Let's Meet on Platform 8

by Carole Matthews

  It was the tangled mass of trains and the mention of Euston Station that made her prick up her ears and prick her thumb. In the background, ambulance sirens wailed, the surging discordant noise still sounding strangely American rather than British. There were shots of bloodied, bandaged people being stretchered away from the trains by men in tight-fitting orange jumpsuits who whisked them into waiting helicopters. In the background, firemen held clear plastic drip bags attached to patients lying bleeding on the ground.

  Horrified, Pamela learned that this was the 18.07 out of Euston—a packed commuter train that had crashed into an empty goods train heading south from the main depot. The collision was just south of Watford Junction. The train had been carrying over four hundred people. There was one fatality and over one hundred other injuries. The police incident officer said that it was a miracle more passengers weren’t killed. Pamela’s throat went dry.

  The news cameras switched to a harassed BBC reporter, standing outside Watford General Hospital. Every ambulance that arrived at the ugly grey concrete building was greeted by a swarm of nurses in pale blue uniforms and matching plastic aprons who fussed around the casualties and hurried them inside. A large red sign bearing a large red arrow said Walking Wounded This Way, Please.

  Pamela couldn’t hear what the reporter was saying. There was blood rushing in her ears, and she scoured the faces of the injured, imagining them without their bandages. One fatality. Oh, God, please let it not be my Jamie.

  The newsflash continued interminably—eyewitness reports of crashing sounds and flying glass and flowing blood. The trains hung precariously from an embankment, looking like toys sadistically smashed by a child who hadn’t yet learned how to play nicely. In the houses below the carnage, people had been evacuated while they were having their supper. One man complained to the reporter about his pasta going cold.

  A haggard-looking spokesman from the Railways Inspectorate made a vacuous statement to the camera—despite the numerous train crashes in the last few years, he still insisted on citing unblemished safety records and assuring the general public that an internal enquiry was being launched. He, too, echoed the sentiments of the incident officer that it was a miracle there weren’t more dead, then delivered his well-rehearsed uncomfortable condolences to the families of the dead and injured.

  Already the press was looking for someone to blame. All Pamela was looking for was Jamie.

  Chapter 28

  Teri found the only vase she owned, which was lurking at the back of her under-sink cupboard gathering dust. She unwrapped the fading blooms, which were now shedding their petals due to the warmth of the train and the battering they had taken because they had both been forced to stand until Watford Junction. It was a shame that the only flowers she’d had in years seemed destined to be a farewell present.

  She clinked two lone ice-cubes from the tray into the vase and tossed the tray into the sink. Somewhere she had read that ice could revive wilting flowers. By the look of them, this lot would need a small iceberg to do the trick. Either that or a small miracle.

  What would revive a wilting love affair? she wondered. Certainly not an iceberg: this relationship was beginning to feel as though it had been struck a cruel and fatal blow by one. It seemed unlikely to survive. Look at the Titanic—how indestructible that had seemed at the time. Had she and Jamie ever seemed indestructible? No, she had to admit, they hadn’t. They had always been a leaky tub—the water of commitment and loyalty seeping in too steadily for them ever to venture too far from the shore.

  She had seen this coming. After the debacle of the weekend and then Pamela on the train yesterday, what else could she expect? They were up to their ears in water—the moment of sink or swim. There was no question about what Jamie would do—there never really had been. It was why she loved him—the kindness, the loyalty, the inherent goodness. She had vowed that she would be brave and smiling as their ship slowly sank. Jamie would strike back for the safety of the shore, and she would silently and with dignity let the water engulf her.

  Teri tucked the champagne under her arm and carried the vase into the lounge, where Jamie was perched uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa, scattering petals across the carpet as she went.

  ‘Here, you can open this.’ She passed him the bottle and slid two slender glasses across the coffee table at him. ‘Open it carefully. I don’t want another dent in my ceiling.’

  He squeezed the cork expertly out of the bottle and poured the champagne into the glasses. ‘What are we celebrating?’

  Teri took a glass and knelt on the floor in front of him. ‘We’re not celebrating. We’re in mourning. I’m celebrating.’ She lifted her glass. ‘May I propose a toast to the new presenter of City Television’s most popular youth culture show—Out and About!’

  A smile creased Jamie’s face and his eyes sparkled with the reflected bubbles from the champagne. ‘You got your promotion.’

  Teri sipped the champagne and put it to one side. ‘And about time too.’

  ‘That’s incredible.’

  ‘I know. It was such a fluke too. My producer— I told you about him— Richard Wellbeloved…’

  Jamie’s blood ran cold. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks.’ Teri pouted. ‘You need an ego the size of a very large house to be on television, and at the moment mine’s already smaller than my downstairs loo.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘Well, he’s gone. Under a cloud, by all accounts. The rumour is, he’s been given the big heave-ho from on high. Gross misconduct. And that irritating little twerp Jez— I told you about him too. Gone. Apparently, they’ve run off together…’

  Teri prattled on, but Jamie was only half listening.

  How could he tell her about Charlie now? Why did it always work out that one person’s pain was another person’s pleasure? Why was one man’s grief invariably another man’s glory? One’s loss another’s gain. Was that why funerals were so much like weddings? Flowers, cars, hymns, crying and slap-up food afterwards. No one wore black at funerals anymore, and everyone seemed to wear black at weddings—with the possible exception of the bride. And even that wasn’t a certainty. As far as he was concerned, there was only one obvious difference—one was most definitely an end and the other was a beginning. And, of course, no one tended to video funerals.

  ‘… There was some scandal involving the programme controller’s desk, some cocaine and a banana. But you know what office gossip is like. You can’t believe everything you hear.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Jamie said.

  Teri’s eyes widened. ‘What—even about the banana?’

  Jamie shook his head. ‘I don’t know about the banana—or the rest of it—but Richard Wellbeloved has definitely run off with Jez.’

  ‘Well,’ Teri said, ‘who would believe it?’ She shot bolt upright. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘That’s why Pamela was looking for me on Saturday. Charlie’s in hospital. Richard was his lover, partner— I don’t know—whatever you call it these days. Charlie’s taken it very badly. He tried to top himself.’

  ‘We are talking about Charlie “I’m one of the boys, tits and bums, ten pints of bitter and big-breasted ladies” here?’

  ‘The very same one.’

  ‘And he’s gay?’

  ‘As Elton John. He just doesn’t play the piano as well.’

  ‘I’m stunned.’ Teri looked it. ‘I was going to try and fix him up with Clare.’

  ‘It’s just as well you didn’t.’

  ‘I can’t see why Richard Wellbeloved is attracted to Jez. Charlie is a much better catch,’ Teri said philosophically.

  ‘Apparently, he’s got a sperm whale tattooed on his penis.’ Jamie filled his glass again.

  ‘Richard Wellbeloved?’ Teri’s voice was a squeak.

  ‘No, Jez. And pierced nipples.’

  ‘That figures.’ Teri pulled her bangs away from
her face. ‘But I still can’t see the attraction.’

  Jamie shrugged and smiled. ‘Perhaps it’s a life-sized sperm whale.’

  Teri stopped to think about it, then said, ‘Look, I’m not going to sit here all night discussing other people’s love lives when our own is on the brink of catastrophe.’ She took his glass from him. ‘Come upstairs and make love to me.’

  ‘I can’t.’ He put his face in his hands. ‘It would only make things worse. I think it would be best to end it quickly.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t.’ She pulled him towards her by his tie. ‘It’s best to end it slowly and seductively. Then at least we can look back when we’re sitting in our rocking chairs reminiscing in our Alzheimer-riddled heads and remember what irrational and irresponsible ravers we once were.’

  There seemed no appropriate moment to tell her, so Jamie blurted it out. ‘I’m moving to Manchester.’

  ‘Manchester!’ She let go of his tie, and he recoiled onto the sofa.

  ‘It isn’t the end of the world. Or even the end of civilisation as we know it.’ He adjusted his tie, tidying it back into the right place. ‘Though Pamela thinks it is.’

  ‘Why Manchester?’ Teri shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘My company’s relocating.’

  ‘That still doesn’t answer the question.’

  ‘I don’t think there is an answer—other than why not?’

  Teri’s face had fallen and she looked as if she was about to cry. ‘We’ll never see each other again.’

  He could tell he wasn’t making a very good job of breaking this gently. He suspected bulls in china shops broke things more gently than he did. ‘That was the general idea.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would be so final.’

  He pulled a petal off one of the roses and rolled it absently between his fingers. ‘You can’t end an affair and then still go on seeing each other—it doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘I thought we might at least accidentally bump into each other sometimes on good old Platform Eight. You know, you could ladder my pantyhouse and sprain my ankle again. And I could ruin another one of your hankies. It would be just like old times. And we could shoot the breeze over a coffee at the End-of-the-Line like good buddies do.’

  Jamie shook his head. ‘You know it wouldn’t work.’

  ‘I must say you’re taking this very calmly.’

  ‘I’m not calm—my insides are churning more than they do when I’ve had a chicken vindaloo.’ He discarded the petal, which was bruised and broken. ‘I’m just resigned. There’s a difference.’

  Teri twisted and leaned against his legs. ‘Did you ever love me?’

  It was a stupid thing to ask. She should know he did. He had risked everything for her. But he could feel the uncertainty prickling from her like the edgy palpable static electricity that comes from computer screens. He smoothed her hair with his hand, expecting it to crackle under his fingers. It didn’t.

  ‘You know I did. I still do,’ he whispered.

  ‘More than Pamela?’

  How did he ever think this was going to be easy? He didn’t answer, and when she looked up at him, his eyes were closed and he was resting his head back against the sofa.

  ‘More than Pamela?’ she repeated.

  ‘I love my wife,’ he said, without opening his eyes.

  ‘Look at me and say that.’

  Jamie turned his head and his eyes met hers and he said levelly, ‘I love my wife. I always have.’

  ‘You bastard.’ Teri sounded sulky. ‘You do, don’t you?’

  Jamie nodded wordlessly. ‘It’s a different love. There’s not the need—the greed. It’s steadfast and stoic. It’s corny and dated—and it’s, well, it’s there.’

  Jamie sighed and bent down and kissed the top of her head. ‘I wish I could turn back the clock. I wish that we’d never met, and then I wouldn’t have to hurt you now.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep making wishes. I’ve already told you once that you’re too old. The last ones you made didn’t come true, or we wouldn’t be in this situation now.’

  He wrapped his arms around Teri and pressed her to his chest. Her body was tight and angled, every muscle taut with tension under his hands. She felt considerably less in control than she sounded. ‘How am I going to live without you?’

  She looked up at him. ‘I used to think that about Häagen-Dazs ice cream, but somehow I managed.’

  ‘You just eat Ben & Jerry’s instead now, don’t you?’

  Teri looked puzzled. ‘So I do.’ It was an analogy that Jamie didn’t care to dwell on.

  She lay watching his sprawled dozing body on her bed, remembering every line of his face, the way his hair curled, the birthmark that looked like a map of Japan on his shoulder. This would form the Polaroid photograph that she would store in her memory. She had taken no proper photographs of him, and it seemed too late and too sad to start now. How could she ask him to smile and say cheese when that same mouth would say goodbye to her in just a few short hours?

  His heart was beating loudly and solidly in the silence, and she strained her ears to listen in case it was one of her neighbours with their bass boost turned up too loudly. Teri kissed his earlobe and he swished his hand as if to swat an irritating fly before he opened his eyes and realised it was her.

  He smiled, a lazy, lopsided smile—store in the memory—and his eyes crinkled. Three more lines to memorise. She kissed him full on the mouth. There was a need inside her that was more raw than a plateful of sushi. ‘Make love to me again.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can.’

  She trailed her hand over the flat of his stomach. ‘Just one last time.’

  He held her away from him. ‘This is the third time you’ve said that.’

  ‘We all have to find previously untapped reserves of strength during times of adversity.’ She padded to the stereo, seemingly unaware of her nakedness, and put on a CD—‘Touch Me in the Morning’. ‘Indulge me before you break my heart.’

  ‘Teri.’ He looked at her accusingly. ‘This is a real tear-jerker.’ She came back to the bed and Jamie took her hand. ‘Don’t torture yourself like this.’

  ‘I’m not torturing myself. It’s you that’s torturing me. Besides, if it was good enough for Diana Ross, it’s good enough for me.’ She lay beside him on the bed, head nestling on his chest. ‘Anyway, I’m a big girl now. I’m not going to cry.’

  ‘Come here,’ he said gruffly.

  This time they made love silently and seriously—afraid to touch each other unless one of them should shatter into a thousand brittle fragments. The tears slid silently down her face and Jamie’s face was wet, too—although she couldn’t tell if it was from her tears or his own.

  He traced the line of her tears over her cheeks. ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to cry.’

  ‘I lied,’ she said.

  When she had lain curled in his arms for some time, he said gently, ‘I have to go.’

  He prised her away from him and twisted out of bed and sat with his back towards her. She pulled the sheet over her head and stayed there. Jamie went into the bathroom. She could hear the tap running into the sink and solitary splashes of water, but there was no singing like there usually was. Eventually, he returned.

  ‘I’m ready to go.’ His voice was tight with emotion. There seemed a necessity for this sharp cruelty, this detachment from the pain, if he was ever going to be able to go at all.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Teri said from beneath the covers.

  ‘Don’t let me go like this.’ Jamie pulled at the sheet tucked tightly over her head. ‘Come out and say goodbye like an adult.’

  ‘I don’t feel like an adult. I was going to be brave and sophisticated and light-hearted, but I can’t.’ Diana still crooned on the CD player.

  He pulled the sheet down. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face tearstained. He brushed her hair from her face and kissed her forehead. ‘I love you,’ he said and walked out of the door.
<
br />   Teri closed her eyes and hot tears squeezed through her lashes again, burning a track across her already feverish cheeks. ‘I wish you weren’t married, that we weren’t hurting anyone by loving each other, and I wish more than anything that when I opened my eyes, you’d still be here.’

  She opened her eyes at the same time as the front door slammed brutally and irrevocably shut behind him.

  So that was it. Their brief encounter was over. Trevor presumably chuffed unhappily away alone on his train, while what’sername stood pathetically waving a damp hanky. It was bound to be something like that. It always was.

  Life was nothing but a bitter journey on the rails to nowhere. A series of horrible tacky stations, unexpected delays and, sometimes along the way, the odd devastation of a major derailment. That’s what Jamie had been—a major derailment on life’s tortured track.

  Anyway, she’d never know how the stupid film ended—and what’s more, she no longer cared. How could she ever bear to watch it now? Whatever happened The End would come up in big white capital letters. And she’d reach for the man-sized Kleenex once again.

  Chapter 29

  The emergency number that they gave out for friends and relatives was constantly engaged. Pamela sat with the phone in her hand, pressing and re-pressing the redial button and imagining that by sheer will she could force the incessant, negative bleeping to change to a comforting, informative ring. Jamie’s cell phone wasn’t working—as usual. It was driving Pamela to distraction. Damn the inconvenience of technology that never worked when you most needed it!

  There was a news update every half-hour, and still she hadn’t recognised Jamie among the battered and tattered travellers. Surely, he wouldn’t be on that train. This was to be his last night with her—with Teri.

  What were the chances of them being trapped and tangled together on the train? A million to one? There was more chance of them winning the National Lottery. Somewhere, Pamela had read that it was more likely for a thirty-seven-year-old man to die of a heart attack immediately after buying his lottery ticket than it was for him to win ‘The Big One’. For one mad moment, Pamela clung to the safety of that thought.