The train stopped before I had time to decide whether to get off.
Outside the window, the woman with the suitcase stood beneath the station sign. She had not moved. The train doors opened, and passengers began to leave the carriage, passing on either side of me without looking in my direction.
I remained seated.
I had already escaped once that morning. I saw no reason to repeat the experience.
The woman lifted her suitcase and stepped aboard.
She walked down the aisle, stopped beside my seat, and looked at the catalogue lying opposite me.
“You found it,” she said.
“I didn't look for it.”
“That doesn't mean you didn't find it.”
She sat down.
Up close, she appeared older than the Eleanor who had accompanied me through the museum. There were faint lines around her eyes, and a strand of grey hair had escaped from beneath her hat. Yet her face was unmistakable.
“Which one are you?” I asked.
She smiled.
“Which one would you like me to be?”
“I'd like you to be the one who can explain what's happening.”
“Then I'm afraid you've chosen badly.”
She opened her suitcase and took out a folded sheet of paper. It was a railway ticket, worn at the edges and creased through the middle.
She placed it on the seat between us.
I recognised the destination immediately.
It was the station at which I had begun my journey.
“Where did you get that?”
“From the ticket office.”
“When?”
She looked at me.
“Before you arrived.”
I examined the ticket. It bore no passenger name, only a departure time and a platform number. The time was 10:42. The platform was seven.
On the reverse, someone had written:
The outward journey is the return journey, seen from the other side.
I handed it back.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you have been asking the wrong question.”
“Everyone seems to think that.”
“Perhaps everyone is right.”
She folded the ticket and put it away.
The train moved out of the station. Through the window, I watched the platform recede. The woman remained beside me, her suitcase on her knees, looking straight ahead.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the station.”
“Which station?”
“The one you left.”
“But I left it already.”
She nodded.
“That's why we're going there.”
I turned to the window. The landscape outside was unfamiliar. We passed a row of houses, then a stretch of woodland, then a succession of small stations with names I could not read. At each station the train slowed, but the doors did not open. The platforms seemed deserted.
After a while I noticed something odd about the scenery. The same house appeared beside the track at regular intervals. It was a small brick house with a blue door and a tree growing close to the front wall. Each time we passed it, the tree was slightly different. In one appearance it was a sapling; in another, a mature tree; in another, its branches were bare.
I watched for the house to appear again.
When it did, I saw a man standing at the window.
He was reading a book.
I leaned towards the glass.
The man raised his head.
It was the old man from the first train.
I turned to Eleanor, but she was looking out of the opposite window.
“Did you see him?”
“Who?”
“The man in the house.”
She shook her head.
I looked back.
The house had disappeared.
For several minutes neither of us spoke. Then Eleanor opened the catalogue.
“You should read this,” she said.
I was reluctant to touch it, but curiosity overcame my caution. I took the book and opened it at the first page.
The entry was brief.
The traveller boards a train, believing he has escaped the station. He meets a woman who tells him that he is returning to the place from which he departed.
I turned the page.
The traveller asks which station she means.
I turned another page.
The woman tells him that the question cannot be answered until he understands the relation between the two journeys.
I closed the catalogue.
“This is absurd.”
“Of course.”
“It's describing what we're doing.”
“Yes.”
“How can it know?”
Eleanor adjusted the collar of her coat.
“Perhaps it doesn't know. Perhaps you're doing what the book says because you've read it.”
“But I hadn't read it when I boarded the train.”
“Not this time.”
I stared at her.
She seemed to realise that she had said too much, because she closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“For making it harder.”
I wanted to ask her what she meant, but the train began to slow. Outside, a station came into view. Its platform was deserted, its signs faded, its clock stopped at ten minutes past ten.
The name above the platform entrance was the name of the station where I had begun my journey.
I stood up.
“We've arrived.”
Eleanor did not move.
“Have we?”
The train stopped. The doors opened.
I stepped onto the platform.
The air smelled of wet stone and coal smoke. At the far end stood the station entrance, with its ticket barriers and departure board. Everything was as I remembered it, except that the station seemed smaller. The roof was lower, the platforms shorter, and the buildings more closely packed together.
I looked at my watch.
10:02.
I walked towards the concourse.
The cleaner was mopping the floor beneath the departure board. The sleeping man occupied the bench. The ticket office was open, and a young woman with dark hair sat behind the counter.
I stopped.
I knew what she would say before I approached her.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Could you tell me how to get to Platform Seven?”
She looked up.
“Down the corridor.”
I felt a sudden, overwhelming weariness.
“I've been there.”
“Have you?”
“Yes. I've been to the museum, the library, the platform, and back here again. I've seen myself on a train. I've met a woman who seems to exist in several places at once. I've read a book that describes events before they happen.”
The clerk listened politely.
When I finished, she said, “Would you like a ticket?”
I stared at her.
“To where?”
She looked at the departure board.
“Wherever you're going.”
I told her I didn't know.
“Then perhaps you should wait until you do.”
She slid a ticket through the opening.
I looked down at it.
It bore my name, my destination, and a departure time of 10:42. Beneath the time, in small type, was the familiar notice:
VALID FOR RETURN JOURNEY ONLY.
I turned it over.
On the reverse was a line of handwriting.
You are now at the beginning of the story.
I looked up.
The clerk was watching me.
“Who wrote this?”
She shook her head.
“It was on the ticket when you arrived.”
“When I arrived where?”
She pointed towards the corridor.
I did not move.
“Is there a way out of this station?”
The clerk considered the question.
“Of course.”
“Where?”
“Through the exit.”
I looked towards the main doors. Beyond them lay the street, with its traffic lights, shops, and people going about their ordinary business. I could see a bus pulling away from the kerb. A man crossed the road carrying a newspaper. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
The world outside seemed impossibly ordinary.
I walked towards the doors.
At the threshold I stopped and looked back.
The clerk had returned to her work. The cleaner was mopping the floor. The sleeping man lay motionless on the bench.
I stepped outside.
The morning air was cool. I walked along the pavement, past the shops, until I reached a small café. I ordered coffee and sat by the window. For several minutes I did nothing but drink it and watch the traffic.
Nothing strange happened.
I began to feel foolish. Perhaps the whole experience had been a dream, or a sequence of half-remembered impressions stitched together by a tired mind. The catalogue might have been a real book, the museum a real museum, and the train an ordinary train. Perhaps I had simply become confused.
I finished my coffee and paid the bill.
Then I noticed the station across the road.
It was not the station I had left.
It was a miniature railway station, displayed inside a glass case in the window of an antique shop. The tiny platform was empty, except for a small figure standing beside a bench.
The figure wore a dark coat.
I moved closer to the glass.
The figure was holding a cup of coffee.
Behind it, at the end of the platform, stood a tiny station entrance. Above the entrance was a sign bearing the name of the station where I had begun my journey.
I stepped back.
Inside the miniature station, the figure raised its head.
I turned and walked away.
I had taken perhaps twenty steps when I realised that I had left the catalogue in the train.
I stopped.
I could not remember putting it down.
I could not remember leaving the train.
I could not remember whether I had ever left the station at all.
When I turned back, the antique shop was gone.
In its place stood a narrow doorway, above which was a sign:
PLATFORMS — ALL DEPARTURES.
I looked at my watch.
10:02.
From somewhere beyond the doorway came the sound of a train arriving.
I did not go inside.
Not immediately.
I stood on the pavement, watching the doorway, trying to decide whether I was afraid of what lay beyond it or of the possibility that I already knew.
Then I heard a woman's voice behind me.
“You're late,” she said.
I turned.
Eleanor stood beside the kerb, holding her suitcase.
“Late for what?” I asked.
She looked at the doorway.
“For the beginning.”
And for the first time, I wondered whether I had ever been travelling at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment