No Escape by Dave Rigby

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.