Edinburgh was icy, and wet, and right, and home, and he breathed the air in, and felt awake.

  He caught a taxi. The taxi driver was playing a medley of Christmas songs. Andrew didn’t mind.

  He couldn’t find his keys. He hammered at the front door. “Let me in!” he cried. And then, to take the desperation out of his voice, “Let me in, it’s Santa Claus!”

  And his wife opened up. There she was. Oh, there she was.

  “Do you love me?” he said, and he could see that she did, her eyes shone with it, he hadn’t realized how very obvious love could look. “I love you,” he told her, “I love you,” and decided not to add that he couldn’t remember her name.

  “Where is our daughter?” he said. “Is she all right? Is she alive?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, he ran up the stairs, ran to the bedroom. His daughter was in bed, and stirred at his noise. “Daddy?” she said. She rubbed at her eyes. “Daddy? Is it really you?”

  “Yes,” he said, “yes, darling, I’m home, I’m home, and I’m never leaving again!” He wouldn’t leave, sod the job, sod Boston, he’d found something he thought had been lost, he wouldn’t let go. And she was better than he remembered, she’d reached the age at last where he would never feel uncomfortable with her, or anxious, she was perfect, she was shiny, what luck.

  He pulled her out of bed, right by the shoulders, held her, hugged her, and he kissed her head and he kissed her hair. And he knew her name, it was all right. She smelled to him of earth, and mud, and dead leaves, but it was all right. He rocked her in his arms. And after a while he stopped, but the rocking just kept on going, and he didn’t know what it was.

  FAVOURITE

  The first surprise was that my younger brother phoned me at all. The second was what he had to say.

  “Mum’s dead,” he told me, and burst into tears.

  “Now calm down,” I said. “Are you all right?”