‘Do you have brothers, Maria?’ she said.
‘I have four.’
‘Four?’
‘I am the oldest. There are seven of us.’
They sat in silence again. Maria kept hold of her wrist, but it didn’t feel intrusive. It felt as if she was imparting something, even though Ayesha had no idea what that might be, and could feel herself fighting. She was fighting the desire to confide more, and fighting the sense of comfort she was deriving from physical contact, whilst fighting her own despicable weakness and need for attention – if that’s what it was. Most of all she was fighting the fact that she would never see her little brother again, which was a truth she had known for just over three years and yet seemed to stab her all the time, as if shards of something had lodged in her heart and cut it when she turned, or took a step – that re-realisation of the truth. For it hadn’t been a dream, or a hoax, or a horrible film… Kristin had cycled into the path of a lorry, and there had been no miracle to prevent him being lost beneath its unforgiving wheels. People sympathised, but after all the sympathy and tears, he still wouldn’t and couldn’t do the one thing she wanted: he couldn’t walk into the kitchen.
‘Where’s your tie?’ she might have said, if it was a school day.
‘Oh. Shit.’
‘Kristin!’
‘I forgot…’
She looked at Maria again, and the ache was almost too much.
‘I get so tired,’ she said quietly. ‘I never knew how tiring it is, just to be sad.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Does it pass?’
‘What?’
‘This. That’s what I want to know. Am I ever going to be just… normal again? Because that’s what I want.’
‘No,’ said Maria.
‘No?’
‘Of course not. How can you be?’
‘Why not, though? You don’t think so, but… Are you a counsellor?’
‘No, I’m a dogsbody,’ said Maria. ‘I work in a hospice. I am very good at cleaning, and my… my husband is a driver, and some construction. But to lose a brother, or anyone that you love… I mean love. How can you be the same? You would not want to be the same.’
‘I want to be the same.’
‘If you were the same, then what you had… What you had with him – it would not have been worth anything.’
She spoke slowly, struggling with the tenses.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I do. What we have with people… with those we love – there is nothing more important. What is more important? Tell me.’
‘I want him back, Maria.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Kristin. And he won’t come back. He’s gone, and I can’t bear it.’
‘Yes, you can.’
‘I can’t. I’m not bearing it. None of us can.’
‘You are, though. You are bearing it, and… we must. You want to stop?’
‘To stop what?’
‘You want to die?’
‘No. Yes. Sometimes I do, but…’
‘You can’t. Not yet.’
Ayesha groaned, and the hand on hers tightened.
She went to speak again, if only to ask the simple question, ‘How can I go on?’ But she found the words wouldn’t come. She breathed in, ready, but her throat had closed and her mouth felt slack. She shook her head, and found she was staring at Maria’s tea, which had hardly been touched. Seconds passed, and the silence stretched – and there were no more words worth saying. The Filipino woman had said things she had needed to hear, and that was enough. The café was busy, and there was a buzz of chatter. There was a platform announcement, halting and semi-audible, and someone was rolling a suitcase across the tiled floor – just everyday, constant noise.
It was so loud. She would never make herself heard over the top of it.
‘I must go,’ she said.
She pulled herself together and stood up. The hand slipped from her wrist, and Maria nodded and smiled.
‘I really hope you have a good holiday.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Maria. ‘And thank you for looking after my things.’
‘I’m sorry I told you to get off the train. You know which one you’re getting now?’
‘I think so. Burnley.’
‘That’s platform two. Don’t get confused by the different Burnleys – you want Burnley Manchester Road, yes?’
‘Yes. Platform two?’
‘Over the bridge.’
She was standing, and their hands came together for the last time. The next moment, Ayesha had the guitar under her arm and her bag over her shoulder. She went through the automatic doors. She went up the ramp to the exit, and paused a moment to retrieve her ticket. A guard glanced at it, and let her through, and suddenly she was amongst the taxis, heading up the slope to a bus stop at the top. The bus she needed was due, and she saw it at once: it was stuck in the heavy rush-hour traffic, indicating left.
She showed the driver her pass. She took a seat at the front, knowing that in thirty-eight minutes – if she stayed on the bus – she would be home. She had to stay on the bus, and get off at the right stop. She had to walk up the street, and press the doorbell. Those were the things she had to do, and if by chance she saw a young boy in a black blazer, she would not look away. She would look at him.
It wouldn’t be Kristin, but she would try to smile.
EAST
18
Maria went over the bridge to platform two.
The train arrived twenty-three minutes late, and she stowed her rucksack in the luggage area. She walked down the aisle to a seat a few places in front of a man who had just stood up, with the remains of a tangerine in his hand. She didn’t look at him – she just noticed the bright colour of the peel – and he didn’t notice her. He was deep in thought, for it had occurred to him that he still hadn’t bought a sandwich. Wherever the train was going, there wasn’t going to be a buffet car, or even a trolley. He decided to get off again, and would have done so had it not been for a woman with three small dogs on three tangled leads. She had luggage, too, and created such an obstacle he turned and walked the other way, to find he was now blocked by someone with a buggy. It seemed easier, in the end, to sit down, and before he knew it the doors had closed and they were rolling backwards.
His last tangerine would have to do, and that would be no bad thing – nothing would be wasted. The juice carton was a different story: it was still more than half full, so twenty-five pounds’ worth of Tomatin malt would soak into the earth and stones, unless he forced it down his throat even as he lay between the rails, or rolled himself across them. It would only need one, in fact, for the wheels would sever whatever he asked them to sever, even if one felt for the poor, poor driver. He’d heard that some poor souls saw the ghost of whoever they’d run down: they saw him or her, standing by the tracks. The worst thing, apparently, was the sheer helplessness – the inability to swerve and the knowledge that the brake couldn’t help… You had to blast your horn hoping he or she would change his or her mind and step back out of the way. Some drivers never recovered, and some thought they had, only to be plunged into mental breakdown years later.
He could write a note of apology, and pin it to his jersey – or fold it into his shoe, perhaps, with the debit card.
They soon came to the first station, and stopped.
It was Lostock Hall, and some people got off as other people got on – it looked like the same number, in fact – a fair exchange. The authorities had placed planters along the platform, with flowers and shrubs. The paintwork was new, and he was reminded of an elderly man he’d read about who intended to photograph every single station in Britain. His retirement was going to be full of meticulously planned journeys up and down the British Isles – Michael had read about it in some newspaper, and he wondered if the man would see his mission through to the bitter end, or realise halfway that he had embarked upon something so absurd and unnecessary that it brought tears t
o the eyes. Retired people claimed to be busy, and he suspected that most had become skilful in misleading themselves.
‘That phone never stops!’ they cried. ‘Oh, my God, and now it’s the doorbell!’
Anyone could fill the day photographing stations. You could glue matchsticks into long bridges and towering cathedrals, but all that meant was your life was shrinking. His had shrunk into something so small he could hardly see it himself, and whoever penned his eulogy would be hard pressed to write more than two or three sentences. Not that he wanted a eulogy, and not that he wanted to think about it now.
Would the job fall to poor Monica? Perhaps the brother he never saw would feel obliged to come all the way up from Cornwall, if that’s where he still was? Perhaps he would take Monica for tea, and they would sort the funeral out together.
‘No eulogy. Who’s going to be there?’
‘We should say something.’
‘What?’
‘People liked him. In the council, I’m sure they did.’
‘I thought they kicked him out years ago. What about the DIY store? That was his last pay packet – did he have any friends there?’
‘No.’
The train was rolling backwards again.
He had sold his first house to Monica’s son, who was in his early thirties, and a good businessman – Trevor was his name, and he hadn’t thought about him for such a long time. Trevor had tried to help him, agreeing to buy Michael’s home quickly after he’d got behind on the mortgage payments.
He stared at his knees and remembered how he’d moved back to his mother’s, and looked after her until it became impossible. She’d gone into care and the only flat he could afford was on a troubled estate where the council housed those in desperate need. The fences were broken. There was a barking dog, and litter – the litter seemed to have accumulated over years, and it blew listlessly round and round in circles.
Nobody would ever pick it up, so Michael did for a little while. His street was dominated by rows of bins, and the people he saw wore clothes that were fading before his eyes. It was as if his eyesight was getting dim, or failing to register colour. Vivienne, who lived opposite and had the troublesome blind – she was so pale she looked bloodless.
Was it the food, or the lack of exercise, or simply the lack of sun? Was it deeper than that? Was it lack of hope? He was surrounded by the unemployed, unemployable working class that didn’t work, and he fitted in so neatly. The broken class, and he’d used the last of his money to buy his very own one-bedroomed box right in its weedy heart.
He should have bought bunting, and cheered it up. He should have bought a second-hand guitar, and filled the world with music. Pots of paint, balloons – flowers and seeds… He could have made it work. Instead, he cowered in his sitting room, moving in with Amy when he knew it was wrong. He chewed the last segment of his last tangerine, remembering how wrong it had been. Amy had encouraged him: she had been truly wonderful, and had he ever really thanked her? No – he had hurt her. The Do It Yourself store had been her idea, because she’d read an article in the local paper saying it was recruiting. She’d given him the confidence to apply, insisting he needed a new start. She’d poured her energy into him, and through her he’d managed to get onto the store’s training programme: he would be a sales assistant. No buses went out to the retail park, unfortunately, but that didn’t matter because years ago her brother had left a bike in her shed.
‘He’s forgotten about it, Michael. You can fix it up, and cycle.’
She solved the problem, and he repaired the punctures.
He bought new brake blocks, and found the tools he’d used as a boy: the little round spanner, and three-in-one oil. The ride out was hard, and there was no way of avoiding a major dual carriageway. In the wind and rain it was horrendous, but he got there and completed the course. They gave him tough black shoes with safety soles, and green overalls. They gave him five green T-shirts, and after the council job where he’d always worn a collar and tie he felt like someone in a theme park – ‘the elves’, they were called.
He really had started again.
The train went over some points, clattering – and nothing mattered, really. Everything was funny, in the end. Someone came by on their way to the toilet, helping a toddler for whom the journey was a wondrous adventure. The child paused in front of Michael and stared at him, seeing what? Some wide-eyed monster, perhaps, like the dead man going endlessly round the Circle line. The child didn’t scream, though – she smiled. Her mother urged her onwards, and Michael smiled back and waved his fingers: the child did everything so, so slowly, and savoured everything she saw. She wanted to linger, and perhaps her mother was savouring everything too – the world was new again for her? The Asian woman’s rucksack caught the child’s attention, and she needed to touch its straps and play with the zip.
‘Come on,’ said the mother gently. ‘That’s not yours.’
Michael swallowed his fruit, and fast-forwarded to the realisation that he had become the butt of the younger workers’ jokes. Fast-forward to the interview, then, with a team leader accusing him of sexist behaviour because he had made a silly joke of his own and an angry, hassled co-worker had reported him. Rewind to school, where a weak silly joke could earn the derision of the friends you craved, and forward back to the present to discover the same state of affairs existed in a multi-billion-pound DIY empire: Michael, in his green elf-trousers, had misjudged it again.
‘Did you call her a silly girl?’
This was said by his team leader – a man in his early twenties called Tim.
‘I probably did. Yes.’
He poured himself a small glass of whisky, and smiled again.
‘Her contention,’ said Tim, ‘is that you disrespected her because of her gender. You demeaned her, Mike – and I have to agree.’
‘She was being silly, Tim. The joke wasn’t offensive.’
‘“How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb? One to change the bulb—”’
‘All right, it’s a bad joke—’
‘“And the other one to say, ‘It’s not funny.’” That’s going to offend some people, Mike.’
Michael smiled, wishing Tim would use his proper name.
‘We were telling those kind of jokes,’ he said.
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have been. And if you have a problem with Sunita, you should come to me.’
‘I don’t have a problem with anyone.’
‘We have procedures to deal with tensions and… disagreements.’
One particular Tuesday he had got embroiled in an argument about Rawlplugs. It was his third month, and things had been going reasonably well, though he was spending less time at Amy’s place. His benefit had ended, replaced by his earnings from the store. A minor glitch had delayed the first payment but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t starving: he knew the bank transfer was imminent. Of course, the weather had got worse, and it was colder than ever cycling to work, but he told himself it was all part of a fitness regime and he was cutting down on the wine, or trying to. The girl he’d called silly was away, learning how to mix paint, and her friends were studiously ignoring him: all he wanted was to do his job.
Was that a fiction in itself? Michael looked at the houses, and then at a swathe of allotments so carefully tended they made him want his own. The train was slowing down, and the station seemed for a moment to slide towards them like stage scenery, and there were the actors in their places. A couple sat on a bench, as if they weren’t on a platform at all – they could have been relaxing on a pier, gazing out to sea. Someone was hurrying down the steps of a footbridge and a neatly dressed woman stood ready to board, tapping something into her phone.
Did anyone simply want to do their job? That was absurd: everyone seeks validation, and wants to be useful. He wanted to be liked, so how had he got into an argument about Rawlplugs? In fact, he hadn’t argued, but it hadn’t mattered – it had felt like a fight.
P
erhaps everyone is on a high wire, he thought as he sipped his drink. Everyone is inching along step by step, trying not to look down.
‘Mate,’ said the man. ‘Where’s Instafix?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Michael. ‘I don’t recognise the name. What is it exactly?’
‘Oh, fuck,’ said the man quietly.
He looked at Michael as if he were an idiot.
‘Instafix,’ he said again. ‘Like plasiplugs, but better.’
‘Are they…?’
Michael faltered.
‘What are they for, exactly?’
‘Cavity walls,’ said the man, as if everyone should know. ‘Plasterboard?’
He had a wire basket in his hand, and his wife – or lover – or sister – or transgender brother – was carrying something from the garden centre. It was an orchid, and she, they or he held it in both hands so the wand of the stem swayed in front of their face, which looked as if it had been crying.
‘I think we’ve got our own brand,’ said Michael. ‘For cavity walls, I mean.’
‘You don’t do Instafix?’
‘I don’t recognise the name, but—’
‘I thought everyone did it.’
‘Let’s have a look. If we do, it’ll be with the fixings.’
The man was younger than Michael, and his shoulders were huge. The sleeves of his sweatshirt were rolled back to reveal massive, meaty forearms wrapped in bright tattoos. He walked awkwardly because his gigantic thighs forced his legs apart. Michael led him past nails and screws, and they came to a rack holding a variety of brightly coloured packets.
‘This is where I was,’ said the man. ‘I’ve looked here already.’
‘I know we’ve got something for plasterboard,’ said Michael. ‘What about these?’
‘No good.’
‘No?’
Michael had taken a little box from the rack, and looked at the diagram that showed how the contents worked. He put on his reading glasses, which were in the breast pocket of his overalls.
Train Man Page 19