I Want to Go Home

by Frances Lockridge

  I’ll go back to the lounge and get a cocktail, she thought, and was suddenly very pleased with the idea. She would go back and have a cocktail, or perhaps a long drink, and see the other people on the train who would be gathering, now, in the lounge cars for drinks.

  There were two lounge cars, the porter told her—one near the head of the train, the other toward the rear, next to the diner. She decided to go back to the rear lounge, and went through several cars, all with rooms on her right. The doors of some of the rooms were open—four men were playing cards in one; in another a woman was holding a young baby.

  Going between her own car and the one behind it, Jane was unexpectedly a little frightened again, and she stepped very quickly over the place where, under a mat, the cars joined. Then she laughed at herself, and was not disturbed the next time she stepped from the comparative quiet of the car into the noisier area of the two vestibules.

  The lounge car was much more comfortable than the lounge car had been the last time she rode on a good train and, although it was comfortably filled, she found a seat at once. She sat for a time merely looking at the other people and wondering about them. There was one man she decided was a writer, escaping from Hollywood. He had a somewhat furtive air, she thought, as if he expected at any moment to be tapped on the shoulder and ordered off the train and back to California. He seemed particularly uneasy when, a few minutes after she had sat down, the train stopped at La Junta. But nobody bothered him, he was still in his seat when, ten minutes later, the train started. Jane thought he looked pleased and relieved, but she realized she was merely making up a story for herself. Possibly, she thought, she was making up a good many stories.

  She ordered a cocktail after the train had started again, and sat sipping it. Several men in the car looked at her, with those quick glances of appreciation—with that kind of inactive interest—inevitable when a new and attractive young woman is added to a lounge car. But nobody offered anything more; there was nothing to indicate that any of the men was going, at least immediately, to make a real effort to become acquainted. Which is just as well, she thought; for the moment I’m man-shy. She began to read the magazine she had brought back, now and then taking a small sip of her daiquiri. One pleasant thing about being east again, she thought, would be that she could get The New Yorker while it was still fresh. Although actually it made no difference, one always felt somehow defrauded to know that thousands of other people, merely by chance of geography, had seen the drawings of Chas Addams first.

  “Telegram for Mrs. Phillips,” a voice said. “Telegram for Mrs. Phillips, please. Telegram—”

  She put down her magazine and looked toward the voice. The porter of her car was looking for her; he had a yellow envelope in his hand. His face brightened when he saw her and he came down the car, swaying with the train, holding the yellow envelope out. She took it and thanked him and heard him say, “Yes mam.”

  “Funny things happening here too,” the telegram read. “Flying Kansas City meet you station platform there tonight.” The telegram was signed, “Ray.”

  Her first thought was that he might have signed it “Love, Ray,” and she felt an odd, unexpectedly deep, disappointment that he had not. The word “love” didn’t mean much on telegrams; everybody signed everything with “love.” It was a worn word, used so. But it was better than no word at all. It was better than this abrupt, “Ray.” Then, rather surprised at herself, she smiled; she almost laughed. Of all the absurd things to think of first! “Funny things” were happening in Los Angeles; “funny things” which must somehow, surely, fit in with her “funny things.” And the things there were so important that Ray had decided to fly after her, catch up with her in Kansas City. These two facts were important—at once alarming and, because Ray was coming, reassuring. And she had chosen, first, to be disappointed—almost hurt, really—that he had not signed his message with the word “love”!

  Good heavens, Jane thought. Now what’s happening to me?

  She sat for some time then looking across the car, out the window on the far side, seeing very little of the land which spun backward, away from the train. She speculated on, tried to guess about, what might have happened in Los Angeles after she had left, and she could not find any place at which she could really begin her speculation. Then she thought that the new developments could take one of several forms. Something might have happened to Ray which, somehow, had reference to what had happened to her before she left. Or, some message might have come for her after she had left—some message which would give meaning to what had happened there, and since on the train. Or, and perhaps this was the most likely, Ray might have found out new facts—from the hotel? from the taxicab driver?—which threw a new light on the things which had happened before she left.

  No, she thought, it’s really no good. I can’t guess. I haven’t anything to guess about—not anything tangible. I’ll just have to wait. Only—only it must be something rather serious, because it means Ray has left his work suddenly, with little time to get it squared away, and so a good many people must be inconvenienced. And he wouldn’t do that unless—No, she thought again, it really is no good. No good at all. It’s just making me frightened again. And it’s all so absurd. So improbable. I’m doing such a simple, ordinary thing; such a routine thing. I’m getting on a train and going home. There is nothing strange about it, there can’t be anything strange about it. I’m just like hundreds of people, thousands of people, all over the country—all over the world—who are getting on trains and going somewhere. Nothing happens to them, and nothing will happen to me—not to me because it’s me, nothing specially aimed at me. This train may jump the track (the train was going very fast) and then of course something might happen to me. But it would not be anything aimed at me. It’s ridiculous to think that there is anything aimed at me. It’s—it’s like a daydream; like a dream in which you inherit a million dollars, only this time it’s a day nightmare. (She smiled to herself at the thought and then thought to herself, as a kind of interpolation, that it was probable more people had day nightmares than day fantasies; probably what most people built in their minds was a hovel in a back alley, instead of a castle in Spain. Perhaps also, she added, with more reason.) I’m just scaring myself, she thought, and finished her drink. There had been only a swallow left, which was as well. She realized she would have drunk a full glass as quickly, as absently.

  She rang for the attendant and ordered a second cocktail, which was a little unusual, since she seldom thought about cocktails enough to order more than one. When the attendant brought it, she took her time-table out again. She left her new drink on the little table, where it sloshed dangerously, and, after a little searching, found what she wanted. The Chief was due at Kansas City at three thirty-five in the morning. It stayed there fifteen minutes. It was an unkind hour; it presented problems. If she tried to sit up until the train reached Kansas City, she would almost certainly go to sleep at just the wrong time—around three o’clock, probably—and then be so deeply asleep that nothing, not even Ray, could wake her. It would be better to have an early dinner, and to go to bed early, and to arrange with the porter to wake her just before they got in. She looked at her watch, and saw that it was a few minutes after six. It would certainly be a very early dinner. But people had already begun to go through the car toward the diner; people ate at strange times on the train. No one would suspect anything if she—

  And again she was surprised by her thoughts; so surprised that she put the glass she had begun to raise toward her lips back down on the little table. “Nobody would suspect anything!” What a way for my mind to be running, she thought. Who was she trying to circumvent? What could anyone suspect? What was there to—? Well, as to that, the fact that she was going to meet Ray in Kansas City, on the platform beside the train. I’m letting this thing get away from me, she thought. I’m beginning to feel as if I were being hunted, as if I had to be cautious and afraid. And she remembered how, without fully realizing
it, she had looked around the car when she first came into it, trying to find out whether it was safe to be there, whether the people already there were the hunters.

  Deliberately, slowly, she raised her drink and sipped from it. Deliberately, slowly, she looked at the people across the car. They were all harmless people; none of them was looking at her. If they do, she thought, I’ll—what do people say?—stare them down. Damn, she thought. This isn’t any better than the other; this is worse than the other. This is chins-up, carry-it-off, bloody-but-unbowed. I must look an utter fool! She picked up her magazine again and began to turn pages. She lifted her drink and sipped; she put it down, lifted it again, turned pages again. Unconcerned, at ease, she thought. That’s what I’m playing at now. And then she thought, I’m frightened, really. I’m really frightened. What is happening to me?

  She had to do something. She finished her drink, put down the magazine and stood up. All her motions were hurried, abrupt. She walked toward the rear of the car and, as she walked, as her movement put person after person behind her, she felt her back stiffening and neck cords tightening. It was an effort not to turn around, to confront danger.

  Nothing happened, of course. She had known nothing was going to happen. She turned to her left, around the bar at the end of the lounge, and through the corridor. She came out into the vestibule, opened the door of the car beyond, and the dining car steward smiled at her, beckoning. There were still only a few people in the car; a table for two was vacant and the steward put her at it and gave her a menu. Almost at once a waiter came. Everybody seemed fresh and full of enthusiasm. She looked at the menu and wished she were hungrier; she ordered a club sandwich and coffee and then, suddenly, wished she had ordered one of the dishes on the table d’hôte, because they would be ready and she would get her food sooner, and be able to eat it before somebody came and sat down opposite her.

  But it took surprisingly little time to get the club sandwich and she had almost finished it before the steward drew out the chair on the other side of the table. A middle-aged woman sat down and did not look at Jane. She did not seem to know that Jane was there at all, and almost at once raised the menu in front of her face, studying it. Jane looked at what she could see of the woman and her first thought was, she can’t hurt me. I’m sure she can’t. The woman finished looking at the menu, looked at Jane without seeming to see her, and began to write her order on the pad. She’s old enough to be my mother, Jane thought; perhaps mother would have looked like that if she had lived. Maybe she could help me. Maybe if I said, “Listen, I’m in trouble. Will you help me?” this comfortable woman in her fifties would say, “Of course, dear. Of course I will.”

  Really, I’m getting hysterical, Jane Phillips told herself, finishing her coffee. She looked for her waiter, caught his eye, paid the check. The comfortable woman did not look at Jane when Jane got up; she looked abstractedly out of the window.

  Jane walked back through the lounge car, which was filled, now, and on through the Pullmans ahead to her own. The porter in her car stood up as she passed him, and smiled, and said, meaningless, cordially, “Yes um, yes um.” It was a kind of welcome home. She went on to her room and into it, and locked the door behind her. She lighted a cigarette and sat looking out. They went through a little town, very fast. There were cars waiting at the level crossing for the train to pass; in the one in front a small boy in the front seat seemed to be climbing into the lap of the man sitting at the wheel. The main street of the town ran off at right angles to the track, and for an instant she could look down it. It ran off into the distance, across flat land. Although it was barely beginning to grow dark, one of the stores, in one of the wooden buildings, already had a neon sign lighted. It said “Drugs,” in red. Then the town was gone.

  She sat and finished her cigarette and then, hardly noticing what she did, she went over to the door of the room and made sure she had locked it behind her. Then she went back and looked out the window, trying to think of nothing; then, when that failed, trying to think, with assurance, of getting home, of seeing Susan and the others. She looked at her watch after what seemed a long time, and it was ten minutes after eight. In a few minutes the train began to slow down and after a time it stopped at a good-sized station. “Dodge City,” a sign told her. She had brought her time-table back with her, folded in her purse, and now she looked at it, and again at her watch. They arrived at eight-fifteen, left at nine-twenty. Oh yes, another time change—Central Time now. She set her watch forward as the train started. Then, after another few minutes, she rang for the porter and had her berth made up, standing in the corridor while he worked—standing opposite the open door, conscious of his movements, his reassuring presence. He came out and beamed and said, “All right now, mam,” as if he were pleased by what he had done. She went in, and locked the door behind her and, after taking off her suit jacket and her shoes, lay down on the bed. She did not think, now, that she would really go to sleep; she did not think that she would tell the porter to awaken her just before they got to Kansas City. It would not be necessary. And then, before she could stop herself, she thought; It might be dangerous. It might give something away.

  After she had lain quietly an hour or so, she began to doze, but she wakened whenever the train slowed, and wakened fully when it stopped. It stopped several times, the last time at one-thirty. It won’t be long now, she thought; I wonder what town that was. She dozed again and awoke to find that the train was running more slowly and that, around the edges of the drawn blind, frames of sharp light were appearing and disappearing. She looked at her watch and started up; it was three-thirty and they must be almost in the Kansas City station. She raised the blind and looked out. They were running, slowly, through the outskirts of a city; the tracks had spread out; there were small, sharp sounds as the wheels went over switch-points. The train went slower and slower, creeping in.

  She smoothed her hair quickly, put on her shoes and suit jacket and then, remembering how cool it had been at Ash Fork, threw a light coat over her arm. She tucked her purse under the same arm. She opened the door, then. The corridor was dim, but there was a sound at the far end and when she went down the car to the rear vestibule, the porter was there, preparing to open the door. A man and a woman, both standing as if they were tired, were waiting for the door to open, and for the porter to put out their bags. The train stopped and the porter carried the bags down and put them on the platform. Then he stood at the foot of the car steps and held out a hand to the woman and then to the man. He said, “Thank you suh” as if he were surprised and pleased. Then he looked at Jane, who followed the man.

  “This yere’s Kansacity, miss,” he said. “You ain’t gettin’ off here, miss?”

  “I was awake,” she said, and smiled. “I just thought I’d walk up and down.”

  The porter looked, she thought, doubtful, but he said “yes’m” and then said, “We’re only here fifteen minutes, miss. Don’t want to get left.” She smiled again and shook her head, looking up and down the platform. It was almost deserted; the man and the woman were climbing a flight of stairs nearer the head of the train, with a Red Cap going on ahead of them.

  It was chilly on the platform, and for some reason it seemed underground and damp although, between the car and the edge of the shed roof over the platform, she could see the sky. Water dripped from the standing train, and little wisps of steam came out from under cars, and vanished almost at once. Down the train, about where the diner would be, men were busy about something—taking something from a truck and pushing it into a car. There was a truck which seemed to have ice on it standing beside the truck they were unloading into the car.

  She looked up and down the train anxiously, looking for Ray. There were pillars at intervals down the platform, and other stairways, so that her view was obstructed. That must be, she thought, why she did not see Ray at once.

  Then she saw a man coming, hurrying, down the stairs near the head of the train, and for a moment she thought it was R
ay. Then she realized that this man was not so tall as Ray and turned to look down toward the rear of the car. Already, the train had been standing in the station for five minutes. She heard heels on the concrete platform behind her, but she thought that would be the man she had seen coming down the stairs, and hence not Ray. Only when the footsteps stopped did she turn.

  He was not Ray, or like Ray. He was short, with broad shoulders, and she had never seen him before.

  “Mrs. Phillips?” he said and, almost before she had time to nod, “Good! Come on.”

  “What?” she said. “Why?”

  “Mr. Forrest’s over on the next platform,” he said. “Come on.”

  She started, hesitated.

  “Hurry,” he said. “You haven’t got much time. This isn’t the regular platform—he’s waiting over there. Had me over here just in case. Come on!”

  He took her arm, then, and began to hurry her along.

  “Take a minute,” he said. “Just a minute. Better this way.”

  She hesitated again, but the grip on her arm impelled her.

  “Haven’t got much time,” he said. “Hurry!”

  And the pressure on her arm made her hurry. He hurried her along the platform, and now it was hard to tell whether she was going voluntarily, whether she had choice. They started up the stairs, and he was always one step below her, lifting, hurrying. They passed a Red Cap coming down, with a man behind him, and she thought the man looked at her with curiosity. But then he was gone, on down toward the train; then she and the short, broad man reached the top of the stairs.

  “This way,” he said, propelling her toward her right.

  “Wait,” she said, and tried to stop.

  “Come on,” he said. “I told you we’ve got to hurry. Through here.”

  It was definite, now; it was certain. It was frightening. He would not let her stop. He remained a little behind her, holding her arm firmly, pushing her along. She tried to stop again, and the pressure on her arm was hard, unrelenting. His fingers bruised her arm, his weight wrenched at it.