Here's my orphan story. It's quite long, and not much happens. Such is life.
The Smoothing Iron
Once upon a time,
there was a man who went to work every day on a train. He saw the same people
and looked out of the same windows. If he could, he sat on the same side in the
same seat. He didn’t get agitated if he didn’t sit there but he would have rather
been sitting facing the direction he’d been so he could see everything he’d
left behind him. He didn’t think that this had any kind of further significance
aside from the fact that when he sat in the direction of travel sometimes the trees
made him feel sick because they jumped his eyeballs around a little. But it wasn’t
too bad. He had been going to work on the same train at the same time for
several years. If he’d counted the times he’d travelled he thought he would
probably be upset in some indefinable way so he didn’t bother with that sort of
thing.
When the train
pulled up at his station he’d get off and buy a coffee if the morning was a bit
cold. He liked to warm his hands round the paper cup as much as anything else,
and by the time he’d walked the seven minute journey to his office he’d have usually
got bored of the drink and thrown it in the bin. He worked in a windowed cubicle
counting lots of different numbers but the game was always the same: to make
the ones at the bottom match each other. He rather enjoyed the challenge of it
and didn’t understand when people said that it was dull, difficult or somehow
boring. It was just his job and he didn’t mind doing it. It was just nice, he thought,
when it was done because at the start sometimes there were so many numbers that
you didn’t think they were ever going to balance. But in that same moment he knew
that there would come a day when it all would work out and he trusted himself
to work through methodically and accurately until it was finished.
At half twelve he
liked to eat his own sandwiches, sometimes by his desk, but mostly he hoped it wasn’t
raining because he liked to get out of his office and walk, alone, down the
street, munching on cheese and onion and not really thinking about anything in
particular. It wasn’t of any consequence to do this, he knew, but it seemed to
break up the day and he often looked forward to feeling at least a bit of wind
on his cheeks occasionally. It stopped him feeling sleepy in the afternoons. In
the past, if he’d stared at the numbers all day sometimes it made his eyes swim
a little and it meant he’d make a mistake which wouldn’t do at all.
Sometimes at about
half past three some of the guys from downstairs would come up and walk past
his window on their way to the toilet or just to meet each other and talk about
anything except for work. Sometimes they waved at him and he either waved back
or ignored them depending on how much he really needed to concentrate on the
sum he was calculating at that precise time. From time to time the exact visages
would change, as would the length of the collars or the flare of the trousers
or the design of the fringes, but the type of face would invariably be the
same: early twenties, not long out of university, he supposed, with a twinkle
around the eyes and a smile never far from breast-fresh lips. After a while
passing his window he could see the smiles fade a little, the twinkle gone and
replaced by a curious minim of what he took to be a kind of sly desperation. The
faces would be fatter and a bit greyer, and the clothes would hang with a
subtly distinct but distinctly sadder aspect. At that stage the waving would
invariably also stop, at which point the man would know that the faces would
soon change and reboot to younger models with bluer eyes and the bodies
attached would have ever-so-slightly tighter buttocks. It’s just how it was: in
here time was unique and he quite welcomed it, probably for many of the same
reasons that would provoke the faces to change every now and again. The
outcome, of course, was different. Not everybody was born to whistle.
By five o’clock
the offices around and about would start to wake from their post-prandial
slumber as the buzz of finishing work came around in waves. The man would
usually finish his sums before he went; it was easier to do that than to try
and retrace some often-complicated steps the next day. But if he finished his
sums early he would spend the rest of the day double-checking them because it
might well mean that he’d missed something important and he was as sure as
sugar that he knew how long these things usually took. But he would have always
got the sums right and secretly he liked to go back over the worksheets because
it pleased him to see the journey had been a good one. It was good to finish
and it was good to start anew. He didn’t get bored with it.
When it was time
to go home again he’d put on his coat and try and wander quietly toward the
train waiting in the station for him. Although he was surrounded by people it
always seemed that it was more like a taxi back; he knew which carriages to go
for to try and get a seat, and he knew where everyone would get off. It was
nice to get home, with a cup of tea and some television perhaps, and Michael Stripe
would occasionally deign to make his appearance if he was hungry. The man knew
that the cat was only really going through the motions in order to get fed but
he didn’t mind that either because as long as the two understood each other
then nothing could really go awry. It was an easy relationship with distinct
rules attached and – occasional small bird and turd-slipper aside – nobody
really got hurt in the ever-repeating process. Sometimes the man thought about
going out to the cinema, and occasionally did so, but mostly he was content
with a cup of hot chocolate, or perhaps a glass of red wine, his armchair and updating
his blog. Whether anybody ever read it was irrelevant. He knew it was there.
Time passed
without much trouble and though the seasons changed the scenery outside the
window the man took little notice. If it rained, he reasoned, he would use a
brolly and that would be fine. If it was fine, though, he wouldn’t use
anything. It wasn’t the best joke, he knew, but then there probably wasn’t one
of those anyway. So it would suffice.
One dark and
stormy night after work sometime in the wintertime he saw a girl. He’d seen
many girls in his time and survived the experience; they had every right to be
on the station and go on their way to wherever and that was clearly nobody’s
business but theirs. He seemed, however, to somehow know this girl’s thoughts
from the outset. He suddenly, and with something of a start, came to the
realisation that this was, beyond a doubt, the love of his life. Charming,
intelligent, kind, beautiful, she was none of these things and therefore
everything a man could ever need. At this sudden flash of clarity, he did the
only thing he possibly could do and immediately walked rapidly in quite the
opposite direction, head down a little and hand over his drying mouth stifling
an unnecessary cough. Perhaps he might have become an alcoholic at this exact
point, returning home to weep over the lost opportunity, growing sad stubble
and contemplating the curse of his own clumsy shyness. As it was, however, he
was more than content in spending the evening searching for grammatical and
proofing errors in the curry house flyer that, to his reasonable delight, he
found nestling paperly on the black rubber mat when he opened his front door.
The truth was that
of late he’d rather have liked to have become infected with a kind of exquisite
melancholy of paralysis. Ideas, dreams, he hoped to muse, were best kept
preserved in amber, filed away in boxes and neatly stacked within
dusty-drawered oak trunks, to be taken out only on very rare occasions, and
even then merely gazed upon for the briefest of moments in case they somehow
broke out and were ruined by drearily familiar disappointment. Better, much
better, he wished he could say, to treasure them as pure possibilities without
any chance of acting upon them, rather than rashly allow them freedom and
therefore risk destroying them – or, worse, that (God forbid) they came true.
He knew that it
wasn’t all that much of a philosophy, but he’d never much cared for that type
of thing in any case. Apparently, though, it was advisable to always keep one
handy in case of conversational emergency. Permitting himself a satisfied
half-smile, he reminded himself that all this was suitably grand-sounding and
would do for now, but when it came down to brass tacks actually believing in it
was another matter. All of which exhausted him to the extent that he
immediately forgot what the point was, which also suited him very well.
Day turned into
evening which became early night and suddenly it was midnight and he found that
he was still staring into space. With a start he realised that usually by now
he’d be in bed. The television was burbling in the background showing some
reality show about clubbers in somewhere beginning with an unexpected letter of
the alphabet, probably in Greece
The morning came,
as often it was prone to do, and a bleary hunger sighed through the man. He
decided it was an egg day today and he rose smiling because he knew the secret
of a perfect poach. It was the pinch of salt that was important because it
stabilised the boiling point even whilst it seasoned the water, saving cooking
time and energy. He set a pan to heat on the stove and as he did so his mind
wandered back to last night’s dream. Such a recollection was unusual but as the
bubbles began to insinuate through the warming water so snatches of recall came
back to him. He was, he’d felt, young, very young and in his grandmother’s old
house, romping around on their carpeted old floor, gazing at this strange but
somehow brilliant noisy brown box in front of him. It seemed massive, certainly
big enough to fit in a few people, and judging by the sounds coming out of it
there was definitely a woman trapped in there making the most peculiar and
beautifully-tuned screams he’d ever heard in his life. He chomped on the thick
slice of currant bread and pondered this magnetic wonder. At that point his
reverie was interrupted by the pan starting to shudder as the water boiled
furiously. Quickly, he stirred a clockwise vortex in the pan and cracked an egg
into it. It formed a beautifully satisfying, near-perfect oval shape,
comforting and somehow otherworldly in aspect. For the next two minutes he
admired his handiwork and by the time his toast had popped up it was time to eat
and the dream was entirely gone.
The train was busy
that day but despite the packed carriage the man was somewhat astonished to
find that he was able to sit down. The seat was facing forwards rather than
back, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. There was a free paper on the
floor on the table in front of him which he picked up and began to read. There
was a story about a guy who looked a little like Barack Obama, except he really
didn’t and the man wondered if that made him or the paper racist. Such
philosophical conundra were only a passing thought these days and as quickly as
it entered his brain it passed like the trees and the fields, blurring into one
indefinable blob along with all the rest he’d endured over the years. To find a
seat, though, was a stroke of luck and as he gazed half-detatchedly at the
paper he found a quote he rather liked, attributed to Groucho Marx this time
but he was shaking-sure he’d seen it before.
Love
he read
Is
the interval between meeting the most beautiful woman in the world
But his thoughts
were cracked by the man opposite starting to croak and cackle and gurble and
hack. With every cough he seemed to be getting louder. The man reading Groucho
Marx dared not look for fear that the cougher was about to expire: he saw, in
his mind’s eye, a busting, purple-faced balloon; the Arnold Schwarzenegger
character in the film about Mars. About to pop, eyeballs distended and skin
utterly stretched for want of air. The paper needed his concentration and he
tried to focus on the quote once more.
And finding out
It was no use: the
man with the newspaper was quite angry by now. Not at the rankle-lung opposite
who was still in fits of cawking, but by the people in the carriage for not
letting on as to why there was a seat free in the middle of the busiest train
of the morning rush hour. It made him almost nauseous to think of how irritated
he was at himself for not questioning it earlier. He’d never been one to
complain overly and he wasn’t going to start now, but, well, really. The
crescendo of coughing continued, reaching toward hitherto unthought-of heights
and it seemed that the carriage seemed silent as all eyes and ears rested in
thrall; even the train’s own buzz and clatter seemed to recede into the
background. Faster, more numerous and more racking were the exhalations until
finally and almost triumphantly a ball of luminous mucus bounced out of the
coughing man’s lungs and stuck to the window.
The man with the
newspaper felt quite happy that this was the end of the matter and he knew that
as long as he didn’t look too hard to his side things would be just fine
because all told he’d rather not have the noise anymore. Gradually, though, the
phlegm that had now begun glooping down the window beside him insinuated into
his periphery making him think of the yolk of his breakfast egg. He very
quickly became very ill indeed as his stomach started to bubble of its own
accord. Surely everyone could see it boiling like lava and he felt that if he
pressed down it would burst. He also knew that this train had no toilet and he
was twenty minutes from the office. That all made for a sum that would never,
ever add up.
Therefore, for the
first time – well, ever – he jumped out of his seat, startling himself and a
few faces that no doubt would recognise him if they allowed themselves to do,
and he got off the train at the next stop. It was a matter now of urgency for
all he could think of was his predicament. He was never late for work but there
again in a sense it was only really important that the sums were done. It was
such a rarity of unpunctuality, he reasoned, that people would never believe it
if he turned up quietly a few minutes later than normal and probably would
adjust their watches instead, leading to all manner of missed appointments and
transports as the week rolled on. It was an amusing thought, but a thought that
was usurped within a split second by a knife-sharp pain deep in his guts. The
station platform was empty as the train rolled and roared away without him as
he shuffled toward the public lavatory. But when he got there he found a
long-bolted door heavy with rust and graffiti and a sign indicating that due to
vandalism the facility was regretfully closed. He groaned out loud and jumped
from foot to foot as waves of nausea racked through him. It took every last
essence of an ounce of self-control to keep himself together. He breathed and
he counted, breathed and counted, breathed and counted until the pain subsided
to a near-manageable point. Sweating profusely, he glanced up and as he did so
he thought he caught the eye of a jumper-wearing man who held his gaze for a
slight moment then scurried off over the footbridge toward town with a most
startled manner.
The first place he
came to was McDonald’s – always a good bet, he’d read on the net once, for this
kind of thing. But the toilet door was locked, probably because people on the
net talked about the restaurant in those kinds of terms. The man was bent
double again, the perspiration soaking his every footfall. Perhaps if he bought
something they would let him have the key so he stood in line behind several
people, two of whom looked like schoolgirls and one who looked like their
teacher. Although they couldn’t be such, as the teacher appeared to keep
accidentally brushing up against their buttocks, eliciting squeals of
mock-horror from the pupils. The man’s head was now lolling from side to side.
He studied the menu. It looked like
food, somewhat, but it was really the last thing he needed and as the smells
came from the back of what is technically called a kitchen a new wave of nausea
came over him. He put his hand to his mouth as he felt the spume rise inside at
another blast of McEgg but there was nothing to be done and – eyes drying in
pain - he had to dash out of the bright lights for fear of losing control
entirely. This would not do, not at all.
He staggered down
the street, moaning; morning shoppers moving out of his way. They think I’m
drunk, he thought, and I wish I was. But the mere suggestion of alcohol itself
set off another smash of horror within his lava-gut until – finally, and after
quite some time – he came upon a dilapidated, but obviously in service, public
convenience. There was graffiti, there were green paper towels strewn all over
the floor. The stench reminded him of the puma house at the local zoo. The puma
that had stared back at him, the most malevolent stare he’d ever known. A
laser-eyed glare of challenge, of power. But for these bars, the stare said,
but for these bars. You alone did this to me. But for these bars. The smell was
unbearable, there and here, then and now. Paralysed then by fear, now by
necessity. Another stab and he almost lost it entirely, but he managed to
clench for another few moments and collect his thoughts again. Deep breaths,
deep breaths as the glutinous warmth moved and bungled its way through his
hellishly undulating bile.
Panting with
gravel-chested terror he picked the most stinking cubicle, putting into
practice the old army saying that If You
Want Something Doing, Give It To A Busy Man.
Surprised but
rather pleased at this unexpected and entirely unwanted barrel-roll of insight,
he shifted his weight on the seat so his left foot could push shut the lockless
door again. Insodoing, he noticed that when he turned his head to the left
there was an average and somewhat unremarkable cock poking through a hole in
the wall to the next cubicle.
Somewhat puzzled,
he blinked at it. It blinked back. He knew that this was something of a
situation you didn’t really encounter every day, and, fully-emptied so feeling
brave, he reached out and flicked it a couple of times. This elicited a strange
guttural noise from next door, which subsided into a low moan as they went back
to blinking at each other for quite some time. After several minutes of this
wordless contemplation, the airing cock withdrew itself. As he listened to the
slamming of doors and the scurrying of feet into the distance he realised that
he was, once more, quite alone. Moreover, and to his great chagrin, the
carefully-placed paper had somehow fallen off the seat and no doubt the plastic
had left tangible impressions in his buttocks. When he flushed the chain, even
the cistern chortled.
Feeling quite
pleased with himself after washing his hands properly as directed by the poster
he saw in dad’s hospital the man peered out into the growing sunlight and
realised that it was shaping up to be a reasonably nice day. He strode past the
dry cleaners wanting to wave at someone but nobody seemed to be there so he
changed his stance into a swift glance at his own reflection and seemed to get
away with it well enough. He set off once more toward the station, humming a
tune to himself.
Twas on a Monday
morning la la la la la laa la-la
The faces seemed
different to those he’d see at work at this time of day. Usually people would
be rather professionally-communicative until around 11am when they’d be
resigned to their fate, full of caffeine swagger and chunter about football,
weather, girls, boys as they relaxed into the social aspect. But here on the
street, there was a different kind of talking going on. The street had opened
up into a small market that he didn’t remember passing before. Hang it, he
thought, I’m already late so I’ll have a look around. The incident with the
penis had not left his mind entirely and he wasn’t quite sure he knew what to
think about it. In the past there had been girls, but never boys, although
online there was always some body or other to admire and he’d realised that it
wasn’t really any bother to anybody which gender he masturbated to. He put it
down to experience, which was another thing that people seemed to value in life,
so he was above all rather pleased to have notched up another experience to add
to his experience in general. It might come in handy one day, he reasoned, as
he stopped near a fruit stall where a woman in her lateish sixties was fondling
some red peppers for firmness.
New innis mornin neearmyluv
Said the
greengrocer
Ger aurafit,
they’re more wrinklier than me, sjust I duntek sa ma chaionin
She replied
The man smiled and
moved on; this was clearly not the first time that this conversation had taken
place and both seemed to be enjoying it. A rather surly chap smoked hard and
stood in the man’s way for a second, staring him down, before moving to reveal
a book stall behind him. The smoking man had an expensive watch and freckles.
The books were mostly conspiracies about 9/11 and remaindered biographies of
Trivium and Kasabian.
Too forafeyvurmeat
Smokey said.
But the man shook
his head with a smile and moved on; he was enjoying the chatter and buzz of the
streets around him. The colours and smells and sounds of the market were
bruisingly exhilarating and he swelled with a new-found happiness. This was
wonderful. There were stalls selling curtains and a fish van, fresh not
stinking; there was a T-shirt stall, a behatted man with a display of cheeses
and a chubby, pretty enough lady with watches, buttons and sticky toffee bars;
there was even a tent with a display of electric wheelchairs. He loved every
second of it. Standing underneath the town clock, he surveyed the scene. Maybe
he could get his morning coffee here instead and take a half day. It wouldn’t
make much difference now.
As he walked
toward the church he could see at the top of a road, he spotted a small crowd
outside a tired-looking hardware store. They gathered round a group of gentlemen
dressed in what he took to be some kind of old-style finery; all tight black
pants, rosy cheeks and strangely billowing white shirts. The group stood
staring back at surrounding souls. It was serpent-tense.
The wind blew,
flumping at the dressed-up group’s wigs, and as it did so they sprang into
action as one. One mimed playing a cello; another a violin; the third another
violin and the fourth something inbetween. They played so well that it seemed
that they had merely forgotten to bring their actual instruments but, not
wanting to attract attention to themselves and too proud to admit it, they
carried on playing without them. The crowd, marginally confused but mostly
disappointed, began to disperse. Soon the man was alone with the quartet,
watching their busy fingers and their concentrated, semi-ecstatic faces. It was
all very familiar to him and, maddeningly, he very nearly had the tune in his
head but whenever he tried to pin it down it danced a little out of reach,
coquettishly. He stood, and closed his eyes, and swung and danced in his mind
like a music box, becoming part of the music and notmusic which cycled round
and around and around and around and around and around and around.
After a while he
heard a small cough and peeped a letterbox blink to find that three of the
performers were now standing limp like marionettes, gazing through the floor.
The other one, one of the violin players, was holding out a hat, to which the
man who wasn’t at work mimed getting his wallet out of his pocket, opening it,
licking his fingers, peeling off three crisp notes, folding them and putting
them into the proffered headgear.
He walked away
very pleased with himself. Before he had reached ten yards, however, it struck
him that he ought really to have paid for his entertainment, and he knew that
the four players were surely following him one breath behind, hands clawing
toward his neck in virulent anger at demeaning their art. The man felt their
growling behind him and broke first into a jog and then a run, a mad dash away
from the scene of his crime. He ran, and ran, and ran, dashing away through an
underpass, shoes clattering devilsong echo before he realised that the only
footsteps he could actually hear were his own. He bit his teeth and
stiff-grittedly looked back.
There was nobody
there.
Shaken and smiling,
he left the underpass and found himself in a twisty concrete skate park. There
were ramps and pipes and all kinds of undulating concrete surfaces on which to
play. He rather liked the idea and remembered the time he and DD had gone out
on bikes and done skills. A long time ago, now, he thought. A long time.
Somewhat exhausted from his exertions he stooped and began to read the graffiti
around him.
bad grilled hymen
EDGE higher
maNaNa TeCH GriNd 09
He took them to be
names of bands and DJs; there was definitely amount of artistry in some of
these colourful pieces and liveliness, even in hoppus is a fag and Fuck Off
PEEDO’S, although he had to admit that he was a little lost with Nigarz Nunrape. Nonetheless, he surveyed
the park and thought it on the whole to be a better use of space than whatever
may have been there before. Heart pumping brine, he climbed to the top of the
nearest half-pipe. It was a lot steeper up here than it appeared on the
television for sure. He sat down a little gingerly and stared back toward where
he felt town to be. He could see very well how he’d gone wrong, confused a
little by the market more than likely. It was half-blocking the station road,
after all. Pondering his next move, he absent-mindedly picked up a stone that
was half-wedged in a small hole at the top of the pipe. As he made to throw it
away he realised it was encased in cling-film. Oh dear, he thought. But he put
it in his pocket anyway and carefully made his way back toward Station Road
He reached a
newsagent’s shop. It was entirely unremarkable but for the fact that seemingly as
soon as he’d noticed it he suddenly found himself standing outside it again
clutching a lighter, ten Silk Cut and a pack of blue Rizla papers. The braver
thing to do was to get back on the train and get the sums done, he knew, but it
had been a relatively long time and
something in the aspect of the midday sun glinted at the back of his brain. The
consequent itch was becoming irritating so he made his way into the church
grounds, checked all around was clear and made himself a scruffy, mouse’s
sleeping bag of a spliff.
Ten years since?
Maybe more. But he was surprised his fingers retained some kind of memory even
if his lungs didn’t quite. As the smoke hit the back of his throat the nausea
of the morning returned and he nearly, very nearly, lost what remained of his
breakfast. But after a few puffs he felt his shoulders sag back and his essence
start to diffuse into the sonics that surrounded him. Cars beeped; the church
bell sounded; somewhere a couple argued, or fucked, or both. It was an
unstintingly gorgeous cacophonic symphony, fluidly unpredictable in amplitude
and timbre, themes and melodies intertwining, rankling, scheming to create
something messy and quite magnificent. As he listened and let himself become
part of the village song he let his mind drift toward a vague point of light in
the middle distance.
When he got there
he realised that it turned out that here was life all along. Here, of all
places, inside a village long-subsumed into a conurbation but in its own way
timelessly raucous once the commuters had left for the day. Of course, there
was death, too, shrugging at the end of it all. It was a paradox that the most
peaceful place in the villageytown was the place where those who least needed
it now lay. God bless us, every one. And the man allowed the thought to come
that he’d seen enough graves in his time to know that one day, and one day all
too soon, he would have his own. Because if and where choices exist, they exist
only in life.
The man who didn’t
smoke anymore sat on the grass, peering at the stones subsided and slates
straight that surrounded him. The clouds and the sun dappled leopardskin onto
his hands. As he studied his fingers it all suddenly made a bizarre, puzzling
sense. As long as the sums added up, he mused, nobody should really take any
notice what happened in between. The problem was that people always did take
undue notice and because for the sake of… something… it seemed hysterically
important to be seen putting hours in, days in, neat and nimble, stretching out
the work until such a time that it was right to preen and parade the results in
an effluent-brief explosive show of finery and ostentation. And then the only
thing that could be done was to start all over again. And again, and again, and
again, and again, and again the same until your buttocks sagged along with your
soul and with your heart. How beautiful, how pointless, and how addictive it
all was. It was an unbidden realisation, and one that both saddened the man to
his baked core as well as freed him. This kind of circular nonsense was the
reason, he knew, that he kept himself away from these moments. As sugar was
spice it made no salt of sense. All of which made him rather upset, which would
for once simply have to do because now there was no more arguing about it, at
least from any angle that he could see.
And so the man
with the slumped cheeks trudged once more toward the station. He knew that it
wasn’t worth the trouble to bother himself too much with this sort of thing,
but apparently this sort of thing was going to bother and trouble him regardless
no matter how long a route he took around it. It was unavoidable, inevitable,
ludicrous, and above all comforting in its finality. There was really only one
sensible option and it was quite the relief to allow himself to go along with
what he now knew to be the single honest and true way to resolve this nonsense
once and for all. A few minutes later and he found himself standing on the very
edge of the platform, looking over toward the footbridge where a girl was
crossing, much as the man all those hours and years and lifetimes ago had done.
She looks like a duck, thought the man, with a tight smile.
The man with the
arched eyebrow and the wry heart stood straighter and stronger than ever
before, and looked at the iron tracks that converged in the distance into a
single point. He knew he would never reach there. Nobody ever would. A horn tooted
in urgent, deafening panic as the man kissed his entwined knuckles and gazed up
and down at the warm, smooth metal. The waiting man breathed deeply at the
decision of what was to come so quickly. It was the deepest decision of all –
but it was his decision, and his alone, and he knew that by taking back
ultimate control he had therefore finally stolen back his heart. It was good to
start, and it was good to finish.
And the train came
for him.
***
A month later or
thereabouts a woman walked alone in a graveyard. Charming, pretty, intelligent,
funny, she was none of those things. Clutching a tired bouquet, she paused at a
rather new grave, and stooped to lay the flowers there before reading the
stone’s inscription and, realising her mistake, set them down at her grandmother’s
grave next door.
As she crossed
herself and walked back the way she came, she felt quite peculiar when the
thought came into her head, quite unwarranted, that she’d never taken a train
in her life and she sure as sugar wasn’t going to start now. Just as suddenly,
her heart seemed full of hot porridge: warm, glutinous, and rather
uncomfortable. She dashed away and didn’t look back. She was, perhaps, the
woman of someone’s dreams, but of whose, it was rather difficult to tell.
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