Sherry Ashworth - Blinded By The Light

I feel myself getting depressed and I don’t like it. It’s not me. I’ve had this a few times since the glandular fever, a sort of heaviness washing over me. I fight it by walking up and down the platform, reading the ads for frothy paperbacks for women with boring lives. I look down the line to see if the train’s coming. Gotta keep moving. The train should be here any minute now. And sure enough there’s a dot in the distance that grows into the front of an engine and, yes, it gets bigger and is arriving at my platform.

So I’m moving through the carriages to find my reserved seat, taking involuntary snapshots of people’s faces: Chinese guy reading a paper, couple of chubby pensioners with sandwiches in plastic bags, good-looking girl staring sullenly out of the window, fat bloke asleep with his mouth hanging open. I finally reach my seat and discover I’m on my own; mine is the window seat and the other three seats are empty, having only reservation tickets sitting on the top of them like shrunken hats. I get my Walkman and phone out of my bag and settle down. I glance at my mobile and want someone to text me. And with a jolt and a lurch the train moves forward.

I reckon it’ll take about two hours to get to Manchester, more if there’s works on the line, which there usually are. The guard announces all the stops, and then another voice takes over to talk about the buffet. When I was a kid I used to like train journeys, but this one feels like another form of waiting, which is all I ever seem to be doing at the moment. Waiting for texts, for phone calls, for next year when I start uni, for something – anything – to happen. Even when I go out to try to make something happen, nothing happens. Or I drink too much and forget what happened. I feel that slide into depression again and stop it by trying to remember the joke Phil’s mate told which had us falling about. Then I look out of the window, through the smears and grime. The train stops and starts. I see embankments with rubbish strewn down them, scrubby old plants. And then we pull up in Wolverhampton. And wait. And move again.

It comes as a shock when I realise the couple moving along the carriage in my direction are going to come and sit opposite me. But they check their tickets and acknowledge to each other that this is the right place. I sort of watch them. They can’t be much older than me. Girl has brown hair in bunches, a good figure, jeans, white sweatshirt. Bloke looks thin; he’s wearing a denim jacket over a white T-shirt, cream combats. Students? They don’t look seedy enough. I wonder if they’re an item but they don’t make body contact – I get the weird impression they must be brother and sister. She gives me a shy smile and he nods in a friendly way But like I said before, I don’t feel like talking to anyone.

So off we go. I try to go back to my previous stupor, but the presence of the couple opposite stops me. It’s hard sitting with someone and not interacting – it seems rude. But there’s two of them and only one of me, so I won’t make the first move. She’s pretty, the girl, brown eyes, heavy lids, well-defined lips – a thoughtful face. I can see her as a singer in a folk band in the sixties, say. The bloke is harder to place. He has to be a student – maybe the sporty type? Nah, he’s too skinny for that. But what’s intriguing me is their total ease with each other, and I can’t reconcile it with the read-out I’m getting that they aren’t a couple.

Yet they can’t be brother and sister because they’re being nice to each other. I have a sister – Gemma – who irritates the hell out of me. And even when we’re getting on, I’m always taking the mick, because that’s what you do with sisters. Sure, this couple opposite could be platonic friends, but I have my doubts. I don’t believe in platonic friendship. Take Tasha; she wants to be friends – I can’t stand the thought of losing your friendship, Joe! Like you should have thought of that before you split with me. It was your choice, Tash. I don’t reckon a bloke and a girl can be friends without sex coming into it somehow. Unless, of course, you don’t fancy the girl one iota. But then, she might fancy you. Which is worse in a way

And so I was drifting off again when the bloke spoke to me.

“Are you going to Manchester?” he asked.

I started. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Us too.” His voice, his body language all gave away that he wanted to talk. So I couldn’t see that I had a choice.

“We’re running late,” I said.

The girl joined in now. “Yeah. Half an hour, they said at Wolverhampton. We’ve been staying with friends from the university there.”

“Yeah, I was with a mate from Birmingham.”

“Are you a student too?” she asked.

“Will be. Next year. It’s my gap year,” I said. Weird how it’s easier to talk about yourself to strangers. I could feel my earlier reluctance to speak dissolving. I liked the way this girl was taking an interest in me.

“Cool,” she said. “What are your plans?”

I explained about the glandular fever and how I was earning money so I could travel – backpack, maybe – in the spring. I didn’t tell her that I seemed to be spending most of it on clothes and CDs and booze.

“Where are you thinking of going?” the bloke asked. He had bleached hair, wore glasses with thin black frames.

“Maybe Thailand, or India. I haven’t really looked into it yet.”

The girl smiled. “Nick’s been to India.”

I looked interested. I was, a bit. “Backpacking?”

“No. Teaching,” he said. “I was involved with a scheme that sent classroom assistants to Indian schools. I lived there for six months.”

I was impressed, and jealous, too. But this bloke – Nick – he didn’t seem as if he wanted to go on about it. I appreciated that. Still, I was curious.

“Did you live with Indians, like?”

“I had lodgings in a house and shared a room with one of the other assistants. A lot of the Indian families gave us hospitality. India changes you – you look at the world differently afterwards.”

“You mean, coming to terms with the poverty and that?”

“Yeah,” Nick nodded. “That, and just comparing other cultures. And it makes you appreciate different things about living here.”

“Like what?” I asked.

Nick paused before he answered, as if my question had made him think.

“The freedom to move about,” he said, which wasn’t what I was expecting. I found myself cheering up. It put me in a better mood to be able to talk about something not to do with my life.

“Have you travelled?” I asked the girl.

She shook her head deprecatingly. Yeah, she was pretty Not my type, but pretty.

“I’ve not had the chance yet. I did my art foundation course last year and I’m hoping to go on to college next year, but right now I’m getting some cash together.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said.

We all smiled, as if it was us three against the world, cash-strapped and just travelling. It was great, finding people to talk to like this, people I could relate to. I revelled in my luck at actually sitting opposite this couple, rather than a Palm-Pilot-obsessed man-in-a-suit, or a family with noisy kids. And weirdly, the sun made a last effort to brighten up the late afternoon sky Fields rushed by on both sides.

“So you live in Manchester too?” I asked them.

Nick answered. “Not in Manchester exactly. Just outside Todmorden. West Yorkshire.”

“Yeah – I know it well.”

“We share a house there.”

“Like, together?” I mumbled. I was fishing to see if they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

The girl laughed. “Not together in the way you mean! There are a few of us. We’re renting an old farmhouse.”