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..TRAIN GHOST

	- 1 - Len was travelling home from visiting his girlfriend, Jill. This was the late eighties when he was without a car. Jill lived in Alton, some 70 miles away. Len would catch a train from near his home at Collington, which half-an-hour later would shuttle out and back on a branch-line to Eastbourne; then when it eventually arrived at Gatwick he’d change there for Guildford, at Guildford he’d change for Aldershot, and at Aldershot he’d finally change for Alton. For the home journey he’d aim to catch the one but last train; if a connection was late he might be delayed by as much as an hour. More often, though, he’d find himself rushing for that last one. In those days, because of night electrical maintenance, late trains were diesels. On the Reading to Gatwick line, some of these were so antiquated and rickety, with deafening engines, vibrating panels, loose windows and jittering wheels, that Len used to wonder how it could ever reach Gatwick without breaking down, leaping the tracks or even disintegrating. Uneven rails, warped woodwork, loose hinges, cracks around external doors through which a gale would blow, undamped internal doors that swung and banged constantly… all these added to the disturbing nature of that journey. And some of the internal doors were so narrow that it was a squeeze even for a scrawny specimen like Len. Coasting presented yet another unsettling feature: following a prolonged strenuous growl from the engine - during which the whole train would shudder - everything would suddenly relax. But with the engine silent, the jolting and swaying and the whirring of the wheels would be oddly accentuated, and one would wonder if the power unit had broken away to leave the carriages floating free like a runaway train, out of control. On these journeys, Len frequently wondered whether instead of cursing his situation he ought to be enjoying the quaintness of it, as enthusiasts did on old steam locomotives that operated at holiday times. Years earlier he had travelled on steam trains, and had been lulled by the rhythm of the wheels clicking over unwelded track, and almost mesmerized by the slow up-down motion of telephone wires which gave the impression of bouncing sharply across the pole tops. But nostalgia had never gripped him. He was inclined to dismiss such wistfulness as a quirk of feeble-minded eccentrics who yearned for a past that supposedly contained none of the complexities and demands that modern life subjected them to. Inwardly, and quite irrationally, Len blamed them for the present state of the train and the line. Though bemused at the thought, he reasoned that some day people might actually clamour for this, and even fork out a day’s pay for a mere ten minutes of the trauma - which seemed to him more suited to a theme park than an authentic public service. And he constantly looked forward to when both the line and the trains might be updated. Although only a short run, this journey seemed interminable. Attempting a positive approach, he often reflected that as every second passed, at least he was a second nearer home. Then, typically, the thought would creep into his head that it also meant he was a second closer to death. And he would recall the years he had wasted pottering and dithering, doing what he was told instead of what he would have liked. Notions like this would send him into a trance of dreamy despondency, which usually consumed a respectable portion of journey time. And suddenly he would emerge exhausted but relieved, often just as Horley - the last station before Gatwick - flashed past. Another trick he developed that reduced the apparent journey time was largely involuntary. The numerous track misalignments would not merely nudge the carriage to one side or the other, but often did so with startling violence. And by virtue of repeating the trip so often, the unique pattern of these and countless minor jolts had become imprinted on Len’s mind. The more salient the imperfections, the more easily he could foresee them; and by concentrating hard, many more were predictable. The ones he failed to anticipate would register as they occurred, when he would recognise them as precisely as he might the words of a half-familiar poem. In the event of a change, he would know instantly. But except that the jolts became more severe over the months, there never was any change – until that fateful night.   - 2 - It was mid December. As usual, he was late leaving Jill, and it was the last train – the 23.20. Between connections he had half-an-hour to wander the deserted streets and alleys of Guildford to keep his feet from freezing. As a rule, he’d wander out at every change: first into the streets of Aldershot, then Guildford, then the shops at Gatwick airport where he sometimes bought a book. That night in Guildford, a fine thick drizzle blew in the streets. The dreariness was as penetrating as the dampness, and the hazy glow from streetlamps only added to the cold drab gloom. There was not a soul anywhere; only an ominous silence. In spite of this, as usual after a day with Jill, he was in good spirits– or would have been but for one small regret. Jill was a Quaker, and though of a stubborn, determined nature she was never anything but calm and good humoured, consistently thoughtful and light-hearted; qualities Len found infused both warmth and contentment. But although her enviable temperament was generally catching, there were occasions when Len was unable to acquiesce. He was still partly tied to a lingering past that his association with Jill had largely dispelled. Already, a year had passed since she had rescued him from a life of deception and futility. But he’d slipped back, unable to master himself and break completely from those times. The worst of it was that this time he could not afford to fail. He had been warned that his life was on the line: the stress that had plunged him into a state of nervous decline had nearly destroyed him – until, by some fluke, Jill had appeared. When he returned half drenched to the dimly lit station, it was as deserted as the streets, and no less drab. Deep shadows hid every corner. He stood on the edge of the platform and gazed in the Reading direction. The tracks dissolved into a misty darkness. For a believer, spooks would have lurked everywhere. Luckily for Len, such emanations had never troubled him: a guarded childlike optimism protected him from irrational fears, but the place exuded an uncanny eeriness all the same, as though hinting that he might perhaps be losing his grip, the edge of his superstitious indifference wearing ominously thin. He watched an oblivious rat emerge from the darkness, move in a zigzag keeping close to the wall of a locked daytime waiting room, then vanish into another shadow at the back of the platform. At last, the Gatwick diesel clattered in ten minutes late. He climbed on near the middle, just to the front of the guards’ section; this, with the addition of a small private recess for the guard, comprised a narrow corridor beside a caged luggage store that was always empty and closed. Len was the only person there, and soon after the train started he stood up and wandered towards the front. Generally, he favoured sitting alone, even to have a whole carriage to himself. With this train, on the other hand, he preferred people around. But rarely more than a handful of passengers travelled on this late train, and a sense of eerie isolation pervaded. If there were others in the carriage, they would usually appear tense and uneasy as though holding their psychological breath, and longing, like Len, to reach their destination. Most tried feigning indifference, as though the slightest appearance or suggestion of trepidation was to be avoided at all costs; but they always failed, or so Len surmised as he watched them surreptitiously from an inconspicuous position. Studying people in this way helped distract him from the journey. What was their occupation, their mood, character… destiny? What lurid secrets did they harbour? What dubious activities were they engaged in? All manner of obscure and fantastic questions used to occur to him, quite apart from their discomfiture with the train. Those he deduced to be least affected, were undoubtedly (he preferred to assume) preoccupied with some underhand scheming or other. Were they murderers, burglars or politicians? He would conjure all manner of weird involvements for these unwitting individuals – based partly on their appearance and partly on the supposition that of all possibilities the truth was bound to be the strangest and least predictable… And since his own past was not entirely virtuous he was able to imagine a broad spectrum of possible scenarios. But that night there was no-one. Soon he reached the driver’s cab, which was behind a door in the centre of a blank wall of wood panelling labelled ‘Authorised Personnel Only’. He turned and went back through the train, past where he’d got on, and along the section with the absurdly narrow corridor, where he expected to nod ‘hello’ to the elderly guard who usually sat in his cubby-hole reading a newspaper. Instead, it was a young guy with long ginger hair, reading a paperback. He seemed to ignore Len as he passed and continued along beside the dusty caged luggage area and into the next carriage. Still no-one. Now the train was into open countryside. Through the windows, spattered with a myriad of raindrops that hovered and danced across the glass, occasional points of light flickered in the distance. At least the mist had cleared, he thought. Then, with a shattering roar, the engine slammed into action again. Now, along with the reverberation of the struggling mechanism came again the ominous rattling of windows and haphazard swinging of doors. Holding a seat-top and willing the vibration to cease, Len took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. He reflected that at least his circumstances were more favourable than for the driver and guard who were forced daily over and over to endure the nightmare. As he moved on, still there was no-one. Nor in the next carriage. At this point, the train seemed to be moving abnormally fast. Then abruptly the engine cut and the hollow echo of the wheels, randomly increasing and decreasing in pitch, along with the clattering and jerking, predominated excessively in his ears and thoughts, almost sending him into a trance. The train seemed to be drifting now, as though down an incline, dipping and rising, dipping more, swaying, jerking, gale blowing, doors swinging. Gripping opposite seat-tops in turn, Len veered through into the last carriage, his erratic zigzag route reminding him of the oblivious station rat. He nodded to himself in recognition of an unlikely sequence of lurches, first to the left, then to the right, then left, left again, sharply right… all in quick succession and building as if towards a resonance that he considered might ripple through the train and send it crashing clear of the track. Luckily, the misalignments moderated, and the resonance he feared was not reached. Sleepy, as he usually was by now, that section always brought him awake. With a sudden judder, the engine - so soon? - burst into life again, and the jerking and swaying, which was already exaggerated, only seemed to worsen. At this rate, and accelerating - he reasoned - the instability could become fatal after all. He’d never known the train go so fast – or so it seemed, for there was no way of judging its true speed. The roughest section, he recalled, was just ahead, and he paused. At this stage he was about half-way along the carriage, approaching what should have been another blank wall of panelling at the rear of the train. But, whether through tiredness or lack of observation, he failed to notice, and had no way afterwards of knowing for sure whether it had been the end of the train or merely the end of the carriage - because all at once a terrific lurch threw him off balance. From beneath the floor came a deafening ‘crack’. The lights went out instantly. The engine cut. Something calamitous has happened, he thought. Yet all was suddenly calm. The lurch had been a new one; he didn’t recognise it, and there for a moment he lay, mildly stunned and in total darkness; not a glimmer from anywhere. - 3 - Dazed, he pulled himself upright. He could see nothing; not even a point of light through the windows. Then a mottled indeterminate glow swirled around near the end of the carriage. As though triggered by the glow, the carriage lights flickered faintly and by the time he’d reoriented himself they were on, but dim. And now, inexplicably, he found himself standing against the panelling at the end of the carriage where the glow had appeared, several metres from where he had fallen. He looked back in disbelief. He tried to shake off the stunned sensation caused by his fall, and for the first time noticed that the lurching and jerking had completely stopped. “New track,” he thought, “from that big lurch.” The noise from the wheels was now a muted hum, everything steady, everything calm. But although the engine remained silent, he had the impression that the train was now moving faster than before. And again, hard as he stared through the windows on either side, he could see nothing but blackness. Tedium almost persuaded him to slump into a seat. His head seemed to swirl inside, and he was unsure whether he was beginning to hallucinate. With the vividness of a lucid dream he imagined that instead of rails the train ran on a vast sheet of steel stretching in every direction downwards into infinity; and that the train, together with him, the guard and its hapless driver, hurtled perilously towards some mysterious oblivion. He rubbed his eyes then stared at the panelling against which he leaned almost drunkenly. In contrast to what he recalled, rather than in the centre the door was on the left, as if leading to another guards’ section. He blinked several times, wondering if his fall had confused his bearings, since with no view of the outside, there was no clear way of knowing the direction of travel. Had he somehow turned around and moved back to where he had entered the carriage? But the guards’ section he had passed through earlier had been several carriages back, and never had he found more than one of them in a train. Perplexed, he reached for the door handle. At first, it wouldn’t shift. Through the smoky glass panel, which he wiped with the ball of his hand, he could make-out another of those gloomy corridors. He released the handle, and enigmatically the door swung open exposing him to a waft of cold musty air. On impulse he drew back, but something he couldn’t understand compelled him to continue. He corrected his posture assertively and stepped in. As he entered, a peculiar sensation like passing through a weak electric field, sent him momentarily rigid. His hair seemed to rise all over his body. Was it fear, or merely the cold? It occurred to him that the power could be on - but a diesel train would have no means to pick it up, and as the sensation died he dismissed the effect as coldness and static. Scrutinising the corridor now, he hesitated again. The light was even dimmer than the carriage and looked almost monochrome – as things always do in low light. But as before, his curiosity prevailed, and he moved tentatively forward into the ice-cold gloom. “Heating failure.” he muttered, and with a shiver continued through to the door at the far end, and into the open carriage. It was even colder here. The air felt thick and oily and was horribly stale but did not smell of smoke. A peculiar haze seemed to embrace everything. Suddenly he noticed halfway down the carriage a girl facing him. Her hands covered her face and she was hunched tight against the panelling. She was perhaps 16 years old and looked wan and pale and seemed to be staring at him between her fingers, but he couldn’t be sure. There was something demonic about her, something wild and angry. He shivered again and began to retreat when the girl emitted a muffled whimper. He turned back immediately. Had he imagined it? He examined her more closely now. She wore an open dark anorak which was pulled halfway down her back, and beneath it a grey T-shirt, torn in several places and streaked with thin dark lines and spots. The words ‘PARALLEL WORLD’ showed on the front. A ripped shoulder-bag lay beside her on the seat, and her dishevelled hair shimmered portentously in the dim light. Her face, what could be seen of it, was blank and appeared small against her body. Len returned his attention to the door. For a moment he wondered if he would pass-out, and he closed his eyes. He knew he had to get back – and quickly – if only for air to breath. He glanced again at the girl. It seemed to him that he knew her; a friend of a friend; a neighbour’s daughter; a shop assistant. She rocked gently, then suddenly fell back and removed her hands. He gasped. A nervous tightness gripped his body. She was wall-eyed – totally blind. Her face was covered in gashes – or was it all some hideous prank: make-up, a Halloween mask? Or could it truly have been the result of some terrible accident? With revulsion, he turned back to the door. In alarm and horror, he saw it fading away. He tried to move towards it. But it was like walking through treacle. With enormous force and using the seats to pull himself - and taking, so it seemed to him, an interminable length of time - he forced his way to the oddly indeterminate door. Now, with all his effort, he lunged at the barely visible opening. He was through. Somehow, he’d made it and was in the corridor. For several minutes, he lay there exhausted and petrified. Then he tried to get up and move forward. But the drag seemed even worse than before. He remained on the floor, and grappled with anything he could find, a ledge or batten, to pull himself back towards the entrance. After some minutes of frenzied, arduous kicking and pulling, he was within reach of the door handle. In a final desperate attempt to escape whatever was dragging him back, he leaped at it, hurling himself upwards in opposition to the seemingly enormous weight of his body. But it was beyond his reach, and he fell. He kept falling, and falling and tumbling in a great expanse of blackness. He did not hit the floor. It was like being weightless and floating in space. And everything became calm and peaceful and he lay on his back falling slowly though a strange black silent void; falling and falling. The next thing he felt was a flat support move gently up against his back and begin lifting him upwards, softly at first then the pressure increasing to normal gravity; and then noises, voices, and gradually a diffused glow of yellow light. The voices were saying: ‘What happened?’; ‘Is he alright?’; ‘Move back, give the guy some air.’ That was when the yellow light came into focus. It was the carriage roof. And there was the guard, minus his paperback, standing over him with several people around. He tried to stand, when a couple of hands took his arms and helped him onto a seat. ‘Thank goodness he’s all right.’ said an old woman in a fur coat pulling a huge suitcase on wheels who then vanished through the carriage door onto what Len could now see was the well-lit Gatwick station platform. ‘What happened?’ someone said again. Len said, ‘Yeah, what happened?’ Little stars like points of tinsel were flickering across his eyes. And the guard said, ‘I don’t know, mate. Maybe you fainted, maybe you fell when the train lurched. Or maybe you had some kind of a nervous attack. You were shaking badly before you came to just now. And you looked pretty scared.’ ‘Scared?’ Len repeated, staring at him through the diminishing tinsel and trying to recall his ordeal. Then added, ‘Yeah, I think I was… but why?’ ‘You were trying to grab something, reaching into the air, making grasping movements. Fierce ones too.’ Then a couple of middle-aged women who said they’d been in the adjacent carriage and had found him and alerted the guard, took him by his arms out of the train and up the lift to the airport concourse where they sat him in a small open café area and bought him a coffee that tasted like earth. They described what they had seen. Len, they said, had been flat on the floor up against the end of the rear carriage. Apparently unconscious, he was covered in sweat, all bubbling on his forehead and running down his face – though the train had not been exactly warm, they pointedly added. When the guard appeared, they told him, he had begun to come round and reach out wildly. Len tiredly explained that he had to catch a connection shortly. And the women said they must check-in for their flight to Jakarta. An image formed in Len’s mind of a Buddhist temple in Java that Jill had once visited and had that very day shown him a photo of. Then he mooched sleepily down to the platform for the Collington train, due in ten minutes. Usually at this point he would wander up and down the forward portion of the platform, or stand beyond the roof in the open. But drizzle was falling, and his ordeal had left him unsteady. He flopped onto a Bench-seat near the back of the platform and closed his eyes. He thought of Jakarta and other exotic destinations listed so alluringly on the airport monitors strung across the concourse ceiling. All those amazing locations, he thought, just a mere few hours away. Soon he heard the train approaching and he opened his eyes. A girl was hurrying down the steps and onto the platform, moving in his direction. She carried a dark anorak and a shoulder bag. But the T-shirt… ‘PARALLEL WORLD’ he read. Alarmed, he immediately stood up. The train was rushing in now, and was almost up to him. Suddenly he knew the girl was going too fast to stop. What did he feel, how could he have known? He leapt forward and went sprawling, but managed to catch the girl’s leg as he hit the ground. She overbalanced. There was nothing he could have done. He watched her plunge headfirst into the oncoming train. The horror. He cried out and looked away, clasping his hands to his face. Shortly, he heard the train squeal to a stop. Only then dare he look. He gazed along the platform, first one way, then the other. There was only him. Somehow, he had known he would be alone. Several passengers stepped off – a couple of them glanced fleetingly down at him, and continued. Everything was normal. He looked around in disbelief. Not a soul had seen. Now he heard again the running down the steps. He turned to see the ginger-haired guard. “You poor sod!” he called out, rushing over to help Len up, “Not your day, is it?” “The girl?” cried Len, gripping the guard’s wrist and pointing frantically, “She fell in front of the train? Tripped… It was my fault.” “Calm yourself, mate.” said the guard, having got Len up on his feet and now taking his arm, “You’ve had a bad turn.” “But the girl! The girl!” Len persisted. “So you saw her too?” He walked Len over to the train. “Too?” Len muttered, “What do you mean?” The guard opened a carriage door and ushered Len to enter. “I’d just get on the train mate if I were you, and forget about it.” Len glanced around the platform, then climbed tentatively in. “Take it easy.” The guard continued, “And believe me, you’ve had a bad experience. Get yourself home, and get a good night’s sleep, and lay-in tomorrow. Take the day off. That’s my advice, mate… Goodnight.” He slammed the door, and the train began to move. Len spent the journey to Collington in an abstracted stupor. The scene of the girl tripping played over and over in his head, then of her in the carriage ‘staring’ at him with her wall-eyes. The images were oddly familiar too, and he tried in vain to place them.   - 4 - The next day Len woke late. He tuned his radio to local news, then national. Nothing about a rail accident. Still feeling shaky, he decided to call an old friend who’d had some experience both in psychology and laying old ghosts to rest, as it were. Was he going nuts, or had he really seen what he thought? It had all been so lucid, so vivid. Yet he had been tired and irritable, as well as feeling weak and vulnerable. It was lunchtime when they met outside Cooden Beach pub. He sat gazing across the pebbles at the sea when Harry drove into the car park. A few minutes later they were at the same bench, quietly staring into their pints. “Makes a nice change this.” said Harry, “Beats the rowdy dive I normally get dragged to… But what’s the problem? I assume there is one.” “Sorry. Yeah. Been ages since…” “No prob, Len.” said Harry, blithely swilling his glass, “You’ll get to it again. Maybe this meeting’ll herald a restart?” “I dunno. Anyhow, it’s like this.” said Len, and launched into a detailed account of his entire experience on the train and at Gatwick station, ending: “And weirdest of all, there’s nothing about it in the news.” Harry sighed. “That’s some little tale. No chance you dreamt the first bit last night in bed, after the girl fell under the train?” “Positive.” snapped Len, a touch of irritation in his voice. “Or thought you’d experienced the episode on the first train, when in fact you dreamt it there.” Harry persisted. “No way.” Len shook his head vigorously. “You see,” Harry continued, “if she fell under the train, and then you saw the ghost, well, that would make more sense, wouldn’t it?” “Certainly.” said Len, “But I didn’t. And how can I be sure it was a ghost and not someone fooling around?” “Were you invited or persuaded to enter that offending last carriage?” “Absolutely not. I just was curious.” “What did you do at Jill’s? How did you spend the day?” After querying the relevance of this, Len fumbled through a lot of rigmarole about walking in woods and fields, laughing at a blackbird attacking a squirrel, and various other mundane niceties. “You’re hiding something.” said Harry, at last, “You didn’t have a row by any chance?” “What makes you say that?” Len said, startled. “I confess, we did discuss morals at some point, but it wasn’t the first time, though I suppose I was a bit headstrong yesterday. But then she’s pretty headstrong herself. She said people should be left alone more, and I insisted that taking her attitude was a cop-out and not being moral at all.” “And that’s it?” said Harry. “Later, we shared a joint, looked through a few old photos of hers she’d wanted to show me for ages, and I calmed down a lot.” Harry looked out across the sea and stroked his chin. Several minutes elapsed, then he turned to Len and said, “You’ve really nothing at all to worry about Len. Do you want me to explain the whole incident? I think you’ve told me everything I need to know.” “Go for it, please.” Said Len, “Though I can’t promise I’ll buy it.” “At least promise you’ll think about it.” “Sure, I’ll do that.” “OK,” began Harry, “this is the situation. One, you know ghosts don’t exist. Two, you know now that no-one fell under a train yesterday…” “It was early this morning.” Len corrected. “Don't be pedantic. Three, you know that even if one and two are wrong, you couldn’t have seen the ghost before the girl died.” “Logically...” Said Len hesitantly. “Did the girl resemble anyone you saw in the photos?” “Bloody hell!” cried Len, leaping up. “That’s it! They were pictures of her as a kid. But the T-shirt. She never wore a T-shirt like that.” “The T-shirt was your subconscious bringing her up to date. I’d suggest the epithet was symbolic of her moral position as envisioned by you.” “Impossible.” groaned Len, sitting again and looking distraught. “Absolutely impossible.” “And the entire hallucination,” Harry went on, ignoring Len’s dismissive response, “was probably too much cannabis in your joint.” “Nonsense.” said Len, staring sheepishly at the sand. Harry waited and swallowed the last of his pint. Eventually Len said, “But why? If what you say is true, why was it all so macabre, so gory?” “In a word,” said Harry, frowning, “Guilt!” “Guilt?” mimicked Len. “My mother told me the other day of a curious dream she had. She wanted to know what it meant. She dreamt a large vicious cat was biting her wrist. It was agony, she said, until she awoke. In fact she was quite shaken, and took a while to recover. Physically, of course, she was fine once she'd woken; no cat, no pain, nothing. I told her: ‘That’s the easiest one I’ve had all year.’ Know what it was?” “Go on.” said Harry, intrigued. “She’d been shooing the cats away to stop them coming after the birds. She’d got quite aggressive, even chucking things at them sometimes, perhaps excessively so. At least, her subconscious saw it as excessive, because clearly she felt inwardly guilty about it. Through the dream, her subconscious tells her to ease off.” Len gave Harry a sidelong glance then grinned. “Is it really that simple?” he said, “I still can’t believe it didn’t all actually happen.” “You were dead tired.” Said Harry, “And probably three-quarters stoned. You were disoriented by the rocking and noise of the train, flopped into a seat and fell asleep. Then you dreamt or hallucinated the entire episode. The train terminates at Gatwick, I believe?” Len nodded, “Someone, the guard at any rate, wasn’t going to leave you there to be shuttled out to a siding for the night. So you’re taken up across the bridge to the opposite platform where you’re left, maybe with a cheap coffee to help you recover. Then the guard returns to ensure you get your train. He pacifies you, answers your senseless mumblings, and shoves you on. And hey, you’re home ‘n dry. All you have is a little chip of guilt to deal with next time you meet Jill.” Len shook his head slowly, and Harry got up and went to fetch a couple more beers. When he returned, Len said “Thanks Harry. I owe you. But if what you say is true, I owe Jill an apology, and after that I’ll feel OK, right?” “Maybe.” said Harry, “But guilt’s a funny thing. It affects almost everyone, yet hardly anyone knows it. Life has a curious knack of presenting choices almost every minute of the day, and as often as not whatever choice you make lands you in trouble with your conscience. My Mum, for instance, protects the birds and feels guilt about the cats. If she did nothing, she might wake from a nightmare along the lines of Hitchcock’s ‘Birds’ film. You can feel guilt for throwing out good food that you let go off in the fridge or for polluting the air with your car… or even for not turning up at Amateur Dramatics for all of six months!” Len grinned, “I’ll be there Wednesday.” He said, nodding guiltily, “And glad of it. Really. What’re you working on now?” “Midsummer Night's Dream.” Said Harry. And together, they broke into laughter.   THE END