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RACHEL
Friday, 5 July 2013
Morning
THERE IS A PILE OF clothing on the side of the train tracks Light-blue cloth – a shirt, perhaps – ju dirty white It’s probably rubbish, part of a load fly-tipped into the scrubby little wood up the bank It could have been left behind by the engineers ork this part of the track, they’re here often enough Or it could be so else My ination; Toht of these discarded scraps, a dirty T-shirt or a lonesome shoe, and all I can think of is the other shoe, and the feet that fitted into them
The train jolts and scrapes and screeches back into motion, the little pile of clothes disappears froger’s pace Soh of helpless irritation; the 804 slow train from Ashbury to Euston can test the patience of the most seasoned commuter The journey is supposed to take fifty-four minutes, but it rarely does: this section of the track is ancient, decrepit, beset with signalling proble works
The train crawls along; it judders past warehouses and water towers, bridges and sheds, past modest Victorian houses, their backs turned squarely to the track
My head leaning against the carriage atch these houses roll pastshot in a film I see them as others do not; even their owners probably don’t see them from this perspective Twice a day, I am offered a view into other lives, just for a ers safe at home
Soruously joyful and upbeat song They’re slow to answer, it jingles on and on around me I can feel my fellow commuters shift in their seats, rustle their newspapers, tap at their co as it approaches a red signal I try not to look up, I try to read the free newspaper I was handed on my way into the station, but the words blur in front ofholds my interest Inat the edge of the track, abandoned
Evening
The pre-in and tonic fizzes up over the lip of the can as I bring it to y and cold, the taste of e on the Basque coast in 2005 In the s we’d swim the half-mile to the little island in the bay, make love on secret hidden beaches; in the afternoons we’d sit at a bar drinking strong, bitter gin and tonics, watching swarames on the low-tide sands
I take another sip, and another; the can’s already half e at uilty about drinking on the train TGIF The fun starts here