Train Man Read online

  ‘He was killed,’ she said, and Paul looked into her eyes.

  She thought, He asked about him – and this is his business. He’s a vicar, and deals with loss every week. I’ve put him on duty again, poor man – just as he was looking forward to a chat about guitar lessons and families – a mild flirtation, even – and he finds himself sitting with the blasted bereaved. And he doesn’t know what I need, if I need anything. He doesn’t know if he can provide it, but he won’t back away. It’s his job not to back away.

  ‘How?’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, and if you don’t want to tell me, please… I don’t want to intrude.’

  He glanced at the women opposite, who were still talking over each other. There was a curious intimacy, and for a moment Ayesha wondered if she wanted to confess her many sins.

  ‘I don’t want to ignore what you just said, though,’ said Paul. ‘How was he killed?’

  ‘He was in a road accident…’

  Why was she about to cry? The tears came out of nowhere: from a sudden cloud.

  They pricked into her eyes, as if the weather had changed – as if the train had taken her into a different band of pressure, which produced warm rain.

  It was Paul’s stare that was affecting her, so she looked away and saw that they were going over a level crossing, and one vehicle had stopped at the barrier. Ironically, it was a large lorry, the irony being that Kristin had been killed by a large lorry. ‘Killed’ was the wrong word, and she should not have used it. The lorry had not set out to do anything bad, and the driver was innocent. The driver had never driven again, so she’d been told – he’d given up his Heavy Goods Vehicle Class One licence, and the firm had found him a job in the warehouse. He wouldn’t even drive a car. He had come to the funeral, and he hadn’t been able to speak. Nor had she. Nor had her parents. Around the white coffin and the flowers there had been a paralysis that locked the tongue and made your legs heavy.

  Thirteen years of life had stopped, and the body was ready now for what nobody could disguise, though they tried. A big, deep hole had been dug, and there was soil standing by. Take him, earth, for cherishing: the white wood must rot away in time, and the cold clay must get to him in the end and soak through the jeans, T-shirt and fleece they’d chosen for this, his final, final outing.

  Paul was leaning forward.

  She thought he was about to touch her, but he didn’t. He said softly, ‘I’m a stranger. I didn’t mean to intrude, but… sometimes you find that strangers help.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Maybe. Sudden encounters, you know—’

  ‘You mean we’ve been brought together? By God?’

  ‘No.’

  She had attacked him, but he was ready for it. He had been in this situation before: God did direct him into these little conflicts, perhaps, so that he might bring healing.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ he said. ‘But I would say—’

  ‘Maybe God is trying to help me,’ said Ayesha. ‘By putting us together like this.’

  ‘Look,’ said Paul quietly.

  He paused.

  ‘I don’t have any right to ask you about private, painful experiences… and losing a brother must be one of the most painful.’

  ‘He was thirteen. Eight years younger than me.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Kristin.’

  Paul said nothing for a moment, letting the silence convey his absolute, limitless sympathy. The train hummed, and Ayesha hesitated, wondering if she had the energy to attack him properly. She realised it would be the best way of stemming the tears, which were there in her eyes, ready to flow. The clergyman had seen them.

  She smiled, and said something she’d often thought.

  ‘I wish God had helped us on the day he died,’ she said.

  He looked back at her, waiting.

  ‘I don’t know what he was thinking of,’ she said. ‘God, that is. What happened was that Kristin was cycling with a friend, down a hill. Friday afternoon. And the lights were a bit confusing – we’re not quite sure what he thought, and his friend couldn’t work it out either. Somehow he thought – Kristin, this is – he thought that he had the right of way, so he went onto the junction, but he didn’t. And a lorry… an articulated lorry was coming across and it hit him. He went under the wheels. It wasn’t the driver’s fault: there was nothing he could have done… he was doing twenty-four miles an hour and Kristin simply didn’t see him. He must have checked to the left and not realised there was traffic to the right – I don’t know. Maybe he did see it, but it was too late. They went over it, and over it, but the point was…’

  She looked at Paul’s serious, sympathetic face.

  ‘God didn’t really help us very much, on that occasion.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No.’

  She paused.

  ‘If he’d just moved that lorry back,’ she said. ‘Fifteen metres further back, and that would have been enough. If he’d whispered in Kristin’s ear, “Stop.” Actually, I say fifteen metres – two metres, because then the bumper would have probably thrown him clear. As it was, God organised the perfect accident, really. A kind of textbook example of how a lorry can crush a child with no hope of that child surviving. He had multiple fractures, internal injuries and he died at the scene, and…’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I know. We were, too. Everyone was, and still is. I have never met anyone who isn’t. There probably are people who’d say, “One less Indian,” but nobody’s ever said that to me, and so… thank you for being sorry. I shouldn’t have told you about him, but I’m afraid you asked, and I loved him.’

  ‘I’m glad you have. It’s important that you have.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘It’s important he’s acknowledged,’ said Paul. ‘He lives on, in your—’

  ‘No,’ said Ayesha. ‘No, he doesn’t. Don’t say that.’

  ‘What?’

  She swallowed.

  ‘What you were about to say – what you said. You’ve misunderstood, I think. He… he doesn’t live on at all, because he’s dead, Paul. He… I’ll give you an example.’

  She swallowed again, amazed at the grief, and furious with the single tear that was halfway down her cheek. She was amazed at her own resolution, too.

  ‘He was in his school’s chess team,’ she said quietly. ‘And the following Tuesday he was due to play in a semi-final against some other school, and he wasn’t able to do that. Being dead, he didn’t turn up, and… presumably someone else had to sit in the chair and move all the pieces. Another example—’

  ‘Ayesha?’

  ‘Another example of him not living on is that we’d booked a summer holiday together. We were all going out to Mumbai to meet relatives we hadn’t seen for ages. Mumbai, then up to Pune, and then to a hill station – an expensive holiday, and… Kristin didn’t go. None of us did, but Kristin wasn’t able to go because he wasn’t “living on” any more. He was in the ground, because God must have been looking the other way, or…’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Well. It struck me that God might not actually exist.’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘I stopped being an agnostic some time ago,’ said Ayesha. ‘I no longer think, Oh! Who knows? Maybe there’s a creative energy in the world, a spiritual dimension. I realise now what the real problem with God is. You see, there simply isn’t one.’

  ‘Ayesha, nobody can explain suffering like that.’

  ‘Of course they can.’

  ‘How?’

  His voice was gentle. He had put his face into the fire, and was holding it there. But I am not merciful, thought Ayesha. He asked about Kristin. He wears the dog collar, bragging about his idiot, comfortless religion. He started it, the fucker. Let him have it.

  ‘We live in a godless world,’ she said brightly. ‘That’s the truth of it, because random accidents happen and… this train could be about to derail. This
train could collide with another, or there could be a person in this carriage with a bomb, about to cause maximum suffering as encouraged by some crackpot ideology, which will be based on a god, needless to say. It doesn’t need much explanation, does it? Until, funnily enough – until you bring God into it. Then it all falls apart because it’s so patently absurd. I mean, if God exists… Christ, he must have hated my brother and our family.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. Because Kristin died, aged thirteen. And that guitar… That guitar is no longer needed, so the idea that God brought you and me together and is trying to patch things up in some way, after the event…’ She laughed. ‘It’s so insane, and so obscene, that I can’t think of anything else to say.’

  ‘How are your parents coping?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  They had stopped at a station, and still he held his face to the blowtorch.

  ‘What?’

  People were getting off, and more people were waiting to get on. There was a little girl with a bicycle, and in fact – she looked again – there were two of them. Ayesha stared because they were identical twins. They were eleven or twelve years old, and they took their cycling seriously. Why weren’t they at school? Both were on the platform, dressed in tight-fitting Lycra, which drew attention to their remarkable, identical skinniness. They wore cycling helmets and they were very beautiful.

  People were climbing aboard, and the poor girls had no choice but to wait behind the crowd. They were frightened there wouldn’t be space, and Ayesha could see them pressing their bikes together as if they were one person, reflected, going through exactly the same anxiety in exactly the same way.

  Her parents were not coping, of course. She was not coping, and they were not coping – but they were coping better than her gran, who had simply died. Perhaps she would have died anyway, but the relationship between Kristin and his gran had been so intense, and he had loved her in a way Ayesha still found surprising – because he had been a normal, thoughtless, ego-driven boy capable of lying, cheating and even stealing.

  He had stolen from the shop close to his school, and been caught. He had been sharp and dangerous, and when she’d held him – when she’d hugged him – she always noticed his bony shoulder, or hard head. He was noisy. He was messy. You knew when he’d been in the kitchen because he left things everywhere, and spilled juice and crumbs because he tried to do too many things at once, like tearing at a packet of something whilst getting the fridge door open with his elbow. Once he’d trodden dog’s mess all through the house because he hadn’t bothered to take off his school shoes.

  But he would make a point of speaking to his grandmother every day. He knew – he was sensitive enough to know – that her day could not finish without her seeing him or hearing his voice, and he submitted to being touched by her. He feigned impatience, but submitted, so when he died her little guttering candle of life stood no chance at all. It simply went out. She had not wailed and screamed: she had simply shrunk, and become very still. Her stillness lasted only three weeks, and then she died in her chair.

  ‘They cope,’ she said.

  She didn’t want to fight – not any more. She should have said nothing. The twins had disappeared, which meant they must have boarded the train – or she hoped they had. People were moving down the aisle, choosing their seats, and she would now definitely have to move the guitar. Sure enough, a young woman had paused, and was looking at her hopefully but nervously, as if she didn’t have the right to a seat. She was Asian, and Ayesha guessed Malaysian.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said – and she had the most lovely smile.

  ‘No,’ replied Ayesha. ‘You’re welcome. Please.’

  A man was getting into the seat next to Paul, and Ayesha was now standing. It was awkward, for the guitar case was solid. The man stood up to help, but it was obvious that there was no room in the luggage rack.

  ‘I tell you what,’ said Ayesha. ‘Let me sit there, on the outside.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the Asian woman, laughing.

  ‘No, please. You take this one, and I’ll sit there.’

  ‘I am a nuisance,’ she said.

  ‘You’re not. You’re welcome.’

  Ayesha stepped into the aisle, and the woman squeezed past her into the seat. Ayesha sat down again, with her arm round the neck of the guitar case. A minute passed, as the driver waited for something – the right time of departure, perhaps? And Paul the clergyman said nothing. The conversation could not be continued now, but it had happened and Ayesha knew he was reflecting on it, aware that he had made things worse, not better.

  Much worse, and he knew it.

  He was a good, nice man, and the fact that he believed crazy tales should not be held against him: he probably did more good than she would ever do. In that sense, he probably did bring healing, and no doubt he would run into someone who needed his kind attention.

  The Asian woman was checking something on a piece of paper.

  ‘This train is for Burnley?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ replied Ayesha.

  ‘No?’

  ‘This is a London train. It doesn’t go through Burnley.’

  ‘They told me Burnley Manchester Road.’

  ‘No. Definitely not.’

  The woman blinked, and Ayesha could read her thoughts: Do I have time? Can I push my way out to the platform? Do I dare? Would I be better staying put?

  She made her mind up in an instant, and was on her feet. Ayesha was up again, too, and the poor woman was obliged to apologise once more. There were half a dozen people in the aisle still, but she was small and agile, and she managed to negotiate her way past them, ducking and squeezing through. Ayesha lost sight of her as she got to the doors of the compartment, but the train still wasn’t moving: she might just make it. Sure enough, the seconds went by and there she was, and she had a large rucksack with her that she must have stowed at the end of the carriage. She made it onto the platform with seconds to spare, for the heavy doors hissed shut as a whistle blew, and at once the train slid forward.

  Paul had produced a folder of papers, and was reading. The man next to him, however, was looking at Ayesha and the realisation came to them both at the same moment, a full half-minute too late. The woman with the rucksack was standing on the platform looking confused, and they were rolling past her.

  The man said, ‘You know… this is the train for Burnley.’

  ‘You change at Preston,’ said Ayesha. ‘Why did I tell her it wasn’t?’

  ‘It doesn’t stop at Burnley, but yes, you’re right—’

  ‘She shouldn’t have got off. She needs to change at Preston. Damn.’

  Then they noticed the handbag on the table.

  ‘Is that yours?’ said the man.

  ‘No,’ said Ayesha. ‘She’s left it.’

  That night, at supper, Paul told the story of his conversation with Ayesha. He was one of five, and he recounted the details as exactly as he could because he wondered if he could have done more. He wondered if he had been crass. He wanted to think that her outburst might have done her good, but what he really felt was a deep wretchedness, that he hadn’t been able to offer any meaningful comfort, and had – instead – exposed her to his own smugness. He had blundered.

  ‘I enjoyed the sound of my own voice,’ he said.

  He had. There had been flirtation, at the start, and he was deeply ashamed. He had sinned.

  He was aching with self-loathing, so he asked if he could say a prayer with those who had listened to the story, and everyone knew it was the right thing to do. They bowed their heads, and Paul asked for forgiveness. Then he prayed for Kristin’s immortal soul and implored God to help Ayesha and her family in their wretchedness.

  NORTH AGAIN

  5

  Yes, they would have sacked him for gross incompetence.

  He had told so many people that he’d resigned, or taken voluntary redundancy, that he had come to believe both things – it came as a shock
when he remembered the complicated truth, and how he’d been cornered by colleagues in an organisation determined to get rid of him. He was on a train, at last, having boarded the 10.23 and taken a seat facing backwards, which he didn’t like to do – he much preferred to face the direction of travel. The memory of almost being fired had come from nowhere, as memories often did. An elderly lady sat opposite him, and he nodded at her. She didn’t look at all like the council’s human-resources manager, but his sacking had resurfaced and the carriage was suddenly full of council employees and the members of the public who were forever downstairs, seeking consultations and explanations. The train might have been chartered specially, for they were all gathered together, pondering his uselessness.

  ‘There’s no option, really,’ she’d said – the HR woman. ‘You can contest it but I don’t think you’ll find anyone who’d… you know, take the case, Michael. Try, by all means, please. You have twenty-eight days, but…’

  But what?

  This was years ago, of course – before he met Amy. And people always looked so sad when they did horrible things – or adults did. It wasn’t true at school, of course: they had looked gleeful at school, like the boys who’d pushed him into the pond because he had new shoes. Even kind old Mr Trace had a special smile when he so playfully punished you. Michael blinked him away, and remembered when he’d tried to retrieve a parcel from the post office some time ago, without ID. The postal worker had stood behind the unbreakable glass, refusing to hand it over.

  ‘Sorry,’ he’d said, without being sorry. ‘Sorry, sir – it says on the card. You need ID.’

  It had given the man such pleasure.