Joe had to run like mad for the train, no time to buy a
ticket, over the footbridge, clatter down the steps to platform 8, heave the
door open, jump on.
It took him a while to catch his breath. He leant up
against the corridor window and watched plumes of smoke belching from the
funnel as the engine rounded a bend. Eventually he managed to summon the energy
to walk down the corridor in search of an empty compartment, his wet clothes
sticking to his body, his shoes squelching.
He was in luck. Pulling the door shut and the blinds down,
he slumped onto a seat and slowly started to remove his clothes until he was
naked. Inside his haversack was a dry set, one he’d just had time to grab from
the empty house, before dashing for the train, images of the river flashing
before his eyes.
How had it happened? He and Max had always had an up and
down friendship, in fact he wasn’t sure ‘friendship’ was the right way to
describe it at all. On the river bank, arguing about Morag, shouting and
swearing, then pushing and shoving. Fights between them were not uncommon, but
this time neither was going to give in. Locked together, arm in arm they
slipped on the wet grassy bank and disappeared under the murky surface of the river.
Even underwater they’d maintained an almost vice-like grip on each other for a
few seconds, before survival instincts had taken over. He’d drifted downstream
and couldn’t remember how he’d managed to haul himself out onto the bank.
Pulling a pair of y-fronts from the bag, he put them on, followed
by a white sleeveless vest, a worn grey t-shirt, a red jumper his mother had
knitted him, now full of holes and his track suit bottoms, mud stains around
the ankles. The socks weren’t a pair, but that was the least of his problems.
The plimsoles had been the only footwear small enough to fit into the
haversack. A wallet and a one-year visitor’s passport, enough to get him to
France, were the last items out of the bag.
Being dry and almost warm, he felt a little better. Stretching
out across the vacant seats, head resting on the empty haversack, he fell
asleep almost immediately.
When he woke, Max was sitting opposite him, water
dripping from his clothes and hair, weed draped across his shoulders. His lips
were moving but no sound was emerging, face contorted, finger jabbing. But Joe
didn’t mind this in the slightest. Relief flooded through him. His friend had
survived, no longer any need to flee.
Just as he was about to say something to Max the
compartment door slid open. A man in uniform and cap, with a ticket machine and
a leather money bag stood there. Joe automatically asked for a single to Dover,
without thinking about whether he still needed to travel there, pulled the wallet
from his tracksuit pocket and handed the man a pound note. Pocketing his
change, he waited for the ticket man to turn his attention to Max, but instead
he stepped out into the corridor and closed the door. Joe heard him walk off
towards the back of the train. Was that Little
White Bull he was whistling?
Joe’s feeling of relief was short-lived. There was no
longer any sign of Max. How could that be? Unable to cope, he lay down again
and drifted off.
+ +
+
Crowds of people made
their way to the ferry. Joe found a phone box, squeezed inside and laid coins
out on the cold surface of the metal shelf. He dialled 0, waited for the
operator, told her the number for Max’s mother, inserted the coins and waited.
When she answered, he pressed button A, heard the coins dropping into the box
and wrapped his handkerchief around the mouthpiece of the receiver.
Max wasn’t in, she didn’t know where he was, he never
told her anything and who was it calling anyway? He replaced the receiver.
Should he go back and face the music? But there was nothing
to go back home for. Not Morag. What on earth did she see in Max? And his own
mother was as bad as Max’s. And he’d lost his job.
Once he’d bought his ferry ticket, there were three
fivers and four pound notes left in his wallet. It would last for a while, but
he’d have to hitch-hike once he got there, stay in youth hostels, find work and
hope his schoolboy French was understood.
Out on deck for the short night crossing, he dozed fitfully.
Max joined him again. He seemed a little drier but still didn’t utter a word.
Joe realised he’d have to get used to his travelling
companion.
