The Road Ahead

TW: mentions a child’s death.

This isn’t happening to me! When I’m not pacing the waiting room, I’m riveted to the flashing text highlighted in yellow against the black background. If I carry on like this, I’ll get a crick in my neck. The station notice board, technically known as the split-flap display, alerts me the 7:54 train, final destination Kings Cross, has been cancelled due to shortage of train crew. Can you please explain why there’s not enough train crew? Did somebody decide to pull a sickie at the last minute? Just my luck that the only train not running on time out of a list of twenty-four, happens to be mine! Now I wish I’d listened to my neighbour’s advice about setting off extra early to allow for setbacks. 

Shirley, who I enjoy comparing notes and occasional cuttings with over the garden fence, regularly commutes to London. Less so since Covid struck, and her company agreed she could spend at least two days a week working from home. In general, I enjoy our chats about the state of the roses and the weather’s changeable nature – that is unless she’s ranting on about signal failures, trespassers on the track, potential train strikes, leaves on the line, or anything else about rail travel that happens to bug her. Infuriating though it must be, I find myself zoning out, but in future I will make more of an effort to listen. 

Spotting one of the station staff carrying a clipboard and heading my way, I call out, “Excuse me.” 

“Can I help you?” She turns to me, pleasantly professional in her smart red uniform. When I explain the cancellation of the 7.54 is a disaster because I’m on my way to an interview, she calmly informs me there’s another train due to arrive on platform one shortly and it will be leaving in 20 minutes. I check my phone hopefully. It’ll be tight, but there’s still a chance I’ll make it to my destination on time – providing I can get a taxi the other end rather than walk down from the station into town as I’d planned.

The next train draws into platform one. All ten carriages of it. After a minute or so, the signal on the door flashes green, and I step into an empty carriage and settle down at a four-seater with a table. Waiting for the train to set off, my mood lightens. People are coming and going from the other side of the fence where the station car park is situated. I try not to look at the couple glued together on the platform so clearly in the first flush of love. It’s been a long time since anything like that happened with my wife, but then we’ve been married for over thirty years. But it’s not just that. For the past eighteen months, the distance between us has widened until it feels like she can hardly bear to be in the same room as me. It’s one of the reasons I need to do this. 

If I can just make one small change…

I don’t need a therapist to tell me that.

But then just as I’ve settled down, a young girl with auburn hair and translucent skin steps out of a car with her mother and I’m back there again. My heart races and it feels like all the air has been sucked out of my lungs. She’s probably only a year or two older than my girl – that is how I’ve come to think of Penny – that was her name – and I’m in the tumult of another flashback. 

The same thing happens most nights when I’m dreaming. Not wanting to disturb my wife with my problems I’ve taken to sleeping in the spare room. The dream revolves around a small figure with golden hair bolting out of the bushes along a country road, pigtails flying. For a second she’s running along the tarmac, excited to greet her mother who holds out her arms on the other side of the road. Then there’s a flash of understanding as her eyes meet mine – as if she knows the eyes belonging to the stranger at the wheel will be the last ones she’ll see. At least in this life. I hear it in the piercing scream, the sickening squeal of brakes, smell it in the rubber of overheated tires. Mostly I hear it in the haunting sound of a mother’s high-pitched cries. Later on, waiting in a daze for the ambulance and police to turn up, the mother has become a crouched gargoyle of anguish helplessly clasping her broken daughter. Knowing she’s no longer there but rocking her anyway.

That’s when I wake up shivering uncontrollably.

An angel with her whole life ahead of her.

She could have been my daughter.

Why did it have to happen?

**

I’m not saying life was perfect before this, but it had a certain flow. Now it exists in a series of staccato jabs and stilted conversations. 

Every so often my wife will reach a point and say what she really thinks. The other day she told me she was sick of living this way. “It wasn’t your fault. I don’t know why you have to keep blaming yourself.” I didn’t reply because I didn’t want to admit the truth. I wanted to say, “You try looking into the emptiness of those parent’s eyes.” Then she came up with her favourite mantra. “You should get help. You must do something!”

Why can’t she understand I need to punish myself? I may have been exonerated in the eyes of the law, but in my own mind I’m guilty as hell. Expiation is to be found in suffering. Finding absolution would be like getting off free. As if Penny’s life didn’t matter.

***

You see before that fateful day, bad things only happened to other people. Some might say we’d led a charmed life. There’d been no serious family illnesses; we’d both been able to retire from decent jobs on comfortable pensions; our daughter was doing well, and we had a network of friends. I now see how cosseted we were. Insured against everything except the unexpected. 

Now when my wife says, “I’m going shopping,” or “I’m meeting a friend at the health club,” it’s a statement of intent. Before leaving the house, her mouth perfunctorily brushes my cheek and when she closes the door, only her perfume lingers. The garage door scrapes open, and I try not to wince as the car drives away.

Relieved to catch a break from her disappointment, I return to my crossword. Burying myself in the distraction of piecing words together offers comfort, unlike books which I can no longer enjoy because I cannot concentrate on their message.

At times like this I long to talk to my daughter but she’s in Australia with a family of her own and Zoom doesn’t quite cut it.

Of course, my wife is right. Anyone can see I’ve got a large slice of PTSD. I should have offloaded on a therapist early on. Exorcised the demons before they took hold.

But that would have been too easy. 

She could have been my daughter.

***

Two weeks ago, my spirits lifted when I got an email offering me an interview for a job in a town twenty miles away. Only two stops down the line from my home station, Melton is doable even without a car. The only remaining department store in the town after Covid and online shopping took off and decimated the high street, they require a part-time accounts manager and I’m hoping my previous experience will fit the bill. I haven’t told my wife about the interview because I want to surprise her. I secretly relish the chance to return to work, albeit on a smaller scale. 

But first, I need to make a good impression and get there on time.

On the train, my breathing has steadied to a normal rhythm. I can do this. The electronic screen above the sliding door displays information on all the stations we’ll be passing through, including the one I need. But just as we’re about to head off, the driver announces there’s a problem: somebody has been sick and they are waiting for the station cleaners to come and clear it away. Hopefully it’ll be soon, but there will be a delay. Of all the times! Why couldn’t they go and throw up somewhere else? My heart sinks into my shoes as my hopes are dashed a second time. If this is the way it’s going to be, is there any point ringing to say I’ll be late?

I’m just about to give the job up as a lost cause and exit the train when there’s a jerk and the train crawls along the track like a three-toed sloth woken from its slumber.

**

Luckily there’s no traffic hold-ups in Melton, but by the time the taxi driver has dropped me off, I’m five minutes late and it’s starting to drizzle.

“Good luck mate,” he says as I hurriedly pay him.

I open my umbrella. “Thanks. I think I’m going to need it,” I say grimly.

I arrive at the reception desk breathlessly apologetic and now eight minutes late.  However the receptionist’s smile instantly puts me at ease. She guides me to a seating area in a corridor where I wait uncertainly.  

Five minutes later, she returns. “We’re running a bit later than expected. Can I get you a cup of tea or coffee?”

“Coffee please. I think I need it.”

“A difficult journey?”

“You could say that.”

“I’ve got a few minutes spare. Why don’t I join you?” she says.

“If, you’re sure. I wouldn’t want you getting into trouble on my account.”

“It’s fine. I’m due a break and they’re a pretty decent company to work for. I can hear the phone from here if I leave the door open – they’ll call me if they need me.”

I’m not sure why – maybe it’s because she reminds me of my daughter  – but over coffee I end up telling her about my problems getting here (no doubt an unwise move considering she’s likely to relay it back to the interview panel), but also about the accident that has blighted so many lives, my difficulties over driving, and how I need to keep busy and thought working part-time might help. 

“It must be really hard when something so awful happens,” she says. “So out of your control.”

“It was. It’s made me question everything. Could I have done anything differently? Was I driving too fast?”

“And were you?” 

“I was well within the speed limit.”

“So, it was a freak accident. There was nothing you could have done.”

“No.” I suddenly feel embarrassed to have revealed so much to someone I’ve never met before. I tell her she has a wise head on young shoulders.

“Have I?” It’s her turn to be embarrassed. “But going back to the job. As I said, they’re pretty good here. Once you’ve settled in – if you get the job I mean – maybe you could stay later and make up the time if your train gets delayed. There’s another part-time accountant who’s very nice and it is a job share so there might be room for flexibility.”

“I won’t go mentioning such difficulties in the interview. It’s hardly likely to impress them,” I say hurriedly.

“Not straight away, obviously,” she laughs. “And I probably shouldn’t say this, but you seem like the kind of person that would fit in well here. There’s a real family atmosphere about the place. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”

***

Head held high, I leave the interview knowing I’ve given it my best shot. No one can ask more than that.

On the street, I clutch my umbrella, but the rain has stopped. I decide to wander round the town, pop in the shops and grab a bite to eat at one of the town’s more tempting cafes. For the first time since the accident, I’m feeling positive about the future. 

On reaching home, I slide open the garage door. Thanks to my wife’s loving care, the car’s bodywork is gleaming. My hand tentatively wanders to the door handle, and I wonder what it would be like to sit in the passenger seat again. Even if I don’t get the job, it would be good to be able to get to other interviews and not have to rely on the vagaries of public transport. I’m still unsure about the car, but there’s no harm in trying the seat – for old time’s sake. I open the door, turn on the ignition, press the clutch, and listen to the engine’s familiar rumble. 

Just to see what it feels like.