by Mark Haddon
And I asked the policeman, “How much does it cost to get a ticket for a train to London?”
And he said, “About 30 quid.”
And I said, “Is that pounds?”
And he said, “Christ alive,” and he laughed. But I didn't laugh because I don't like people laughing at me, even if they are policemen. And he stopped laughing, and he said, “Yep. It's 30 pounds.”
So I pressed £50 and five £10 notes came out of the machine, and a receipt, and I put the notes and the receipt and the card into my pocket.
And the policeman said, “Well, I guess I shouldn't keep you chatting any longer.”
And I said, “Where do I get a ticket for the train from?” because if you are lost and you need directions you can ask a policeman.
And he said, “You are a prize specimen, aren't you.”
And I said, “Where do I get a ticket for the train from?” because he hadn't answered my question.
And he said, “In there,” and he pointed and there was a big room with a glass window on the other side of the train station door, and then he said, “Now, are you sure you know what you're doing?”
And I said, “Yes. I'm going to London to live with my mother.”
And he said, “Has your mother got a telephone number?”
And I said, “Yes.”
And he said, “And can you tell me what it is?”
And I said, “Yes. It's 0208 887 8907.”
And he said, “And you'll ring her if you get into any trouble, OK?”
And I said, “Yes,” because I knew you could ring people from phone boxes if you had money, and I had money now.
And he said, “Good.”
And I walked into the ticket office and I turned round and I could see that the policeman was still watching me so I felt safe. And there was a long desk at the other side of the big room and a window on the desk and there was a man standing in front of the window and there was a man behind the window, and I said to the man behind the window, “I want to go to London.”
And the man in front of the window said, “If you don't mind,” and he turned round so that his back was toward me and the man behind the window gave him a little bit of paper to sign and he signed it and pushed it back under the window and the man behind the window gave him a ticket. And then the man in front of the window looked at me and he said, “What the fuck are you looking at?” and then he walked away.
And he had dreadlocks, which is what some black people have, but he was white, and dreadlocks is when you never wash your hair and it looks like old rope. And he had red trousers with stars on them. And I kept my hand on my Swiss Army knife in case he touched me.
And then there was no one else in front of the window and I said to the man behind the window, “I want to go to London,” and I hadn't been frightened when I was with the policeman but I turned round and I saw that he had gone now and I was scared again, so I tried to pretend I was playing a game on my computer and it was called Train to London and it was like Myst or The 11th Hour, and you had to solve lots of different problems to get to the next level, and I could turn it off at any time.
And the man said, “Single or return?”
And I said, “What does single or return mean?”
And he said, “Do you want to go one way, or do you want to go and come back?”
And I said, “I want to stay there when I get there.”
And he said, “For how long?”
And I said, “Until I go to university.”
And he said, “Single, then,” and then he said, “That'll be £32.”
And I gave him the fifty pounds and he gave me £10 back and he said, “Don't you go throwing it away.”
And then he gave me a little yellow and orange ticket and £8 in coins and I put it all in my pocket with my knife. And I didn't like the ticket being half yellow but I had to keep it because it was my train ticket.
And then he said, “If you could move away from the counter.”
And I said, “When is the train to London?”
And he looked at his watch and said, “Platform 1, five minutes.”
And I said, “Where is Platform 1?”
And he pointed and said, “Through the underpass and up the stairs. You'll see the signs.”
And underpass meant tunnel because I could see where he was pointing, so I went out of the ticket office, but it wasn't like a computer game at all because I was in the middle of it and it was like all the signs were shouting in my head and someone bumped into me as they walked past and I made a noise like a dog barking to scare them off.
And I pictured in my head a big red line across the floor which started at my feet and went through the tunnel and I started walking along the red line, saying, “Left, right, left, right, left, right,” because sometimes when I am frightened or angry it helps if I do something that has a rhythm to it, like music or drumming, which is something Siobhan taught me to do.
And I went up the stairs and I saw a sign saying ← Platform 1 and the ← was pointing at a glass door so I went through it, and someone bumped into me again with a suitcase and I made another noise like a dog barking, and they said, “Watch where the hell you're going,” but I pretended that they were just one of the Guarding Demons in Train to London and there was a train. And I saw a man with a newspaper and a bag of golf clubs go up to one of the doors of the train and press a big button next to it and the doors were electronic and they slid open and I liked that. And then the doors closed behind him.
And then I looked at my watch and 3 minutes had gone past since I was at the ticket office, which meant that the train would be going in 2 minutes.
And then I went up to the door and I pressed the big button and the doors slid open and I stepped through the doors.
And I was on the train to London.
193. When I used to play with my train set I made a train timetable because I liked timetables. And I like timetables because I like to know when everything is going to happen.
And this was my timetable when I lived at home with Father and I thought that Mother was dead from a heart attack (this was the timetable for a Monday and also it is an approximation)
And at the weekend I make up my own timetable and I write it down on a piece of cardboard and I put it up on the wall. And it says things like Feed Toby or Do maths or Go to the shop to buy sweets. And that is one of the other reasons why I don't like France, because when people are on holiday they don't have a timetable and I had to get Mother and Father to tell me every morning exactly what we were going to do that day to make me feel better.
Because time is not like space. And when you put something down somewhere, like a protractor or a biscuit, you can have a map in your head to tell you where you have left it, but even if you don't have a map it will still be there because a map is a representation of things that actually exist so you can find the protractor or the biscuit again. And a timetable is a map of time, except that if you don't have a timetable time is not there like the landing and the garden and the route to school. Because time is only the relationship between the way different things change, like the earth going round the sun and atoms vibrating and clocks ticking and day and night and waking up and going to sleep, and it is like west or nor-nor-east, which won't exist when the earth stops existing and falls into the sun because it is only a relationship between the North Pole and the South Pole and everywhere else, like Mogadishu and Sunderland and Canberra.
And it isn't a fixed relationship like the relationship between our house and Mrs. Shears's house, or like the relationship between 7 and 865, but it depends on how fast you are going relative to a specific point. And if you go off in a spaceship and you travel near the speed of light, you may come back and find that all your family is dead and you are still young and it will be the future but your clock will say that you have only been away for a few days or months.
And because nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, this means that we can only kn
ow about a fraction of the things that go on in the universe, like this
And this is a map of everything and everywhere, and the future is on the right and the past is on the left and the gradient of the line c is the speed of light, but we can't know about the things which happen in the shaded areas even though some of them have already happened, but when we get to f it will be possible to find out about things which happen in the lighter areas p and q.
And this means that time is a mystery, and not even a thing, and no one has ever solved the puzzle of what time is, exactly. And so, if you get lost in time it is like being lost in a desert, except that you can't see the desert because it is not a thing.
And this is why I like timetables, because they make sure you don't get lost in time.
197. There were lots of people on the train, and I didn't like that, because I don't like lots of people I don't know and I hate it even more if I am stuck in a room with lots of people I don't know, and a train is like a room and you can't get out of it when it's moving. And it made me think of when I had to come home in the car from school one day because the bus had broken down and Mother came and picked me up and Mrs. Peters asked Mother if she could take Jack and Polly home because their mothers couldn't come and pick them up, and Mother said yes. But I started screaming in the car because there were too many people in it and Jack and Polly weren't in my class and Jack bangs his head on things and makes a noise like an animal, and I tried to get out of the car, but it was still going along and I fell out onto the road and I had to have stitches in my head and they had to shave the hair off and it took 3 months for it to grow back to the way it was before.
So I stood very still in the train carriage and didn't move.
And then I heard someone say “Christopher.”
And I thought it would be someone I knew, like a teacher from school or one of the people who live in our street, but it wasn't. It was the policeman again. And he said, “Caught you just in time,” and he was breathing really loud and holding his knees.
And I didn't say anything.
And he said, “We've got your father at the police station.”
And I thought he was going to say that they had arrested Father for killing Wellington, but he didn't. He said, “He's looking for you.”
And I said, “I know.”
And he said, “So, why are you going to London?”
And I said, “Because I'm going to live with Mother.”
And he said, “Well, I think your father might have something to say about that.”
And then I thought that he was going to take me back to Father and that was frightening because he was a policeman and policemen are meant to be good, so I started to run away, but he grabbed me and I screamed. And then he let go.
And he said, “OK, let's not get overexcited here.” And then he said, “I'm going to take you back to the police station and you and me and your dad can sit down and have a little chat about who's going where.”
And I said, “I'm going to live with Mother, in London.”
And he said, “Not just yet you're not.”
And I said, “Have you arrested Father?”
And he said, “Arrested him? What for?”
And I said, “He killed a dog. With a garden fork. The dog was called Wellington.”
And the policeman said, “Did he now?”
And I said, “Yes, he did.”
And he said, “Well, we can talk about that as well.” And then he said, “Right, young man, I think you've done enough adventuring for one day.”
And then he reached out to touch me again and I started to scream again, and he said, “Now listen, you little monkey. You can either do what I say or I am going to have to make—”
And then the train jiggled and it began to move.
And then the policeman said, “Shitting fuck.”
And then he looked at the ceiling of the train and he put his hands together in front of his mouth like people do when they are praying to God in heaven and he breathed really loudly into his hands and made a whistling noise, and then he stopped because the train jiggled again and he had to grab hold of one of the straps which were hanging from the ceiling.
And then he said, “Don't move.”
And then he took out his walkie-talkie and pressed a button and said, “Rob . . . ? Yeah, it's Nigel. I'm stuck on the bloody train. Yeah. Don't even . . . Look. It stops at Didcot Parkway. So, if you can get someone to meet me with a car . . . Cheers. Tell his old man we've got him but it's going to take a while, OK? Great.”
And then he clicked his walkie-talkie off and he said, “Let's get ourselves a seat,” and he pointed to two long seats nearby which faced each other, and he said, “Park yourself. And no monkey business.”
And the people who were sitting on the seats got up and walked away because he was a policeman and we sat down facing one another.
And he said, “You are a bloody handful, you are. Jeez.”
And I wondered whether the policeman would help me find 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG.
And I looked out of the window and we were going past factories and scrap yards full of old cars and there were 4 caravans in a muddy field with 2 dogs and some clothes hanging up to dry.
And outside the window was like a map, except that it was in 3 dimensions and it was life-size because it was the thing it was a map of. And there were so many things it made my head hurt, so I closed my eyes, but then I opened them again because it was like flying, but nearer to the ground, and I think flying is good. And then the countryside started and there were fields and cows and horses and a bridge and a farm and more houses and lots of little roads with cars on them. And that made me think that there must be millions of miles of train track in the world and they all go past houses and roads and rivers and fields, and that made me think how many people must be in the world and they all have houses and roads to travel on and cars and pets and clothes and they all eat lunch and go to bed and have names and this made my head hurt, too, so I closed my eyes again and did counting and groaning.
And when I opened my eyes the policeman was reading a newspaper called The Sun, and on the front of the paper it said £3m Anderson's Call Girl Shame and it had a picture of a man and a picture of a lady in a bra underneath.
And then I did some maths practice in my head, solving quadratic equations using the formula
And then I wanted to go for a wee, but I was on a train. And I didn't know how long it would take us to get to London and I felt a panic starting, and I started to tap a rhythm on the glass with my knuckles to help me wait and not think about wanting to go for a wee, and I looked at my watch and I waited for 17 minutes, but when I want to go for a wee I have to go really quickly, which is why I like to be at home or at school and I always go for a wee before I get on the bus, which is why I leaked a bit and wet my trousers.
And then the policeman looked across at me and said, “Oh Christ, you've . . .” And then he put his newspaper down and said, “For God's sake go to the bloody toilet, will you.”
And I said, “But I'm on a train.”
And he said, “They do have toilets on trains, you know.”
And I said, “Where is the toilet on the train?”
And he pointed and said, “Through those doors there. But I'll be keeping an eye on you, understand?”
And I said, “No,” because I knew what keeping an eye on someone meant but he couldn't look at me when I was in the toilet.
And he said, “Just go to the bloody toilet.”
So I got up out of my seat and I closed my eyes so that my eyelids were just little slits so I couldn't see the other people on the train and I walked to the door, and when I got through the door there was another door on the right and it was half open and it said TOILET on it, so I went inside.
And it was horrible inside because there was poo on the seat of the toilet and it smelled of poo, like the toilet at school when Joseph has been for a poo on his own, because he plays w
ith it.
And I didn't want to use the toilet because of the poo, which was the poo of people I didn't know and brown, but I had to because I really wanted to wee. So I closed my eyes and went for a wee and the train wobbled and lots went on the seat and on the floor, but I wiped my penis with toilet paper and flushed the toilet and then I tried to use the sink but the tap didn't work, so I put spit on my hands and wiped them with a paper tissue and put it into the toilet.
Then I went out of the toilet and I saw that opposite the toilet there were two shelves with cases and a rucksack on them and it made me think of the airing cupboard at home and how I climb in there sometimes and it makes me feel safe. So I climbed onto the middle shelf and I pulled one of the cases across like a door so that I was shut in, and it was dark and there was no one in there with me and I couldn't hear people talking so I felt much calmer and it was nice.
And I did some more quadratic equations like
0 = 437x2 + 103x + 11
and
0 = 79x2 + 43x + 2089
and I made some of the coefficients large so that they were hard to solve.
And then the train started to slow down and someone came and stood near the shelf and knocked on the door of the toilet, and it was the policeman and he said, “Christopher . . . ? Christopher . . . ?” and then he opened the door of the toilet and said, “Bloody hell,” and he was really close so that I could see his walkie-talkie and his truncheon on his belt and I could smell his aftershave, but he didn't see me and I didn't say anything because I didn't want him to take me to Father.
And then he went away again, running.
And then the train stopped and I wondered if it was London, but I didn't move because I didn't want the policeman to find me.
And then a lady with a jumper that had bees and flowers made of wool on it came and took the rucksack off the shelf over my head and she said, “You scared the living daylights out of me.”