Train Man

by Andrew Mulligan

  The words had lodged themselves in his insides, like shrapnel. They continued to scrape and stab, even when he was still.

  ‘You’ve got to let someone love you,’ she’d said, when the relationship began.

  And what was the other cliché, so horrible it had made him sweat? ‘You’ve got to start liking yourself. You’ve got to learn to like yourself. Stop giving yourself a hard time, stop “beating yourself up”!’ That kind of wisdom usually bloomed out of her mouth after a large glass of wine, and he would nod sagely and say something appropriate back.

  ‘You can talk!’ That was one of his pearls. ‘You can talk, love.’

  Love.

  ‘We have to be kinder to ourselves, and each other.’

  ‘We have to learn to forgive ourselves. To start again, because – you know what?’

  ‘Tomorrow—’

  ‘Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. We have to laugh at ourselves a bit more, and take things as they come. Go on – laugh at yourself.’

  Michael looked out of the window, and smiled. He smiled and laughed, laughing at himself. He was a clown, gulping neat malt whisky.

  ‘But we did like each other, a little bit,’ he said – and realised that once again, he’d spoken aloud.

  ‘That wasn’t enough,’ he said softly, to the glass. ‘Liking each other, I mean. It wasn’t enough to justify. It wasn’t going to get either of us through – was it?’

  ‘You have to work at it,’ Amy said.

  He’d seen himself sitting at a lathe for a moment, working at the relationship with some kind of specialist tool. Or watering the little flowerpot and feeding the soil in which it grew, and putting it in the sun until finally there were the buds, and there were the flowers of love – blooming small but vivid, because he’d worked at it.

  Their relationship was always about the future.

  It seemed always to be based on making preparations: they were always getting ready for the wondrous things that lay ahead. Michael would move out of his flat, and move in with Amy properly and permanently. She would carry on part-time work at John Lewis whilst he would set his mind to getting another job – there were so many things he could do, because he was a ‘people person’, and it was time he put his experience at the council properly behind him and tried again. Shy, she said – desperately shy – but interested in others. There were retail outlets. There was driving, perhaps? He had a licence.

  A taxi? Or deliveries?

  He could work in a school, supporting disaffected children one-to-one.

  Meanwhile, they had the kitchen to think about – and yes, he stood on the train still thinking about the infernal kitchen. For he had measured the cupboard doors, and got two different quotes for door replacement. It made no sense to ‘rip the kitchen out’ – which was the violent phrase everyone seemed to use. It made sense to keep the carcasses, because the changes were very straightforward – a tall oven-housing unit where the washing machine currently was, and a couple of extra shelves which could be installed once the fridge had been moved into the little pantry. The kitchen would be transformed.

  Gloss white, cream or a colour?

  ‘Gloss white.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Easier to clean. You see the marks better – not that you’ll be cleaning them!’

  ‘And the same handles—?’

  ‘I think we need new handles.’

  ‘Look at this. They’ll actually pre-drill holes for the handles – that’s worth the extra, I think. But you have to say what handles you’re having.’

  ‘Nothing too ornate. Nothing pretentious.’

  ‘Look at these. These are Shaker style.’

  ‘They’re nice.’

  As for worktops, that’s where Amy wanted to spend the money they’d saved elsewhere. They couldn’t justify granite, but real wood was surprisingly affordable, and a carpenter could install them in a day. Michael had begun to dread the completion of the kitchen, because the planning used up so many hours, and the discussions were always so wonderfully focused. There would be the most awful vacuum, unless they moved on to the bathroom.

  The worktops had kept them going for days.

  They had argued over whether they should order one litre of Danish oil to seal them, or two and a half. They had watched a video together on how to cut the hole for a sink, thinking they might do without the carpenter, and thus save two hundred pounds. Michael was worried that his jigsaw wasn’t up to it, though.

  ‘I could buy new blades, obviously. Or hire a better one.’

  ‘How much is that? To hire one.’

  ‘Fifty, probably. Once you’ve paid the VAT.’

  ‘Would they deliver it? I can’t pick it up—’

  ‘I’m sure they would, but it’ll be extra.’

  ‘Still cheaper than the carpenter.’

  Michael had nodded, as he nodded now.

  ‘It’s nesting,’ said Amy, when he’d pointed out how much time they spent looking at catalogues. ‘It’s the most basic human instinct. We’re building a nest.’

  He thought, But we have no young. In any case, we have a nest already – birds don’t do what we are doing. We are smothering our fear, Amy. We are still terrified of each other.

  He wanted to ask her if they weren’t simply swallowing that horrible propaganda, which asked you to believe that a certain type of kitchen brought happiness. That’s what advertising did, after all – you didn’t need to be clever to see that every advertisement was designed to make you feel inadequate. He had suggested this, and her answer was: ‘I want a nice kitchen. We enjoy cooking.’

  They did enjoy cooking.

  Cooking was an excuse to open a bottle of wine, and the wine woke up the parts of the brain that said, ‘We are not frightened of anything. When we are drunk, we can even touch one another.’

  He winced, for in the letter she had told him he was a worm. She said that she regretted the day she’d spoken to him, which she had only done because she felt so sorry for him. She hoped he ended up lonely, in a hospice. He had hurt her so badly – a hurt he still couldn’t grasp. It wasn’t surprising she wanted to hurt him now. It was just like school, when he’d tripped a boy down the stairs for saying something cruel: he had wanted to break bones. Hurting, being hurt: Chinese burns, punches. The needling torment as someone was excluded from whatever group you’d managed to join – that was a particularly vile way of hurting. He remembered the boy Sandham, and how they’d all ganged up on him for absolutely no reason – James as well. They had flung textbooks at his head! The heavy ones they used for O-level physics, and nobody spoke up to stop them. Poor old Sandham had ignored the first, even though it had slammed into the back of his neck. The second had hit his shoulder, and whoever had thrown it had shouted, ‘One hundred and eighty!’ as if he’d scored a bull’s-eye. The third was a direct strike on the poor boy’s skull, and the fourth had been skimmed so viciously it had hit him in the jaw. ‘One hundred and eighty!’ they’d cried, and Sandham had run out of the room, holding his face just like Michael was holding his, pressed against the carriage door. They could have killed the boy, or knocked his teeth out. And afterwards – the most amazing thing – Sandham had simply forgotten all about it.

  They hadn’t got into trouble, he and his friends.

  Psychotic violence had not landed them in trouble, for poor Sandham must have been a good sport, and he hadn’t told the teacher – he’d moved on. Perhaps he had bottled up the hurt for ever, and was now a tormented wreck, howling in the night. Perhaps he was unable to be near heavy textbooks? Perhaps not, too – perhaps he’d simply laughed at himself, and put it all behind him?

  ‘I suppose I had it coming, eh!’ chortled Sandham. ‘Cor, it didn’t half hurt – but boys will be boys, won’t they, Michael? You take it on the chin, don’t you? – you take it in your mouth, sometimes. Let it go!’

  The train was pulling into a station, and Michael decided to get off.

 
; There would be another train, and he would still make a connection of some kind – he would get to Crewe for the 15.41, just one hour later. He would be on time for that one, and if he arrived later he’d avoid having half an hour to spare. Yes, he had to cross to platform seven, but there was a subway and a bridge. He had once used the lifts, in fact, but he couldn’t recall where they were. Not that crossing the station posed any kind of problem: the real problem was the realisation that he was so obstinately, harrowingly sober.

  He put the carton and glass away, and when the doors opened he was the first one out, stumbling onto the platform. His knees were shaking, but there was a bench in the perfect spot. He sat, with his bag on his lap, breathing in as slowly as he could. He stared at his shoes, and found that like an idiot he was crying again. The clouds had amassed in his head, it seemed: now, rain was falling.

  He smiled, because someone was coming towards him, and the last thing he wanted was to embarrass that person. He really did have just a few hours left – and it would be nice to get through them without causing pain.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Why are you crying?’

  He waited as the woman walked by.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. I’m a Samaritan and I couldn’t help but notice the fact that you have tears in your eyes, and… I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I can’t walk by someone who appears to be in distress. Lay down your burden.’

  The passengers were gone, and the tears stopped as suddenly as they started: the sun came out again.

  He gathered himself up, and walked to the waiting room.

  It was a clean, efficient station, and he’d never explored it before: Bromsgrove, home of Terry and his lovely, loyal, nervous wife. Had Terry got down here, too? Michael hadn’t seen him. But he’d been on his way to Bristol, so he said – even though they were heading north, so was that possible? No. Had he not started his journey from home? Had he moved south, or was he staying with friends? Terry had definitely lived in Bromsgrove once, so perhaps he was lying about his journey to the marina? Perhaps it was all fiction, and Terry was off to blow his brains out in the Midlands, or to pick up a Birmingham prostitute – he’d been covering his tracks, the dog, and Michael had swallowed every word.

  He should have fixed Terry with a cheery grin.

  ‘You’re a sly one,’ he should have said. ‘Where are you off to, really?’

  ‘That would be telling!’

  Terry would have grinned back and winked.

  ‘I don’t tell the truth, Michael,’ he would have whispered. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Why should anyone?’

  He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

  The platforms were blurred now, under a slab of grey-white sky that went from horizon to horizon: typically dull September, life-sapping weather. The waiting area was un-vandalised, and when he walked further, to the ticket office, he noticed exhibition boards. There were photographs of soldiers, and maps with arrows.

  Why soldiers, he wondered? He would need his reading glasses now.

  He started to read, and as he read a boy called Morris was in need of his help – but they’d got down at different stations, so help could not be offered. The track connected them, of course, but as Michael read the word Flanders, and tried to remember where it was, Morris sat hungry and sad waiting for a call that just wouldn’t come. He knew in his heart that things were going to end badly.

  He had so little money, and he was a long way from home.

  IN FROM THE WEST

  8

  He had no credit on his phone, or he would have called Keenan.

  He’d set off in good faith, and had spent his own money on the ticket. He’d got to the café as instructed: nobody had turned up so far, and twelve-thirty was the time he’d been told. Now he sat alone with sixty-seven pence in his pocket, which wouldn’t buy him a bottle of water let alone a hot drink. Breakfast – hours ago – had been a sausage roll.

  This was Morris.

  He was staying with his sister at Newport, and had crept downstairs so as not to wake up the baby that had woken him twice. No milk, so he drank half a cup of black tea. One sausage roll, from a pack of three: he’d bought them the day before, and there was one left because Ben, his sister’s boyfriend, had stolen two. No juice, and no point trying to eat cereal without milk. Other than that, it was baby food and a rancid yoghurt. The sausage roll had filled him, and the deal was always the same: he’d be given money, food and drink. Now he didn’t know what to do.

  Boots, jeans and a sweatshirt: he sat back with his arms wrapped round himself, keeping his eyes on the window and the door, worried already that he’d missed whoever it was. The woman behind the counter was getting ready to move him on, and he thought about leaving so as to make life easy. Then he looked at all the empty tables and chairs, and decided not to: he could sit where he wanted to sit, surely, since he wasn’t being a nuisance.

  He wasn’t smoking.

  He wasn’t stinking. He wasn’t in anybody’s way, but the woman kept glancing at him. A man came in, with a little boy.

  The boy was four at the most, and wanted to explore. The man, however, wanted to keep him safe – so they were fighting, and the man was going to win. The little boy did the only thing he could do, which was cry, and the man relented: he ordered his coffee and let the boy run free. Morris watched the child pad about, bumping into a chair. He looked all around the café, and gazed at Morris – and Morris knew what was going to happen next because it seemed to happen all the time. Some people attracted dogs: he attracted little kids. They always wanted an up-close look, and sure enough the little boy was making his way over, as if he were family.

  His dad didn’t mind, so Morris said, ‘All right?’ because the boy was standing quite close now, still gazing at him. They simply stared at each other, until the child was distracted and wandered off again. Meanwhile, the door had opened a second time, and a very fat woman appeared, out of breath simply from carrying her own load. The father sat down while she went slowly to the counter, pulling a suitcase. He got the kid to the table, and tore a bun or teacake in half. Meanwhile the woman ordered a latte and a pastry.

  His phone rang at last.

  ‘Where the fuck are you?’

  ‘I’m where I’m supposed to be,’ said Morris.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘I’m in the café.’

  ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘An hour.’

  ‘Tony was in just after half past. He parked outside, and went looking for you.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Cheltenham.’

  ‘That’s where I am. I’m at the station.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘You said meet at the station,’ said Morris.

  ‘Shit. Why the fuck didn’t you call me?’

  ‘I’ve got no credit.’

  Keenan swore again.

  ‘Okay, I’ll call you back. Stay where you are.’

  Morris watched the little boy drop most of his bun.

  He would have to go outside soon, because he needed to walk – and he wanted chocolate. There was nothing he could buy here, because the prices were so high: he couldn’t even afford tea. Twenty minutes passed, and his phone didn’t ring. The woman ignored him, and the man with the boy left.

  If he went home, he’d lost money. If Tony didn’t come back for him, then he’d still lost money. It had happened before, these stupid mix-ups – and the annoying thing this time was that he hadn’t put a coat on, and the sweatshirt he was wearing just wasn’t warm enough. He pulled the hood up, and leaned forward so his head was on the table – that was his mistake, of course. The woman behind the counter now had no option, and she was there almost at once, standing over him.

  ‘Come on, angel,’ she said. ‘This isn’t a waiting room.’

  ‘Can I have a sandwich?’

  ‘Course you can. Can you pay for it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On your way, th
en.’

  9

  For some reason Bromsgrove was remembering its war dead.

  There was a photograph of the town’s war memorial, so Michael skimmed the first section of text, and learned that the local regiment had fought in Flanders and then the Somme. The Allies were going to throw everything they had at the German defences, and – this was 1916 – the war would be won. The stalemate could not go on any longer, and the tactics were the only tactics anyone could think of. They had always worked in the past.

  Michael had to put his face quite close to the display, because the writing was small. He knew that the soldiers would be annihilated – that almost went without saying. Young men from Bromsgrove had packed up their troubles and chugged down from this very spot, on steam trains. They had gone south, and then east to the sea, thence to set sail and be ‘entrained’ to what looked like villages all around the Somme – which Michael discovered from the map was a river.

  He had assumed it was a town in France, or a region. In fact, it was one of several rivers in the area. There were so many words on the information boards, and so many pictures – it would take all afternoon to read everything. In one particular photograph, a man with a moustache was smiling at him. A boy sat close by, and it could have been himself, aged fourteen or fifteen. Michael put himself into the uniform, and imagined the excitement.