Train Man Read online

  Michael nodded again, trying to adjust his facial expression to show both surprise and sympathy. He wanted to drink some whisky, but as he went to speak the man struck in first again so Michael was silenced. He talked loudly, with unchallengeable firmness. Most of the carriage could hear him, and a woman in the seats to their side had glanced up irritably.

  Michael went to his bag, and found the glass.

  ‘I was taking delivery of one of those mini-excavators,’ he said. ‘You’ve probably seen them, but this one was a bit special – it had one of those compactor plates, so it was extra heavy. It was coming off the loader. No, it wasn’t, it was off the loader – they’d done that before I arrived. We had a local manager, who turned out to be an idiot, but he’d got the thing unloaded, and I was gathering up the paperwork and I felt a pain, right across here.’

  He ran a finger over the top part of his ribcage, and sat forward.

  ‘Like a stabbing. Just here.’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘Over your heart?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Over your heart.’

  ‘Right over it,’ said the man.

  Then he spoke quietly.

  ‘The next thing I knew? The next thing I knew was that I thought I’d been punched or bayonetted. I was on my back, in the mud, and this… manager chap – he hadn’t a clue what to do. “Are you all right, Terry? Terry!” And I’m on my back, gasping like a fish.’

  He laughed, and Michael imagined the funeral that would have taken place, as mourners gathered round the short, fat coffin. He imagined the strain the bearers would experience as they lifted it.

  ‘I was lucky,’ said Terry. ‘The chap who’d delivered the digger was ex-army, and would you believe it? Guess which regiment.’

  Michael didn’t need to. He wasn’t given time to, and he wondered if the man’s wife regretted the fact that he’d made such a full recovery, and if she fantasised about life without him. Still he was talking, for it turned out the man who’d delivered the digger had been in the medical corps, and if it hadn’t been for his quick action Terry would have died in the mud.

  ‘That’s shocking,’ said Michael.

  ‘I would have died on the ground,’ he said. ‘End of story.’

  ‘So, luckily for you—’

  ‘He kept me breathing, this chap. And when the ambulance came – and that took ages, needless to say. When the ambulance came, the girl who looked after me – strip of a thing… looked about twelve. She said, “That man saved your life.” So it was soon after that I said to the wife, “This has got to stop.”’

  A silence fell.

  Michael now imagined the mute wife, listening attentively – just the way he was listening. He so didn’t want to ask another question, but the silence seemed impossible, and the man was staring at him. He couldn’t reach for his whisky: he had to stay still.

  He said, ‘I had a bit of a scare. Two years ago, now—’

  ‘I sold the business,’ said Terry. ‘I didn’t want to, but I said to my wife, “I can’t half do the job. I can’t stand by whilst some fruitcake runs it badly.” She said, “Sell it, then.” And, well – that was the best advice I ever had, and the best advice I ever took. We were lucky again. The recession hadn’t hit, and I had two separate buyers bidding in the end. I walked away with… I won’t tell you what I walked away with. Let’s just say that heart attack was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, in every possible way. It enabled me… Listen to this. It actually enabled me to find other things to do, so I could live my life. Because that’s what I was frightened of, and that’s what the wife said. “He’ll die of boredom.” She said that to my son, who was… he was still at college. Do you know what I said? I said, “I’m going to buy a boat.” And that made them laugh.’

  ‘A boat?’ said Michael, by accident.

  He couldn’t stop himself.

  ‘Like a narrowboat, or a sailing boat—?’

  ‘That’s where I’m off to this weekend.’

  ‘What kind of boat did you buy?’

  The man laughed, and Michael didn’t want to know.

  ‘The reason they didn’t take me seriously was because they knew I got seasick. We’d been on a cruise, and I’d hated it! Hated it. But I said, “I am going to get on the water and learn.” We’ve got an apartment now, in that new Bristol Marina – not a big one, but oh-my-goodness. It looks right over the water, and you just sit on the terrace and… it’s a pageant.’

  Michael nodded, and saw Terry in his coffin again – floating, this time.

  ‘I never get tired of it,’ he said. ‘Boats coming in, yachts going out. Ours is moored where we can actually see it, and there’s people around to chat to. Interesting people, retired, a lot of them. Decent folk. I’ve got to get the hull checked over, so we’re dry-docking her for a couple of weeks. Then… I don’t know.’

  ‘The world’s your oyster.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘You can go anywhere. Where will you go?’

  Why had he asked another question? What compulsion was it, when all he wanted to know was how many people might come to Terry’s funeral? How many actual friends did he have? And would the decent people from Bristol Marina be there, because they had come to love Terry like a brother? How many pews would he need, because Michael’s would be a quick, quiet affair and cars would not be necessary. They would burn him early in the morning: the later slots were more expensive, and harder to book.

  Terry was about to speak again when his phone started to ring, and the ringtone was a little trumpet playing ‘Colonel Bogey’. He couldn’t find it at first, so the volume rose and Michael listened to the opening bars, twice through, the hearse driving steadily out of the marina to the strange, bubbling soundtrack – the tugboats would be hooting, and the harbour master was inconsolable. There were floral tributes fashioned into diggers and ships: Farewell King of Plant Hire was written in five hundred white carnations. Bon Voyage, Dad!

  Eventually, the man found his phone, and Michael heard the voice of Terry’s wife. He assumed it was his wife, and whilst he couldn’t quite hear what she said, he soon picked up the fact that she was concerned about an estimated gas bill she had received that morning. It sounded as if she and Terry both preferred to avoid estimated bills, and had tried to notify the company so as to register their own meter reading. Something had gone wrong, and Terry’s wife needed reassurance, which Terry gave loudly and surprisingly kindly. Michael found himself wondering if they were intimate still, and sexually active. He didn’t want to imagine anything of the sort – he wanted a drink – but he could hear her anxiety and it sounded as if Terry cared for her.

  Did he care for her?

  Of course he cared for her! Why wouldn’t he? She sounded just a little fragile, and he could imagine the man steadying her as she stepped onto the terrace to look at all the boats. They probably had separate beds, or even separate rooms, and Michael was in the apartment with them. He didn’t want to think about their private lives, but the man had sat back, and he seemed to be sprawling in the seat. The image came like a horrible visitation: he saw the woman bringing Terry to orgasm, and he couldn’t stop the sequence playing for the man’s mouth was open and his eyes were goggling. She was on the train, under the table on her poor arthritic knees: how would she ever get up? She’d strike her head and her mouth would be unwiped, as unwiped as his own…

  He closed his eyes. At last, the picture changed back to the terrace, and they were all simply staring out to sea – the wife, Terry and Michael – leaning on the rail.

  Terry would die first, and leave her to her grief. Her children would support her, and she’d move closer to them. She would take out one of those affordable funeral plans, for herself.

  Would she meet someone else? Would she meet Michael?

  ‘Terry spoke so highly of you. I know you only had a short time together on that train, but you made quite an impression.’

  ‘How?’ />
  ‘The way you listened to him. You were so attentive, Michael – are you coming back to the house?’

  ‘I don’t think I should.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I’ve so much to do—’

  ‘It would be such a comfort, you see. We could stand in companionable silence, looking at the water – we’d be connected.’

  He had to get up.

  He put the juice carton away, and picked up his bag. He wanted another seat, preferably at the far end of the train – in the last carriage. It was his own fault, again. There was nobody to blame but himself, for he’d started it: ‘What do you do?’ Or ‘Where are you going?’ Some idiot question that had opened a valve for the gallons and gallons of drenching, self-regarding, shouting nonsense.

  And yet it wasn’t nonsense, for the man was interesting.

  Terry had lived – and was living – an interesting life. Michael saw him flat on his back in the mud, and it was as vivid as the image of Terry supervising the inspection of his boat’s hull – Terry in his sky-blue shirt and loosened tie, nodding his approval, watched by his lovely, decent, nautical friends. The man was rich, and liked if not loved. He had a son. The church would be full, and he would sail to heaven on a river of tears.

  Michael felt bruised by the encounter. He had invited Terry to talk, and had ended up weak, silent and even more inadequate – not that he had ever in his life wanted a boat, and not that he cared about the box they’d put him in. The fact that he thought about it did not mean he cared, and it wasn’t self-pity – was it? It wasn’t, because he had no sympathy for himself: the need to finish, die and exit was a practical, calculated decision as straightforward as a decision not to marry. You saw the rightness, and you acted: it was a question, simply, of getting to Crewe and putting an end to so much needless, repetitive nothingness. The train was eager: it was rattling along as quickly as it could, and the long platforms of Crewe that he’d walked and checked would soon be solid beneath his feet.

  He stood for a moment in the lobby, where the carriages joined, and felt the judder of the coupling device. It took the strain and eased again. He looked at the fields, and wondered when people had last been able to open windows, and lean out into the fresh air. Trains had become sealed units, for the rail companies were in a constant state of anxiety.

  ‘Take a moment to look around you,’ they cried. ‘Take extra care in wet weather. Wear a coat. Are your mittens on? What about your medication? Don’t get down until we let you – wait, please! The onboard supervisor wants to dry your eyes and hold you for a moment, because you’re important – your safety is important. If you see something suspicious or wrong then please report it. Text us, phone or simply wave your arms…’

  Michael smiled, and pressed his nose to the glass.

  Some kind of gantry was coming into view, and he could see the engine rolling under it. The track curved, and the next two carriages appeared, then the third. The driver sounded his horn, and Michael saw why: a gang of orange-suited workers were standing off to the side, resting. When he came abreast of them, he noticed one was a woman, and she was staring right at him. He lifted a hand and waved, and she continued to stare, as if he was invisible to her, or insane. Then she nodded and looked away.

  He stood back and felt better. Now was the moment to drink, so he knelt down and poured himself a half-glass of whisky. Amy came to mind again as he sipped it, for marrying her would have changed his life – and he might be standing with her now, or sitting down with magazines and papers. They would be looking at puzzles together, and he would have a role.

  ‘You okay, love?’

  ‘I’m fine. How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  They would confide in each other, except he could never confide anything worth confiding. They wouldn’t be here, though. He would be back at her home, doing something in the garden perhaps. The evening would come at last and they would find themselves on the sofa doing what everyone did: they would be watching television. The television connected to the DVD player, which connected to the World Wide Web as well as the Sky box, so all they had to do was call up a menu of movies, documentaries and sports fixtures that made choosing anything impossible. The screen was hideously big, and the sound system involved speakers in every corner, large and small: they had chosen it together in a store where you walked down aisles of televisions, all showing shoals of fish. Shoals of fish seemed to illustrate the phenomenal quality of the multi-pixilated picture, and the colours had made Michael feel drab.

  The world was miraculous. Creation was miraculous, but all he could think about was the money he’d committed himself into spending. He didn’t need that intensity of television experience. He didn’t need all those clever people taking cameras to the ocean bed, and swimming with them over fragile reefs – all they did was make him feel sad that he would never dive. They reminded him that he knew nothing about zoology, and was doomed to gaze at turtles and stingrays in wonder, thinking, Aren’t they amazing?

  Were turtles amazing? Perhaps they weren’t. If a turtle was amazing, then everything was amazing – and if everything was amazing you had no time to be amazed. You had to guard against being amazed, just to stay sane.

  No, he would have preferred a small screen that knew its place and didn’t shout about magical worlds of fish. The TV they actually bought didn’t bring Amy’s daughter down from her room. She – Charlie – preferred to stay in her bedroom when Michael was round. When he wasn’t, she and her mum enjoyed good conversation – or so Amy claimed.

  ‘She does like you!’ had become a regular reassurance, after she’d blanked him, or stared at him, or said something Michael realised only later was ironic. He seemed to mishear her a lot, because she mumbled.

  ‘Pardon?’ he would say. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie – say that again.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  She was sixteen, attending the sixth-form college, and as far as Michael could see she hardly noticed him, because he didn’t matter. He was five feet nine inches tall, and he weighed a hundred and forty-two pounds – but Charlie didn’t seem to notice him, and always seemed in a hurry to get past. Was he a threat?

  Was he in competition with her father, whom she hardly saw? Or was he despised for being the same gender as her father? Perhaps it was simpler than that: her mother was bringing home a dull, stupid, awkward nothing, so what else could she do but despise him? He despised himself, after all, for being interested in her mother, or feigning interest – or trying to generate interest. He had worked at being interested in the hope that he would start to love her, because Amy was a good soul, and she had a sense of humour. She deserved to be loved. Everyone was a good soul, somewhere – and they had come together like two of those not very special turtles, and found themselves pairing off. How many turtles said, ‘No, thank you – I’m not interested in you. I’m waiting for another turtle, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry, but I want a partner with fewer barnacles’?

  He smiled, and sipped his drink.

  It was the choral society’s fault, really. Clubs and societies often brought people together: it was what they were for. Neither he nor Amy had a passion for church music – so that was something shared. They shared a readiness to enter the hideous drill hall where practices took place. What else did they share? They shared a dislike of the paper cups in which the tea was served. They shared an ability to tread the long, meandering path of aimless conversation – it was like an escalator that went on and on until you’d lost sight of your destination and point of origin. Yes, he and Amy had found themselves chatting, and that led to their meeting for a proper coffee, and that led to some weak magnet of attraction or need stirring in each of them – some soft bleep as the magnetic fields engaged. Why not see where the connection led?

  But he had no affection for Charlie, because she was a stranger.

  ‘Pardon?’ he’d say.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

  He tried to be interested in
her – the A levels she’d chosen were dance, hotel management and something he couldn’t now remember, and she didn’t want to talk about why she had chosen those subjects, so he felt silly for asking about them. He’d get to the end of some idiotic, rambling question, and she’d be gone. The door would be swinging shut, her grunted answer only half-heard again. That was fine, of course: she didn’t want to discuss her life with Michael, and it was her home so why should she?

  Michael found he was shaking his head, so he sipped his whisky again.

  A ticket inspector went by, hurrying into the compartment he’d recently left. Perhaps Terry was having another heart attack? The doors closed automatically, and Charlie was back, pushing past him with a heavy suitcase he had to step aside to avoid. He would have liked a moment of connection with her, and they should have found one. They should have come across a stray kitten together, or a bird with a broken wing. Amy’s house had a garden, so there was every chance her cat would have caught a bird and left it mortally injured on the patio. Charlie might have been amazed by his patience, and he would have been touched by the purity of her compassion, which would have turned her back into a child. They would have set the bird on the rockery, and watched it recover and take flight.

  It took her a very long time to put on make-up, and one of Michael’s agonies was the thought of seeing her half dressed as she emerged from the bathroom – he lived in fear of an accusation or a scream. He had visions of neighbours gathering outside as Amy held Charlie and tried to stop her sobbing.

  ‘He was waiting for me! He won’t stop looking at me!’

  Sometimes he worried about making remarks that could be misinterpreted, and that made conversation even more impossible. In fact, she thought he was a frustrated queer: Amy had revealed this in her final letter to him. The nuclear counter-strike – the retaliatory letter that reduced their idiotic relationship to smoking, radioactive ash.

  Not an email: a letter, which he nearly hadn’t read.

  He had skimmed it, in case there was anything he had to deal with – anything financial, or possibly a threat of vengeance. Her brother had threatened to break his jaw, which seemed so specific. If Amy wanted to humiliate him in the street – and if she committed that hope to paper – he should at least make himself aware of it, so he tried to skim the letter, but ended up reading it properly. It was only two sides, and the sheets of paper were small. She had distilled her rage and humiliation – those were two of the words she used – and composed two-dozen cruel sentences designed to cut deep. One of them was about Charlie, and how overjoyed she’d been that Michael and her mother were no more. She had kissed Amy, and hugged her. She always thought you were a frustrated queer using me to pretend otherwise because it’s so clearly what you can’t or don’t want to deal with.