H.E.Bates Short Story Competition

You are wiping down the tops and polishing the taps when the landlord stands at the end of the bar, scratching his beard. As he scratches, he stares at you, his eyes tracing your outline. He does this when it’s quiet. He has CCTV cameras pointing at you and he watches on the screens upstairs. He waits until the pub is almost empty then he comes down and leans against the panelled counter. You keep yourself busy, emptying the glass cleaner, stacking the shelves, cleaning the pumps. The fire could do with a stoke. You walk across and give it a prod with the poker. As you bend over to pour the coal in, you can feel his eyes all over you.

   The landlord has been sending you pictures of his cock. The first time you thought it was a mistake. He lives upstairs with his girlfriend, Emma. They have three young lads. Maybe he meant to send it to Emma. So you ignored it. Only, about a week later, you got another one. No words. No explanation. Just a picture of his cock. Why do men do that? Why do they think you want to see pictures of their cocks? Suppose they want you to send something back. Like a dare. You ignored that one as well.

   Four days later he sends the third photo. You thought about replying, no thanks, I don’t like molluscs. But would he even know what molluscs are? He isn’t very bright. Just enough intelligence to run a bar and he doesn’t even do that very well. Always letting the beer go off or forgetting to order enough stock. Anyway, a reply might encourage him. Even, fuck off, or do one. Always best to ignore.

   Now, here he is, leaning against the bar, staring at you. It’s a Tuesday afternoon. Raymond stands at the opposite end of the counter. A regular. Uses a walking stick. He looks to be in his seventies but you know for a fact he is only fifty-four. Stands there all day drinking pints of cider. There’s an old woman sitting opposite him doing the Sudoku. They are what is left of the pub industry. Relics of another world. Just waiting for the reaper. Each drink is an invitation.

   Raymond hands you his empty glass. You hold it under the tap but all that comes out is a trickle. I’ll have to change the barrel, you say. You put the glass down and walk over to the steps at the back of the bar, into the cellar.

   It’s dark down there, even with the light on. It takes a while for your eyes to adjust. You go over to where the lager kegs are stored. You hear footsteps and look over to the doorway. It’s the landlord. He looks over, nods sternly, then closes the door behind him. He bolts it. He walks over to you, working his way past barrels and kegs, until he gets up close. He is almost touching you. You can feel his beard on your neck and he whispers, I want to feel your tits.

   You try to keep your cool. You return his gaze. He strokes his beard softly and stares down at your chest. The silence is thick, just the hum of the air conditioning. At last you say, Fuck off, and push him out of the way. You unbolt the door and go back up to the bar.

***

That night, when you get home, your dad asks how work has gone. You put a couple of pizzas in the oven and make a fresh pot of tea. After you’ve eaten your dad says, everything alright? Yeah. Think I’m going to hit the sack, dad. You kiss him on his forehead and leave him watching some crap on telly.

   You try to get to sleep, but your mind is playing the scene over and over again. I want to feel your tits. I want to feel your tits. Not even, can I feel your tits? It’s like he just expects you to get them out and let him do what he wants. And Emma in the room above looking after his three kids. Maybe you should tell her. Doesn’t she deserve to know? Would she believe you? You don’t really get on with Emma. You’ve tried in the past. Maybe Emma sees you as competition. You are sure you’re not the only barmaid he’s tried it on with. He’s been with Emma four years. Emma had been a barmaid at the time they got together and he was with a woman called Rachel. So Emma knows the score. Knows what her bloke is like. Better than anyone. Just as you are drifting off to sleep, your phone pings. It’s a text from the landlord. It says, when a woman says no, she usually means, yes. You ignore it, set your alarm, turn the volume to mute and plug in the charger.

   The next day is another quiet shift. You wonder how long the pub can go on for. You are filling up the fridges when you see the landlord standing at the bar. He scratches his beard, then strokes it softly, all the time staring at you. Then he lifts up the hatch and walks over. Pretending not to notice him, you take another beer bottle out of the crate and line it up on the fridge shelf.

   He leans down and whispers in your ear, Have you still got those photos on your phone? You don’t look at him, take another bottle and stack it on the shelf. You say in a low voice, My phone is a grenade. He doesn’t say anything but you see the fear in his eyes. He nods, then goes back upstairs to his wife and kids. You chuckle to yourself. It is one of those random things. You hadn’t meant to say it. You think about it. You could get some posters made, stick them up outside the pub. Pictures of his cock with some text maybe. Something simple like, this is the landlord’s cock. Come inside for a warm welcome. But on the bus on the way home you are shaking. Is it rage? Is it. What is it?

   When you get home your dad says, you alright, love? You close the door, lock it, take the key out and put it in the bowl, then burst into tears. He wants to know what’s wrong, but you can’t tell him. He puts his arms round you and gives you a hug. Now, now, calm yourself, it can’t be all bad. He sits you down and puts the kettle on, but all you can tell him is that you’ve had a bad day at work. Has a customer upset you? No, it’s not that. Well, what is it? You just shake your head. Doesn’t matter. It’s dealt with. You sure? You nod. The last thing you want is your dad kicking off. He’ll go round there and have it out with him. Might even smack him one. And you don’t want your dad fighting your battles. You are twenty-seven years old. For fuck sake.

   You watch telly with your dad for a bit. Then you kiss him good night and climb up the stairs. You’re not working tomorrow. Day off. But you’re working Friday and Saturday. You’ll have it out with him then. Threaten to tell Lauren. See how he likes that. You lie back in your bed and close your eyes but as you do you hear his words in your head. When a woman says, no, she usually means yes. Was it meant to be a joke? Does he believe that? Maybe you won’t have those posters printed but you will have it out with him. And if he doesn’t listen, you’ll tell Emma. You’ve got the evidence on your phone.

   Friday is a busy shift. Just how you like it. It’s the end of the week and people just want to unwind. A good atmosphere, loud but not aggressive. The shift whizzes by and before you know it you’re calling last orders. You’ve seen the landlord earlier on but he’s disappeared upstairs again. He doesn’t spend that much time in the pub, and when he does he’s usually with his mates, pissed. He prefers to be upstairs where he can watch the bar on CCTV.

    Folk scramble to the pumps, eager to get one for the road. You are kept busy as you try to serve them all. Then you’re ushering them out. Just two stragglers. Two young lads who can’t take their ale. You steer them out of the front door and bolt it behind them. You’ve already taken off the sprinklers and put them in a glass of soda water. Just need to lock up. You go into the kitchen to fetch your coat and scarf, freezing outside. The landlord is standing by the fridge with the door open. He beard is illuminated by the fridge light.

   Just grabbing some supper. Do you want anything? Got some pork pies left.

   No. I’m done. I’ve got some supper at home. Best be off.

   Don’t go. Not yet. I wanted to talk to you about something.

   Not now, I’m too tired. Besides, there’s a taxi waiting for me outside. Tell me tomorrow.

   You walk past him, grabbing your coat and scarf off the hook as you turn to leave.

   Listen, that text I sent.

   What about it?

   It was a joke. You know that?

   Yeah, course it was. I’m not daft.

   He nods and strokes his beard.

   I was pissed. Just a joke, right?

   Yeah, you say, as you zip up your coat and wrap your scarf round your neck. I’ll see you tomorrow.

 

In the taxi, you go over the incident in your head. Should have come out with it. Told him to pack it in. Listen, if you do anything like that again. I’ve kept the photos. You say another word. I’ll tell Emma. I’ll show her the texts. You see if I don’t. Just try it. I dare you. You pay the driver. Grab a take-away from the shop at the end of the street. Fumble with your key. Just me, you say, as you close the door, lock it and bolt it. I’ve got fish and chips for supper. Do you want some?

   That would be grand, your dad says. I’ll put the kettle on.

   You both sit on the sofa watching a film. You see a babysitter put a child to bed, tuck them in, and walk down some stairs. The bulb flickers. The babysitter is about to sit down when she hears something outside and peers through the window. She can’t see anything. Too dark. She goes into the living room and is about to sit down again when she hears something outside once more. She goes to the patio door and peers again. Nothing. She opens the door and walks outside, into the engulfing darkness.

   Why do they always do that? Your dad says. Doesn’t make any sense, does it? In real life you keep the door shut. You don’t open it. You walk away from trouble, not towards it. Pass us some more chips.

   You tip some onto his plate. Salt and vinegar? You sip hot tea from your mug, holding it with both hands, pressing it against your chest. You feel its warmth. Maybe you should get another job? But there aren’t that many decent bar jobs these days. Most of the pubs have closed. Besides, all the landlords are the same. Who’s to say the next one won’t try it on? Better stick to what you know. At least you know where you are. At least you know what he’s like. Your dad is chewing chips and slurping his drink. On the telly it is dark. All you can hear is a woman screaming, out of shot. 

 

King’s Cross. Nearly midnight. He’s off to the Circle Line travelling east, she to the Piccadilly and Baron’s Court. Their lips touch: it’s not a kiss, it’s a valediction. They both know it.  

‘OK,’ she says, her voice flat and neutral. ‘Well, thanks for the film.’ He nods, looking across the top of her head. ‘I suppose I’d better ...’

‘Yeah ...’ For a moment, their eyes meet, hurt and puzzled, before they separate, drifting apart like the smuts in the stale subterranean air. No mention of tomorrow. There was a time he would have travelled with her all the way to see her safely home and then caught the night bus the many miles back to his flat. They would stop in the shadow of the tall plane tree at the bottom of her road and just hold one another, each cradling the other like a precious gift. But those days are gone. She cannot reach him now. The words they exchange no longer intertwine, they snag and slam against themselves, hard and bitter. They haven’t articulated what’s going wrong; they let the spikes of hostility speak for themselves.

She hurries along the endless corridors, dodging the amblers, the drunks and the lost. There are only a couple more trains left before the system closes for the night, surrendering its gaping tunnels and greasy rails to the rats and mice that batten on skin and sandwich crusts and pizza heels. She runs down the escalator, squeezing past cases almost as big as their owners and tourists who don’t know the rules. Stand on the right.

Three minutes to the last train. Heels clacking, she trips along to the platform end to get into the first carriage; it’s always quieter. She’ll read her book on the journey. He gave it to her for her last birthday: One Hundred Years of Solitude. ‘You’re kidding,’ he laughed all those months ago. ‘Never read Márquez? You don’t know what you’re missing.’ Does she now?

Looking back the length of the platform, she is surprised to see it deserted.

The information board lights up ‘Train approaching. Stand back’. Obediently, her feet mark the yellow line. The train pulls in, a few people get off, chatting noisily, excited voices bouncing off the walls and she slides into a seat, pulling out her book as the doors hiss shut and the engine revs for departure. Metal squealing, the wheels start to haul their load into the darkness; within seconds the train is swallowed whole, swaying drunkenly along the rails. The lights brighten then dim perceptibly. She looks up in annoyance.

The carriage is empty. She hadn’t really noticed that when she got on. It is littered with discarded Metros, paper coffee cups, chocolate wrappers, the familiar London detritus. A peeled orange sits on the seat opposite like an offering to some urban deity. She imagines the cleaners swearing as they try to scrub the stains off the faded seats or, more likely, hoping they’ll merge with the filth and bacteria already impregnating the fabric. She shifts uneasily on her own seat. Then she is thrown sideways as the train grinds to an abrupt halt. The lights go out.

The train pants like a dog straining at a leash, then the engine dies with a shudder. For a second the silence is absolute, then a pneumatic hiss, a distant cough. She swallows.  Something nudges her foot and she cries out, jerking her feet away and fumbling frantically in her bag for her phone. The screen illuminates her face and looking down she sees the orange, grimy and misshapen flesh bleeding juice like a wound, lying at her feet. She kicks it away. Across the aisle her slightly distorted self is reflected in the grimy window. And there on the periphery – just a tiny movement on the edge of her vision – she sees him.

The screen goes dark, plunging the carriage once more into inky, airless blackness. With shaking fingers she stabs the keypad and it flares back into life.  He’s still there, standing by the door, leaning on the glass screen, staring into the middle distance, eyes mere shadows in his dark face. Her hand flies to her mouth, stifling a gasp; her heart jolts painfully.

The emergency lighting flickers into reluctant life, bathing the carriage in murky shadows. There is no sound from the cab at the front. She shoots a glance to left and right but the seats are empty; it’s just the two of them. Where did he come from? How could she have missed him when she got on? He must have slipped in behind her. Yes, that must be it. That grey hoodie - well, it looks grey in the half-light - it hardly stands out.  Everything he’s wearing is grey, except his trainers which are white, clean, new. They look too big for his feet, clownish somehow. Between them, a cheap brown rucksack. And beside it, the orange.

The lighting is weak, too weak to read really, but she can’t think what else to do. Her heart is still hammering wildly and she feels such a fool. Frightened by an orange! He must have seen it. Don’t look. Just read. Ears straining for any sound of movement, she tries to concentrate on the opening page, but the words blur and run together; she finds herself reading the same line over and over.  She can’t help thinking of the weight of earth, of tarmac, of bodies above her head, picturing the train coiled motionless in the tunnel with its anxious, angry cargo.  She thinks, I could move to the next carriage. I wouldn’t feel so exposed there. So vulnerable. But she doesn’t move because that would make her look scared.  And she’s not. She’s not scared. She forces herself back to the book, scanning the opening paragraph yet again.

The noises start so faintly that at first she thinks she is imagining them. She listens hard: hears a soft susurration, like waves lapping gently on a shore, which grows imperceptibly until she recognises it for something human, a sort of keening, a kind of lament. It’s all around her now, in her hair, breathing in her face, this terrible, pitiful sound and with it, sweet in her nostrils, the scent of decay.  She looks over to the boy.

And for the first time, he turns to look at her.

He is young, even in this poor light she can see that, skin just beginning to coarsen on the threshold of manhood, body somehow unfinished. Clothes nondescript, the universal uniform of the city kid, a boy like any boy, unremarkable. But his gaze is raw, naked, beseeching. It speaks of desolation and something to which she cannot put a name.  It speaks to her.

She tears her eyes away as a wave of despair washes over her, so heavy, so intense, that she has to hold onto the seat to remain upright. It punches the breath out of her, like a weight pressing down on her, pressing the life out of her in this shadowy tomb. Then the keening grows, amplifies into cries of agony, of terror, threading their way into her ears like a terrible symphony that echoes and re-echoes in her mind. Sorrow overwhelms her, squeezes her heart. In spite of herself, she finds herself looking again at the boy. Now she knows what he asking for.

The door to the cab bursts open and an overweight driver stumbles through, his face pale and sweaty in the gloom. She gives an involuntary cry, faint with relief. At the sight of her, he steadies himself and lurches towards her like a drunk. That’s her first thought, once she’s recovered from the shock, he’s been drinking.  But when he speaks, she realises she is wrong.

‘I startle you? Sorry, love.’

She tries a smile but her face won’t work. He’s standing between her and the boy.

‘Power,’ he says, jerking his head behind him. ‘Just cut out. Just like that. And then suddenly I was –’ He stops himself, glances back towards the cab as though afraid of being overheard. She waits, the blood pounding in her ears starting to slow. He wets his lips.

‘Hate this line, I do. ’Specially at night. Something about it that ...’ He shakes his head, as though trying to clear his thoughts. ‘Sorry. Look ... we’re gonna have to evacuate the train. You OK?’

‘Yeah,’ she says, barely above a whisper. ‘Yeah, I’m OK now.’

‘PA’s bust too. Can’t even make an announcement.  Reminds me of ...’ He tails off, but she can see his mind’s somewhere else, as if listening for something.

‘We have to get the OK, see. Have to wait for it. You know, from the ...’ He gestures vaguely.

‘Right.’

The driver gathers himself. ‘Well. Better let the other passengers know. You best come with me.’

‘And that lad,’ she says, struggling to her feet, light-headed.

‘What?’

She gestures with her head behind him. ‘Him.’

He turns and now she can see over his shoulder. There’s no-one there. She peers into the gloom further down the carriage, expecting to see him slouched in a seat or standing further down. They both stare at the orange, then the driver moves.

‘No, wait!’ He turns back. ‘There was a boy ...’

 ‘What?’

‘Earlier. Before you came through. By the doors over there. A boy.’

‘Yeah?’ She can’t read the driver’s face in this light. ‘He must of gone through to the next carriage.’

‘He didn’t!’ she says more vehemently than she intends. ‘He was here. Only young. Standing there. Dark hair, dark skin. Grey hoodie, white trainers and a –’

‘Rucksack,’ finishes the driver with a deadness that chills her. ‘Yeah.’

‘You know him?’ she asks. She can smell his fear, sweet and sharp.

A momentary hesitation.

‘We all do. All of us on this line.’ A beat, then, ‘Did you hear them?’

She nods, feels the finger of fear slide down her spine. He looks the length of the carriage then leans towards her until she can see the broken blood vessels in his eyes.

‘Don’t bother telling no-one. They’ll only think you’ve got a screw loose.’ He shudders. ‘Stands behind me sometimes, he does. In the cab. I can feel him. Poor bastard.’

‘Poor bastard!’ She can’t stop herself. They’ve all seen the pictures, read the harrowing testimonies. People dismembered, maimed, families torn apart, wounds that will never heal. The waste, the pity of it.

The driver shrugs. ‘Don’t get me wrong ... I just mean, I got a boy the same age. That’s all I’m saying. Come on.’

She gets to her feet, follows him down the length of the carriage and into the next. The atmosphere is edgy with frustration and barely suppressed hysteria. By the time they have travelled the length of the train, the driver shepherding the other passengers ahead of him, the emergency services have started escorting people along the track back to King’s Cross. There are occasional cries of distress, unexpected kindnesses, the odd flash of a mobile phone as evidence of incompetence is collected and repeated bottlenecks as passengers struggle with the luggage they will not leave behind.  Uniformed hands support elbows, old ladies are led to safety and weary, sometimes inebriated travellers keep up a continuous litany of complaint.

She walks in silence behind them all, hard on the driver’s heels, conscious of the unseen presence following close behind. She thinks of the fragility of life, of the transience of love and hope, of how easily chances and possibilities get thrown or blown away. The moment she reaches the surface, she knows what she will do. She clutches her phone tightly in her pocket, fingers desperate to dial. She slows for a moment as the platform lights come into view. And looking back into the tunnel, she can see nothing except shadows, but hears, or imagines she hears, the very faintest cry.

 

Northamptonshire Prize Winner - Steven Holding - Route Thirty-Three
 

Adrian Atkins is thinking:

  IF I WORKED OUT HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE UNDERTAKEN THIS JOURNEY, I HONESTLY BELIEVE THE ANSWER WOULD KILL ME.

  He is having this thought as he sits on the top deck of the double decker bus that takes him home from work every evening. He is sitting in the same seat he always sits in. Right hand side if you are facing towards the front of the vehicle, two seats along from the back row, leaning ever so slightly against the condensation smeared window so that there is a space beside him should any pregnant women or pensioners require it. He regards this spot as his usual seat, although he is acutely aware that it isn't really the same seat, because a different bus is used almost every day on this route. He knows this because he has become intimately familiar with the minute differences between each and every bus. Adrian has studied the ancient shredded advertisements that run the length of every ceiling, the threadbare weave of each chewing gum stained cigarette burnt seat cover, the manic jagged scrawl of countless pieces of magic marked graffiti with such intense scrutiny that he feels his expertise regarding these details would be an appropriate specialist subject should he ever make an appearance upon Mastermind.

  Q: WHO, ACCORDING TO POPULAR CONSENSUS, "SUCKS THE SOCKS OF ALL THE BOYS WITH ROCKS”?     

  A: MARTINE THE MUNCHER TWENTY SEVENTEEN.

  As Adrian sits there, trying hard not to perform the mental arithmetic required to shatter his already fragile sense of self-worth, he manages, without realising, to blot out the multiple stimuli that, if he were to focus upon any one of them, could easily push him into the realms of the disgruntled postal worker. He ignores the tiny metallic hiss of drum and bass seeping out through the headphones of a guy three seats down, his head nodding as if in constant ecstatic agreement with the entire world. He disregards the frantic high-pitched conversation between two teenage girls, one of them braying with laughter, the sound of it so vile and so piercing it could almost be an out of work actor’s method performance of someone suffering a fit of hysterics. He rejects the incessant buzz of a fat juicy fly that keeps appearing then disappearing, its apparent purpose the constant irritation of a crocodile skinned geriatric geezer who is starting to nod off, the lulling rhythm of the bus rocking him into a deep and peaceful slumber. All of these things, all of these moments, events independent yet simultaneous, none of them, not a single one, are registering with Adrian Atkins. He is immune to them, is resilient, so that nothing can penetrate the delicate defence he has constructed in order to survive this daily pilgrimage.

  And then, in an instant, his whole world turns.

  The bus rolls to a stop. There is the pneumatic swish-swish of the doors downstairs. Opening. Closing. The muffled exchange of words between driver and passenger. Footsteps, click-clacking, a woman's heels progressing up the stairwell. All of this takes less than a minute.                                                                                                                             

   Adrian Atkins, normally blind to all that surrounds him, can't help but see, can't help but gasp as with perfect clarity she materializes in his line of vision.

  It has been nearly ten years, but he recognises her straight away. She sits down in an empty seat at the very front of the bus. She does not see him. Adrian Atkins thinks:

  THIS IS A GOOD THING.

  She. Her. Jesus Christ. It would be a lie to say that she hasn't changed. She has. So has he. Adrian Atkins is thinking:

  I MET HER THROUGH MUTUAL FRIENDS. NO. SCRATCH THAT. NOT FRIENDS. I DIDN'T EVEN LIKE THEM. I'M PRETTY SURE THEY ONLY TOLERATED ME BECAUSE OF THE DRUGS I COULD GET.

  The bus jolts, lurching over a speed bump. Boom. Once. Boom. Twice. Adrian bounces in his seat, his movement a fraction of a second behind hers, the distance between them causing a slight delay, a calculable difference in the physical laws of their separate, distinct worlds. She is the glare of a sun that died a hundred years ago. He watches as she flinches, the branches of an elm tree cracking against the front window of the top deck, wood and leaves whip lashing, dragging loudly across the roof, brushing against the glass on the left-hand side of the bus like a flora car wash. Adrian Atkins thinks:

  SHE PAID ATTENTION TO THE PATTER I HAD RESERVED FOR SUCH OCCASIONS. SOME ROUTINE ABOUT WORKING IN A VIDEO STORE AND THE FREAKS WHO CAME IN TO RENT STAR TREK. THE GAGS REHEARSED, FINE TUNED THROUGH UMPTEEN AMPHETAMINE AND ALCOHOL FUELED DELIVERIES. SHIT. SHE ACTUALLY SEEMED TO LIKE ME.

  She turns her head, scratching lightly at her neck, her profile illuminated by the orange glow of street lights streaming through the glass. Adrian swallows, butterflies brewing, stomach churning in that delicious manner that only she could ever be responsible for. The bus trundles onwards. He peers out through the window, the buildings that flash by signposts, signifying his whereabouts, his place in the world. He thinks:

  I CARRIED THAT PAPERBACK AROUND WITH ME FOR WEEKS, HOPING TO BUMP INTO HER AGAIN. REVERSE STALKING, NOT FOLLOWING HER, BUT BIDING MY TIME, WATCHING, PATIENTLY WAITING. FINALLY GOT THE CHANCE. A PISSY FRIDAY AFTERNOON. A STEAM FILLED CAFE IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN. I WALKED IN AND SHE WAS THERE. I GAVE HER THE BOOK, COOL, RESERVED, HIP, LIKE HEY, NO PROBLEM. SHE SAID IT BLEW HER MIND. THAT I REMEMBERED. THAT I REMEMBERED HER FAVOURITE WRITER. THAT I REMEMBERED HER.

  A sudden cough and splutter from a snivelling adolescent, blowing his nose angrily into a moist disintegrating tissue, the tiny snowballs of damp paper dropping then spreading out across the floor of the bus. Adrian watches, shivering slightly in disgust. Through the glass the blurred image of a flat above a shop streaks past; a fleeting glimpse of a bleary eyed old tart at a dirty window, mouth open wide exposing fillings as she yawns, the chipped purple nail polish of her fingers as she yanks moth-eaten curtains closed. Adrian Atkins thinks:                                                           

  OUR FIRST DATE. WE STAGGERED DOWN THE STREET, GOD KNOWS WHAT TIME IT WAS. FLED FROM THAT PARTY, SICK OF THE BANGING TECHNO, THE DEAFENING NOISE, THE SWEATY PEOPLE. WE FOUND THE ONLY NEWSAGENT THAT WAS OPEN THAT EARLY ON A SUNDAY MORNING, PLEADED WITH THE SHOP KEEPER TO SELL US FOUR CANS OF WEAK AUSTRALIAN LAGER. BACK AT HER PLACE WE PLAYED CASSETTES ON A TINY BEATEN UP BOOM BOX. THE MACHINE WAS BROKEN, TAPES SPEEDING UP SO THAT EVERY SONG SOUNDED LIKE THE CHIPMUNKS. SHE COULDN'T STOP GIGGLING. WE TALKED FOR HOURS. I COULD HAVE KISSED HER THEN. BUT I DIDN'T. I WAS NERVOUS. I WAS SHY. I WAS TOO MESSED UP.

  Adrian Atkins wonders if people can feel his thoughts, if they can sense when he is thinking about them. Up ahead she shifts in her seat, looking uncomfortable, running a hand through her hair, the motion stiff, almost awkward. Adrian notices, then momentarily transfers his attention towards the now snoozing codger, sending out his strongest psychic signals, willing the old boy to wake up. The old boy stirs for a moment, gives a loud snore, his stale breath escaping from in between his tightly screwed up lips, the boorish snort accompanied by a slight jerk of the head, his movements slight and cramped as he painfully shuffles in his sleep. Adrian Atkins turns his head and looks back at her, and thinks:

  I STROLLED BACK HOME IN THE AFTERNOON SUNSHINE. STRUNG OUT AND WIRED. SONGS FLOATING IN MY HEAD. I THOUGHT THIS IS IT, THIS IS THE ONE, THE ONE WORTH CHANGING FOR, GETTING IT TOGETHER FOR. HOW I WOULD TAKE HER TO MUSEUMS. WRITE POEMS FOR HER. YEARS LATER, CRINKLED AND SENILE, HAND IN HAND, I WOULD SIT AND THINK BACK ABOUT THE LIFE WE HAD SHARED AND HOW EVERY ARGUMENT, EVERY DISAGREEMENT, WOULD HAVE BEEN WORTHWHILE BECAUSE ALL OF IT, EVERY SINGLE BIT OF IT, WAS WITH HER.

  Adrian Atkins looks down and realises that his hand is trembling. He thinks:

  I DON'T KNOW WHAT WENT WRONG. NO. I DO KNOW. I LET IT ALL GO. DIDN'T CALL HER AGAIN. LET TIME SLIP BY. CHOSE THE PUBS. CHOSE THE DRUGS. CHOSE ALL OF THOSE SUPPOSED GOOD TIMES. SAW HER ONCE OR TWICE. SOCIALLY, LATE NIGHT BARS, ME HARDLY ABLE TO STAND, LET ALONE COMMUNICATE. SHE WAS POLITE, SMILED, SAID HELLO, BUT THAT WAS ALL. ANY CHANCE, ANY HOPE, ANY CONNECTION, LONG GONE. TOTALLY VANISHED.

  Adrian Atkins puts a hand up to his mouth, the end of his fingertips cracked and raw, the sensation of the tough skin upon his stubbled face familiar, comforting. It stops his hand from shaking. The bus slowly tackles a corner, the gradual turn causing every passenger to lean to one side as if avoiding something. He thinks:

  I AM A FOOL.

  He thinks:

  I COULD GET UP. RIGHT NOW. I COULD SAUNTER DOWN THE AISLE AND SIT RIGHT NEXT TO HER. SAY HI, HOW ARE YOU, LONG TIME NO SEE. STRIKE UP A CONVERSATION. ASK HER HOW SHE IS. ASK HER IF SHE STILL HAS THAT BOOK.                                                                                                                                              

  Seconds stretch into minutes, time elastic, fluid and all consuming. Adrian Atkins, beads of perspiration breaking out upon his forehead, remains still. All around him other lives are being led, other ideas are flickering into existence, other dreams are slowly being extinguished. His face twitches as she reaches up a thin arm, hand outstretched, finger extended, touching the button that activates the bell. Adrian Atkins feels his heartbeat increase. He thinks:

  NOW. NOW IS THE TIME. DO IT. DO IT NOW.

  The bus slows to a halt, the squeal and screech of brakes, rubber tyre on asphalt. She slowly stands up. As she turns, revealing herself, Adrian Atkins smiles at her. Their stares meet, eyes, hers green, his blue and vaguely bloodshot, a split second, looking directly at each other. Seeing each other. She lowers her head quickly, adjusts the strap of her brown leather satchel, swings herself into the stairwell, descends to the bottom deck. Next, the shush of doors. A second later, the diesel engine revs, the whole bus vibrating. Adrian Atkins feels the shudder rising upwards through his seat, feels the shake in the pit of his stomach, in his bones.

  Adrian Atkins thinks:

  MAYBE I'LL SEE HER AGAIN. MAYBE SHE'LL BE ON THE BUS TOMORROW.

  MAYBE.

  Adrian Atkins turns and uses his jacket sleeve to wipe moisture away from the steamed-up glass, resuming his vacant watch through the grease and grime of the bus window, closing off to his surroundings once again. Before he ceases thinking, before he stops, before he shuts down, he notices how outside it is so dark that the almost perfect pitch blackness is reminiscent of the endless void of deep space. Somewhere, far off in the distance, a solitary spot of illumination winks on and off.

  Maybe it is nothing more than a faulty bedroom light.

  Maybe it is a star.