British Winters

by Andrew Turner

  Chapter Nineteen

  Get Away Train

  Deb said that I put things off; she’s right but gets no kudos or brownie points for making the observation as it doesn’t take a whole afternoon of observing me to arrive at that conclusion. By the time I get around to restocking the toilet roll holder the replacement roll is already halfway gone; I open mail bi-weekly or whenever the stack gets too high; and the reason why the inside of my flat will be as cold as the outside is I switch the heating on manually rather than spending a matter of minutes learning how to set the timer. This trait of putting things off is the bane of my life, because the monotony of my life is its bi-product. And that’s what is killing me - the lack of change, every day feeling like a repeat. However, this lack of motivation doesn’t stop bad change and that’s where I am now. The death of a loved one is unravelling me, the gears in my head are working overtime yet the world around me seems an empty void.

  My aimless journey takes me down metal steps to a platform of cement amongst the frosty green outskirts of this rural town. It’s one of those small village train platforms, you can’t call it a station it’s more a case of the railway line just happens to pass through here, so the local council quickly threw together a mock train stop whilst no one was looking. Any of you who’ve used the train system in these fair isles of ours will know what I’m talking about; the train will stop and rarely does anyone get on or off. This concrete stage in the wilderness is not a new find. I’ve been here many a time, not to catch the train but to loiter and drink cider as a teenager back when teens were a little less brazen with their underage drinking. I slouch on the provided bench sullied by life’s events. Was I wrong about Deb? Was it just a lack of effort on my part? Was bumping into Jenny a meeting of two lost souls or just two losers who hadn’t realised they’d lost? If a drunk is miserable when sober who’s to say his inebriation is the wrong choice? A train comes and I board it without care of its destination.

  On a train the seats are tall and the window views are normally of the serene British countryside; at least they have been, on the journeys I have taken. This combination of these tall, castle wall-like seats, the choice of a peaceful view and your music player piping into your ear canal drowning out the world around you, makes the train my preferred mode of transportation. It being dark out, the window view is a ghostly white reflection of the inside of the train. This leads to me playing one of my favourite pastimes, the stories of the bored and aimless. This basically is me scanning the faces and observing the actions of my fellow passengers, guessing their thoughts and pondering about their lives outside this journey.

  A mother and child; the child furiously button bashing the latest handheld console, his mother looking weary after a day occupying her little ward’s short attention span. A joyous trip to see a friend or family member, who is now a distance away, may be an exciting trip that is now at its fizzled out end. In a seating area for four, a couple in their late fifties/early sixties sit opposite each other. I’m guessing that they are a couple as it seems odd for strangers to sit together on a fairly empty train even for the advantage of the large table that accompanies the four-seated areas. Maybe they’re friends or siblings; either way the two sit there as though they are alone. The man reads a paperback, his hand resting on a folded newspaper that his literary hunger must have already devoured. The woman also is pawing over the written word. However, hers is a very eccentric ritual; she has many piles of word and number puzzles that she must have ripped out of an array of papers: word searches, crosswords, Sudoku, cryptograms... She seemingly at random stops and starts these quizzical shards of paper, whether she’s simply moving on whenever she gets stuck, or is taking on all the challenges at once it’s hard to tell. It’s so bizarre. They in no way interact with each other, not a glance. I suppose they could be playing footsie under the table but if they are they have some award-winning poker faces.

  I then notice the couple in the adjacent booth; a couple in their mid to late twenties also playing the same merry little dance. Perhaps dance is the wrong adjective and merry is the wrong emotion; a morose little chess game is more apt but it’s not really a used phrase. The young man, like the older one, sits reading a paperback, his hands resting on his newspaper. The older man is reading a book about the life and times of Churchill and the younger man is reading Anyone Can Do It: My Story, the Duncan Bannatyne bio. It makes me despise the younger man, but I’m not quite sure why. As for the younger woman, she is entranced by the glow of her laptop. As she is facing towards me I can’t see what’s on the screen but to keep with the comparison I’d like to think she has numerous windows open, each with a different puzzle. What are the chances of two loveless couples sitting across from each other mirroring the actions of a dead but endless relationship? It looks as though a rift in time has ripped down the centre of the train carriage and depending on which of the couples dares to look, they will either see what the future holds for them or be able to view the past and see where the failures began. Neither side looks. How can they? They can’t even look at each other never mind their former or future selves.

  “Tickets, please!”

  I hide in the toilet and get off at the next stop to find myself in a city I have never been to, the reason being that it’s an awful place and I would never have journeyed here out of choice. The hour is late and the station is quiet. Learning that the return train is not going to be arriving for another hour, I overpay for an egg and bacon sandwich and take a seat on Platform 4b. Every bite I take is a slap in the face; the sandwich is a manifestation of all my bad decisions: its stale bread, its greasy bacon and its cold egg smelling too close to fart to be edible.

  “God, I hate myself.”

  “You shouldn’t do that, love.” Without me noticing, an old woman has sat down beside me.

  “What, hate myself?”

  “No, talk to yourself; first sign of madness that is.” I would think that opting to sit right next to a stranger on a dark deserted train platform would also be quite high up on the list, maybe not the first sign but definitely a big clue.

  “That is what they say.”

  “So are you?”

  “What? Mad? No, just thinking out loud.”

  “Oh, you gonna finish that sandwich?” Ok, it seems that this old dear is slowly ticking off all the boxes.

  “Yes, I’m going to eat all of my sandwich.”

  “Are you homeless, with the beard I mean?”

  “No! I just like the beard.”

  “It looks scruffy to me, like you can’t be bothered.” This coming from a woman with a goatee and tights that are bunching up at her ankles.

  “Oh.”

  She stays quiet for a moment but I can see she is squirming to harass me some more. I’m not quite sure whether she thinks this is pleasant chit chat or if she saw me and felt compelled to sidle on over and give me a piece of her mind. Two equally scary thoughts then dawn on me: if she’s sitting here she’s either getting the same train as me, which means I’ll have her clinging on to me all the way home; or even more terrifying she’s not getting any train and she is just some mad old woman who could at any moment spring into mad action, which could be anything. She could start frantically licking my forehead or offer me a mint from a paper bag which would turn out to be full of toenail clippings or she could simply just expose herself. Oh, God, any part would be horrifying, even if all she did was flash a little of her upper arms the egg and bacon would return to my mouth. I’m finding it hard enough to keep it down. Yeah, a little bingo wing and I’d throw up.

  “What train are you catching?” I ask innocently.

  “Who said I was catching a train?” Ahhhh!

  “Do you live here?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the train station?”

  “Yes.” She bends down to mess with her tights. I assume she is fixing the bunching but when she sits back up she appears to have found a hard-boiled sweet that she pops into her m
outh. Again my fears are divided between what’s worse; that she will happily eat a boiled sweet off the floor or that she keeps her boiled sweets in her tights?

  “Why did you ask me if I was homeless and call me untidy if you yourself are…”

  “I wanted to know if you wanted to bunk up?” She enthusiastically sucks away on her found sweet, from time to time bringing it to the forefront of her mouth, unveiling it between her lips. I think of all the times I’ve eaten a penny sweet not really knowing its journey into my possession; some of the nasty sandwich starts to make its way back up my throat.

  “No, I’m waiting for a train… in the train station.”

  “Only asking. Gets cold that’s all.”

  “Your jacket looks pretty warm.”

  “You sure you’re gonna eat that?”

  “Have the sandwich.”

  She munches down what is left of my overpriced sandwich. She doesn’t even swallow or spit out the boiled sweet. Then in the silence of the cold night, feeling as uncomfortable as is humanly possible, I hear the sound of dripping.

  “Are you urinating right now?” No answer from her but the smell and the sudden steam rising into the air speaks volumes. The Hoboess has passed out on my shoulder, her wiry grey hair tickling my cheek.

  “God, I hate myself.”