30
by
Adam Millward
amillward_121@hotmail.com
I thought I’d be nervous at this
point, but I feel eerily calm.
I guess I’ve been
planning this day for so long, it’s a relief for it to finally have arrived. Just
like seeing a long-overdue train appearing around a bend in the track.
In just a few minutes,
a man will be getting on this train at 18.33. Not only am I certain he will board
this carriage, but I know he’ll take the window seat opposite me at this very
table. He reserves it for his every trip. You see, he’s a man of strict routine.
And I’m a man who does his research.
The man has had an
audience for months, not that he’s aware of it. I’ve acquired a large
collection of baseball caps and scarves, and have become something of a pro with
my electric shaver. I’ve taken to reading broadsheet newspapers.
We’re pulling into his
station. I take a deep breath as the doors hiss open and a string of nameless
passengers file out to be replaced by more of the same. Nameless for all but
one. There he is. Steven Marchwood.
Black briefcase, charcoal
grey suit, red tie, just as expected. Mr Marchwood, as I’ve come to learn, is
as much a stickler for routine with regard to his wardrobe as he is his travel
arrangements. With his slight limp, he squeezes down the narrow aisle, his globe
of a stomach bumping into unwary travellers. All these years, and he hasn’t
lost the expectation that anything will move out of his path. Or anyone…
When he makes it to the
table, I feel his eyes raking over me; he’s clearly put out that someone has intruded
into his space, particularly as the train’s so empty. No baseball cap or
stubble today – just me. I wanted to face him.
He makes a great deal
out of sitting down, coughing, shuffling, bumping his feet into mine. When none
of this works, he glowers out of the window. If this was any other man on any
other train, I’d tell him he’d reserved a seat, not a table. But this isn’t
just any man. I must stick to the plan.
After letting him sulk
for a few minutes, I reach into my pocket and pull out the key. I swing it on
my finger, rap repetitively on the table. It doesn’t take long.
“Do you mind not…” His gaze
hits the key – any anger in his eyes snuffs out.
“You drive a Jag?”
I shrug. “Good powers
of observation.”
He laughs off the dig –
in his mind, we’re part of an unofficial fraternity now. If only he knew. “What
model?”
“XJ-S.”
“Really?” On the edge
of his seat now. The golden sunset makes his clammy forehead glisten. “Mine too!
Not that I get to appreciate it these days… I’m Steve, by the way –”
“Don’t get to appreciate
it?” I cut in, feigning interest.
Marchwood scrutinises
the patchwork of fields sweeping past. “It was an accident a few years back.
Was banned from driving for two years – not that that really mattered. My leg,
it was injured in the crash, you see. Not medically safe to drive, which is why
I take this ugly thing these days.” He indicates the train. “It was a travesty
of justice.”
A travesty of
justice... It takes all of my resolve not to reach over and tighten his tie
around his flabby neck. The only travesty of justice was him not being put away
for ever. How does a two-year revoked driving licence and a limp amount to a
life? I’m saved by a tunnel – a few seconds in the blackness just enough to
dowse my temper.
It’s been over seventeen
years since Steven Marchwood smashed into my world and took away my elder
sister. I can still smell the burnt rubber as he attempted to control the
powerful machine he’d allowed far too much speed; I can still hear the thud as Alice fell back to the road outside our garden, her limbs at impossible angles; the crunch
as the car swerved into a tree.
Alice would have been
thirty today. Thirty. Precisely the same figure at which the needle should have been pointing on Marchwood’s speedometer.
“I’m telling you,
she appeared out of nowhere…” he’d appealed in the court. No previous
convictions. No witnesses – other than her null-and-void four-year-old brother.
And the driver’s own “severe” injury had to be taken into account, didn’t it?
I tap the key some
more. Steven watches – clueless. But not for much longer.
As soon as he gets
home, he’ll see his garage door ajar and know something’s wrong. Steven
“Routines” Marchwood never forgets to lock up. The relief to find his
precious car, which he’d had restored to perfection, still there – then, as his
eyes adjust to the dim light, the sickening realisation. Scratched into every
possible surface, the number 30, 30, 30… And just like my family, he’ll feel
completely lost, without the tiniest scrap of understanding as to why this has
happened, the intense frustration that no one was being made to pay…
“You look like you’ve
got a lot on your mind,” Steven interrupts my thoughts.
“Just reliving some
memories,” I allow myself a small smile, thinking of the moment in the
not-too-distant future as Steven ventures into his house to find an empty hook
on his key-holder. The very key which had etched 30, again and again. The very
key I’m playing with now, right beneath his nose.
A few minutes later, the
train is slowing again, just another station. My stop. My battered Mini waits
for me.
Silently, I get
to my feet.
“Is this you
then?” he asks. “Bit out of the way, isn’t it? Then, we’ve all got to get off
somewhere, haven’t we?” He holds up a chubby hand. “Well, it was a pleasure to
pass some time with you…” Creases in his shiny brow, an “isn’t life funny”
smile. “You never told me your name.”
I look at the
hand, and directly into his beady, grey eyes. For the briefest moment there’s
an involuntary flinch – of recognition? Does he see Alice’s eyes? I hope so.
And over my
shoulder, above the juddering as the train draws to a stop, I say, “No, I
didn’t, did I?”
©2009 Adam Millward
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