It wasn’t going to be easy.
I put on the pair of spectacles, fitted with plain glass and slightly tinted, that I was carrying in my jacket pocket. They were probably the only thing about me that matched the two photographs Sonia had of me in any way.
As the train began to slow down, I walked out into the corridor and positioned myself by a door. I didn’t open the window before the train had stopped, but pressed my face close to the glass and peered along the platform.
Sonia was standing by the buffet, just as she’d said she would. She was unmistakeable, exactly like the photographs she had sent me: fair, a tad on the plump side, not unattractive, but clearly as unsure of herself as her emails had always indicated.
Her whole body language spoke volumes of anxiety. She was staring at the train, her eyes following it, sweeping the windows. She was looking for me. She was eager to see me. She was excited, I thought, as well as being so clearly anxious.
I felt much the same, but I had far more reason than Sonia to be ill at ease.
If only I wasn’t so damned shy and insecure, I wouldn’t have delved into fantasy land and got myself into this mess.
The train jerked to a halt. I’d arrived. I tried to gulp back my uncertainties. I was here. What could the worst result be? I supposed it was that she would realise I wasn’t at all how I had presented myself and she wouldn’t want to see me again. I wondered if I should try to continue the charade, on this first meeting anyway, but that would surely only make things worse.
I steeled myself. There was a click as the train’s doors were unlocked. I opened the window and prepared to lean out to reach the handle outside and open the door.
We had pulled to a halt, with me standing on the train almost opposite the buffet. Sonia was just yards away, directly facing me.
I leaned forward out of the window and grasped the handle in my fingers.
I couldn’t stop staring at her. Suddenly, she caught my eye. She frowned. Puzzled, I suppose. I wasn’t sure if she would recognise me at all. I looked so different from my picture. I’d thought about warning her, at least, about the absence of facial hair and the colour of the hair on my head. Both of those were, after all, easy to explain, but it had seemed like opening the floodgates. If I was honest about anything, the rest of it would have to come tumbling out. So I’d said nothing.
And now, there she was before me. She was wearing a cream jacket, grey, tailored trousers and little, black, ankle boots, with straps and shiny buckles. I took it all in in a flash. I wondered if she had taken as long to decide what to wear as I had. I suspected that she had.
I thought she looked lovely. She had a classic timelessness about her. She wasn’t like one of these modern women I couldn’t cope with. I was sure of it. She really was the one I had been looking for. I began to smile. I couldn’t help myself. Surely, this was meant to be. I could sort it, couldn’t I? I could make this work. I had an inventive enough brain, that was for sure.
Sonia’s frown deepened. Her face tightened. She shook her head slightly. Then she looked away and continued to stare up and down the train.
She hadn’t recognised me. She’d appeared to think she had, for a moment, then decided it couldn’t be me. That was what I’d been afraid of. All the doubts and fears overwhelmed me again.
‘Come on mate, you’re blocking the door.’
The cry from behind came as a shock, jerking me back to the reality of the moment. I opened the door and began to step forward, one foot poised above the step. Sonia’s eyes swept along the train again. She paused her gaze once more, just for a second, as she saw me and then moved on.
I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it.
I turned around and squeezed myself past the man behind me, pushing him to one side.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I muttered, aware of the heat rising in my neck. I was blushing on top of everything else.
There were other people in the corridor waiting to disembark. Probably only three or four people in all, but it felt like a massive, threatening crowd to me.
‘Sorry, sorry, wrong station,’ I said.
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ grumbled the man I had pushed out of the way.
I forced a passage through the rest of them.
‘Ouch,’ cried a young woman upon whose foot I trod heavily. ‘Be careful.’
Once back in the carriage, I headed for where I had been sitting before. For a few seconds, I remained standing by my seat, back from the window, but positioned so that I could see out quite clearly. Sonia, I hoped, would be unable to see me. I watched her step forward and begin to walk along the platform yet again, peering in the windows. I turned my head and stepped further back.
This was terrible. I had made a complete fool of myself before I’d even met her. What had I been thinking of? Why couldn’t I have been honest with her? Or as honest as I can ever be. What was wrong with the real me? I wasn’t that bad, was I? No worse than a lot of others, surely.
Was this train never going to move, I wondered? By then, I just wanted to get away from this ridiculous situation. And from Sonia, I suppose. Yet I had so wanted to be with her, to be with the right person. I’d been sure, too, that Sonia was the right person.
I sank back into my seat, hopefully out of her sight line. There was a lurch as the train finally began to move. I craned my neck for one last glimpse of her. There she was, standing quite still, at the far end of the platform, near the engine, just staring at the train moving slowly forwards.
I was sitting by the window on the platform side. I had an excellent final view of her as the carriage, in which I was travelling, passed by her
She still looked puzzled and what else? Disappointed? Hurt?
I had no idea whether she could see me or not. But I knew she was thinking about me, as I was about her.
I’d let her down so badly, before I’d even met her. What had I been thinking about? I always let people down. I’d been a disappointment all my life. To almost everyone with whom I’d crossed paths, but I’d never meant to let Sonia down. I really hadn’t.
I just could not face her. There was to be no new chapter of my life, no soulmate with whom to share everything. I was incapable of sharing anything. I had always been unable to share.
The newspaper I’d been reading or pretending to read really, before the train pulled into Bath, was still on the table where I’d left it. I picked it up and held it up in front of my face, so that nobody could see the tears coursing down my cheeks.
By the time I eventually reached my home railway station, I had at least managed to stop blubbing and pull myself together. I still felt sorry for myself, but I had every right to, didn’t I?
I walked home slowly, keeping my head down. I really didn’t want to have eye contact with anyone and I certainly didn’t want to be recognised by anyone and have to speak to them.
It was after dark by then and I kept away from the street lights.
As soon as I got indoors, I fetched my laptop and switched on. There were two emails from Sonia.
The first said simply: ‘Where were you?’
The second was a little longer.
‘I thought I saw you when the train, the one you told me you’d be on, pulled into the station,’ she wrote. ‘Then I thought it probably wasn’t you, only someone wearing glasses like yours. I waited for the next train, just in case. Then I realised I was probably making a fool of myself. You had my mobile phone number. You could have called if something had gone wrong. Even if you’d merely changed your mind, you could have called. Now I realise how significant it was that you somehow never had a phone number you could give me.
‘I don’t know why you have done what you have done, after all that we said to each other, or at least after what I said to you. I opened my heart to you. I thought we already meant something special to each other.