Christ!
So no stamina left for long-haul chauffeuring.
Sorry.
Sorry that you had your precious break, but now its even more precious afterglow has been destroyed by my boorish insistence on not having a heart attack.
So very sorry indeed.
An apology should have been unnecessary in a friendly world, but was offered in any case. The world wasn’t friendly.
Sorrysorrysorrysorry.
The usual rolling hiss. The sound of my head: like a detuned radio, or the drag of an old-time needle over old-time vinyl at the end of the record, once the music’s stopped.
Pauline should have known better than to ask. She was fully aware of Mark’s persistent, historic aversion to motor vehicles.
Grew up with five petrol-head brothers, didn’t I?
What sensible parent has that many kids? That many sons? That many of anything?
Mark had been the late and tender afterthought, putting an end to the line. No more soft-pawed fighting and solemnly blue jokes to share with Dad as if they were presents from an oncoming life.
Don’t tell your mother, and having a laugh and sipping from a fag round the back, leaned against the wall — all the Burroughs boys together.
He’d pretty much ruined things, because from the outset Mark had been a poor fit with his father and the boys. He’d known that he made them uncomfortable: kind, but stilted and uneasy.
I didn’t like what they liked.
While his siblings couldn’t wait to get dirty, he had always hated engines, tinkering, manual tasks of every kind. He would, as an adult, abandon some type of large Renault because it was actually on fire. Not overheating, but wildly ablaze due to unforgivable negligence on his part. He’d left it in a lay-by, run away.
Wasn’t even my car. Borrowed. And not returned.
If she’d known about this — it was before her time — he could imagine how Pauline would react, pronouncing the three syllables of typical as only she could. She needn’t be furious to make the word ring like a curse. Authentically injurious.
For now, she whipped a glance at him, gave it some strength. Mark was aware that the tall bloke in retro corduroy, or just very misguided corduroy, had read their little exchange — Pauline’s threat, Mark’s obeisance — and was smiling in response.
But you’re wrong, chum. My relationship is not the nightmare you assume. You have no reason to feel you are lucky and can be smug. You don’t understand.
There was something about kissing her while she tasted of contempt — there was a depth in that, an intoxication. You had to be careful in these areas and he wouldn’t recommend it for someone who flagged under tension, but if you could stand it. .
Wasted on him, the corduroy man. Moron.
Mark shifted in an intentionally obvious way to eye the moron’s female companion, give her some time. She was unimpressive.
‘Mark.’
Bite the tongue and don’t say ‘Yes, dear.’ It’s such a cliché.
‘Yes, darling.’
‘Go and find something out.’
‘Of course. I’ll go and find something out.’
And Mark did indeed step lively, as if he were seeking more up-to-date information and could be ordered about and relish it. The crowd was hungry for distraction and a theatrically craven husband drew attention. He could feel the pity and amusement lap towards him as he trotted on, a tide of nasty satisfaction.
Stare if you want. Take a picture, I don’t mind. I still know what you don’t — that there are opportunities for a mature and fulfilled enjoyment in my situation.
He switched through to the other platform, the one in shade. It was deserted and his body lifted, was stroked by being out of sight.
I’ll give it ten minutes, have my own precious break.
There was no reason to do more: at mysterious intervals a man came and, in a perversely quiet voice, told the crowd of would-be passengers that their train would arrive in twenty minutes. He had done this several times in the last three hours. Should Mark be able to locate him, the man would doubtless repeat the twenty-minute claim, because this was precise and therefore not frustrating and seemed to promise a not unreasonable wait.
The electronic indicator board sometimes showed their train and sometimes others, none of which appeared. Mark had decided he’d take the rest of the day in soft focus and so wasn’t wearing his glasses. This meant the shiny, tiny letters and fictional times simply flared together into uncommunicative blocks. He preferred them like that.
In his absence, Pauline could consult the board. She had her glasses.
Doesn’t like them, because she’s decided they make her look old.
They make her look like her mother, which isn’t old.
It is much worse than old.
And meanwhile they weren’t without the useless kind of trains, non-stopping anonymous trains: long, high blurs of weight and violence that gashed the air and ravaged past, leaving him breathless and tempted.
Suicide as an alternative to marriage.
Well, I wouldn’t put it that bluntly.
No.
But there is a tug as they roar on by, the illusion of longing.
A voice from who knew where — it was a woman’s — would give them notice through the PA system before the tearing intrusion of each express, but nevertheless he couldn’t quite prepare enough. They made him feel undefended, almost naked.
If you stand too near the edge you’ll be drawn off by sheer velocity and crushed. I read that somewhere.
The trains were so plainly unsurvivable and disinterested. They were attractive. Marvellous.
The impact of another troubled the fabric of everything briefly and he wished he’d been closer for it, over with Pauline. She wouldn’t have stood too near. She was, in fact, probably sitting as he’d left her with knees tight together and ankles tucked into one side as a lady should. Their case was taking her weight.
It has a hard shell.
Inside it, their belongings didn’t mix — his shirts and underpants in a tangle, Pauline’s laundry compressed into subsidiary containments. They had separate sponge bags, too.
Got to keep those toothbrushes apart.
There was no café for him to visit and find her placating treats. The whole trail of those evicted from the previous, ailing train had been ushered along barren walkways, down steps and far from the station proper, which had been mean and small enough in itself. Not even a vending machine. No apparent staff. Mark couldn’t imagine where the twenty-minute man could be keeping himself before he emerged to murmur about fake arrivals and departures.
Mark drifted until he was standing in one of the broad alleys that led back to the crowds, the platform, the wait. He was quite a distance from Pauline and safely unobservable.
Probably.
He glanced through to the phoning and pacing of his fellow castaways. The bustle was thin at this point.
But you’re there, aren’t you? By yourself. That’s you.
He’d noticed the woman earlier, taken note.
And I’m looking at you.
She was in her late forties and her spine had settled into something of a slump, but she had an optimistic wardrobe. There were flowers, lots of flowers: a light skirt, thin blouse, mildly bohemian, hoping to conceal that she was fatter than she’d like. Mark knew it would be a safe bet that she’d have a messy flat and would sneak bits of food in the kitchen before she came out to eat properly with a guest. Flat shoes, but good calves. Goodish curves. Accustomed to being unappreciated.