London - sometime in the late 2020s
Trick or Treat?
Chapter One
(your thoughts will be appreciated, and if I may I'd like to acknowledge you)
The weather just took the biscuit. It was October 31st and too late at night to hold any joy, with no moon, a thin but persistent rain and noisy, gusty winds. The chill felt deep within his old bones. So weary after a succession of late nights at the office, one overlong day too many in the New Empire Policy Centre, he was relieved temporarily in mood only by a swift pint just before closing time at the station pub waiting for his train home. As was his habit, he called to his home, by which he meant his lovely, gentle partner's mobile phone, to confirm his train's time, leaving a message ending with his usual joke leaving from platform 7 and three-eighths.
Fortunately, this night he was wearing a warm raincoat, a classic London Fog in grey, with the collar up and an old Chelsea Fedora that had been his father's. He carried a very battered and scuffed small briefcase, as if he was attached to it rather than the other way around. Old school, he realised that he looked as he felt; an anachronism, somehow not in the right time or place. He mused that the oddity was in feeling that he had been created with a sense of anxiety, like he was somehow misplaced by the universe in its wider scheme.
In his over-tired state, he wandered aimlessly up and down the concourse until he saw his train arrive on the usual platform, and brought himself up short at the sight of a line of old corridor and compartment carriages. The departures board confirmed a substituted train. Better that than a cancelled one, he mused. But the presence of the train had already generated a bonus; some happier memories of childhood journeys coming home from boarding school (which were never so very fondly recalled in the going). He clambered up the step to board the train. He hesitated a moment and took in the fullness of the smells of the diesel fumes from the running engine and his memories of smoke-filled carriages; just like this one - still dirty and still full of dust. Yes, that was it - dirt and dust - so completely distinctive of a post-war, mid-twentieth century diesel carriage. So he entered by the door of the first carriage which was closest to the platform entrance, and pulled deliberately - unnecessarily hard - the door behind him just so to "feel" the solid slam. The sound of real engineering from another age. He took a seat in the first empty compartment off the corridor.
Dusty, high necked seats like old armchairs had the same comforting familiarity of grime, dust and texture ground into the dark green velour of the upholstery. He sat hatless, his coat opened and he looked around the dimly lit compartment. He squirmed in his seat, an unexpected sense of pleasure swept over him as he scooted into the corner seat furtherest away from the corridor to sit by the window. Memories. So he could look at his fellow travellers or pretend to gaze out of the window. One of six seats. Overtired as he was, he felt unusually lifted by the juvenile sense of thrill, of excitement, as if something indescribable and unanticipated was about to happen. He put the refreshing pleasure of that feeling down to pure sleeplessness - not unlike, he remembered bitterly, the dreadful exhaustion he felt during the defence of New Zealand - a campaign that nearly killed him, leaving him with a taste of bitterness at his present role in London.
Quarter of an hour to go. The railway people had become better at timely departures, even on these late evening services, so he almost expected it to be on time. No one else in his compartment yet, but he breathed relief as a couple in mid-life passed by in the corridor, talking altogether too loudly as they passed, not glancing but looking at him through the dusty corridor window. Turning into a right old misanthropic git, he thought. The couple, it seemed from what he heard, were also enlivened by memories of this carriage type.
Just five minutes to go, and he heard the progression of slamming the doors in every carriage coming down the train from the engine at the front to where he was sitting in the last compartment of the last carriage.
Two minutes to go and wistfully he wondered if he would get away with being the sole occupant of this compartment. The whistle of the platform person was blown, almost too echoey in the high space of the terminus canopy above the train.
He sensed rather than felt, as if pre-consciously, the train's movement as the carriage door behind the compartment wall slammed. He noticed a sense of slight trepidation, a chill of excitement and surprise, as the pleasant form of a woman strode into the corridor and immediately slid open his compartment door. Youngish, long reddy-chestnut hair and big green eyes. A full figure. She looked at him, smiled and said,
"Just made it. Are you going my way?" Singsong English, he immediately thought. Baltic tones.
He laughed strenuously, as if she'd been hilarious, and replied with little air in his lungs, "Sure, plenty of room". Weird, he thought. Why would it not be? And how the hell am I being so windy?
"Thanks, I want to feel safe", she replied.
Mixed feelings permeated his heightened senses. He'd obviously over-reacted. It's not my space he thought, but something about her fed his anxiety. And he thought he was used to being near or around attractive women. God knows, enough at work and at home. Just then, the train jerked into movement. She stood, staring at him for a second's fraction too long, then wobbled inelegantly because of the exaggerated sway of the carriage as it traversed the many lines leaving the terminus. Just avoiding calamity, by now falling on him, she dumped herself down in the dust-ridden middle seat of the opposite bench, which billowed in response magnificently, so she violently coughed and waved her hands in front of her reddening but still-smiling face, fanning the dust away from her eyes.
He wondered what she meant by needing a sense of safety but decided not to enquire. Time to look the other way, unfortunately and an emergency paperback moment appeared in his tired mind. The book in his case beckoned. He didn't want to stare but couldn't help notice, because as she stood, shrugged off the outer coat, a rather attractive figure emerged - full-figured, pulchritudinous he decided was the description, because the tightness of her white silk blouse above her waisted form was quite arousing. Tall lass, more than me he reckoned. Thick. Wasn't that the term they used in the mess at the office?
Sighing internally he hoped, he opened his book and began to read. He didn't enjoy being as old as he was, he had decided long ago.
The train screeched on its joints, carriage by carriage, metal on metal, making its way across myriad points and railway crossings, and departing the inner city. The man enjoyed reminiscences of the synchronicity of sound and movement: the sway and the rhythmic clackety-clack at such low speed which made both occupants of the compartment roll and rock in response. He glanced occasionally from his book without raising his head, hoped she'd be distracted by settling herself. Instead, without ado, she reached almost over him, standing so their legs brushed for a delicious millisecond as she flipped the window latches and slid open the pane a little. She caught his eye with him staring at her standing above him coatless, her breathing and chest expanding with her post-cough panic waving her manicured hand in front of her reddened face. The older man could not help but appreciate her femininity, especially the clearly noticeable swell of her large round nipple straining at her thin blouse. To alleviate them both of their mutual discomfort, he gave his unspoken agreement to her unspoken actions as the oeuvre window had let in an even louder roar.
Added to the distraction of the carriage movement, he heard couplings between the carriages ground and groan again over a set of points. The swaying lessened and almost ceased as the train settled into the straights, unsettled only by the alternating reverberations in the many tunnels, at last travelling out in the cuttings between the banks of suburban housing.
As she stood above him, she looked around herself in the darkly-lit compartment and she smiled in a way he thought charming, probably because of her evident embarrassment at her heat and coughing. As she stood by the window she turned to face him, and reacted to the sight of his hand clutching the briefcase handle - noticing, he realised later for the first time, with surprise in her eyes, the thin chain attaching the battered old case to the metal cuff on his wrist.
In fact, the older man smiled again at her directly for the first time, and immediately moved past her apparent reaction, instantly deciding it was innocent, such was the deep feeling of pleasure her closeness had given him. She sat down with a wallop opposite the man. He had to reluctantly return his gaze to his book, to re-read the same paragraph for at least the third time with almost the same absorption as the first couple of occasions. Nil.
Odd though, he reflected. The woman had a unique manner of speech; not exactly accented English but not with the smooth cadence of a native speaker either. Voice was lightly raspy, husky. Perhaps a smoker. No, skin healthy not yellowing, not crinkled enough. Maybe a naturalised Easterner, one of the ex-Soviet satellites... Who knows these days. People had crowded in on his life from all over the globe. He began to resent again, at her intrusion in his compartment, despite her beauty. Of all the joints, ha ha. He grinned, still feeling silly about himself, pretending to look at his pages and then she interrupted him again.
"Good book?" she enquired. "I love reading myself, you know crime, thrillers and noir. What is that one?"
He looked up again. She said "noir" as if it was in parenthesis.
