AT EASTLEIGH

Swamped in half darkness, beastly Eastleigh, the commuter station.  Belonging to a town people must live in to get to a place they must work in.  The train stopped there, let people on and never moved again.

The passengers fidgeted and asked themselves questions.  Why was the train not pulling out?  The doors had bleeped their alarms and closed, but why hadn’t the guard blown his whistle?  What was the delay?  They thought about turning up late at work and having to stay on, missing the usual train home and getting the crowded next one.  They cursed inwardly.

I watched from the corner of the carriage, I’d had my suspicions when I’d seen the grey gravel piles and the rusty abandoned trains in the weird near light.  This was where I’d prepared myself for long ago, the place nobody wanted to be in.

An executive cracked first, he paced the carriage, scowling at his mobile phone, muttering that there was no signal.  No network meant no e-mailing the office, no texting his mistress, no spying on the kids on Facebook.  He wasn’t in control.  “What the hell’s going on?” he growled, “even when you’re going to the City, they can’t get it right!  They should give this train priority.  This is a London train.”

“God,” a woman stated, running her perfectly manicured hand through sleek hair, “I shouldn’t have left my car at work, my first house viewing is at nine.  Does anyone have a signal?”
A cyclist pulled a phone out of the pocket of his high-vis vest and shook his head; “Eastleigh’s a black hole.”
They were all agitated now.  How long had it been?  There had been no announcements.  People wanted their caffiene fix and you weren’t supposed to use the toilets when the train was at a stand-still ...

Eventually volunteers went to find the conductor.  The cyclist in one direction, the estate agent in the other, she glanced at me as she went, as if expecting me to go with her.  I kept my nose in my book, wondering how many times I would read it.

“There’s no-one.”  The cyclist and estate agent came back with confused passengers from other carriages.  They lined up and looked out of the windows; as they did, the station lights flickered.  There was no-one on the platform.
The passengers asked each other questions.
“No officials on the train?”
“No signal?”
“No-one on the platform?”
“What the hell ... ?”
“How long have we been here?”
“An hour?”
“How long do we wait?”

Pacing, talking, fidgeting, nervous and suddenly; “Fuck this, I’m getting off!”  The stress was evident on the executive’s face.  If he wasn’t in London to close the deal there would be no bonus.  He stalked to the door, the button wasn’t lit, but he pressed it anyway, as if expecting it to miraculously work, because he was so important.  I almost laughed.  He bashed the door with his fist, swearing and was asked to tone it down, he hotly refused.  Someone had to act; we were trapped with an angry man.  The cyclist and two labourers approached the door and the time dragged by as they tried different strategies to get it open.  Finally, the executive tore the hatchet that smashed glass in emergencies from the wall.  The passengers asked themselves questions.  Could he do this un-British thing?  A few tried to talk him out of it, it would be typical for an official to suddenly appear just as the glass broke and then he’d be in trouble.  They wanted to wait, but he slammed the hatchet against the door window with all his strength.  It bounced off harmlessly.  We all watched as he tried again and again, swearing, cursing, yelling, until, worn out, he collapsed red faced in a seat.

There was a long silence.  We looked out at the commuter station, that dreary between place; the grey gravel, the rusty trains that once had purpose.  The passengers fidgeted, faces sick with reflection.  They asked themselves questions, this time in silence - what have I done?  Can I take it back?

We can never take anything back.  I looked beyond the disused rails and the office buildings, the sun was coming up and in the distance I could see green trees wreathed in silver mist.  Beautiful, distant and forever unreachable.

TRAINS IN WINTER

When I was a kid I used to live near a railway.  For some reason, I used to feel a sense of fate whenever I heard the trains passing on a still winter’s night.

I used to lie there and wonder who the people on these late night trains were.  In my mind’s eye, I could see the sallow skinned teenagers with their speakers, their street music, the cider cans in the fingers of the boys and the hoop earrings on the hard faced girls.  Their noise would disturb the exhausted professional who having worked late and, not ready to face home, had stopped for a gin and tonic and another and another, until the last train was called.  I also imagined a high class crowd on their way back from a night out, the women in cocktail dresses, the men in designer jeans and shirts.  They’d be buzzing from their night out, telling jokes, maybe planning to go somewhere for a nightcap.  In contrast would be the nurse going to his nightshift.  As he listened to tunes with closed eyes, he’d be worrying about who was going to come into A&E and desperately hoping that tonight at least, no-one would insult him or spit on him.

Perhaps I saw in my reverie, the woman sitting on a window seat, staring out at the blackness with an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile.  Every now and then she checks her reflection in a little mirror.  She sucks on a mint.  Her eyes are deep with racing thoughts, her red tipped fingers are fidgeting, her feet encased in long boots.  She is protected from the cold by a long coat.  I can see her now, getting up eagerly as soon as the station is called.  She passes the boisterous teenagers, the tired professional, the revellers and the anxious nurse, some of them look up, others do not notice.  No-one watches as she alights onto the platform.  There’s a man waiting for her at the other side of the barriers, leaning against the wall smiling broadly.  He takes his hands from his pockets and holds out his arms as she runs to him.

SUNDAY EVENING

Stranded in the dark, the day has used us up and spat us out here on the platform.  We wait and no-one talks.  There’s the occasional cough which causes glances of annoyance, how dare you break the silence, we are mourning the weekend’s passing.  My heels punctuate the quiet as I pace restlessly.

‘Please stand well back from the platform edge, the train approaching Platform 2 is not scheduled to stop here ...’

Just a brief, crazy thought.  An unanswered impulse which passes with the fast train.  I don’t really have it in me to do that, I just don’t want to go home, is all.  I’m always thinking of ways of getting out of stuff.

Waiting, ten minutes to go, pacing again, the air is mild for winter.  Huh.  Look at our faces.  The day is through with us all and we’ve got nothing more to give.  Bodies are worn out, minds wrung out, we’re only half alive.

Five more minutes, three minutes, headlights approaching, two white pinpoints piercing the night and they call it.  The pause is over, our reflections are finished, we step up to the yellow line and get on the train.  Thought, impulse, desire all put to bed and left behind at the station.  Duty calls.  Life begins again.  We look to Monday.