Going back

Richard shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, and
checked his watch again. He picked up his bag and shuffled over to the
chocolate machine halfway up the platform, rooting around in his pocket
for the change he'd accumulated over the course of the day. He might as
well do something with his time. Patiently, he picked the coppers out
of the handful of change, and began feeding the machine. One after the
other, he slid the coins into the machine, only to hear the apologetic
clatter of them being rejected. He tried again, pushing them in with
greater emphasis. This time, a couple lodged themselves in the gullet
of the machine, but the return slot was again full. It obviously wasn't
meant to happen. He plodded back to the edge of the platform and took
up his position, peering into the distance and checking his watch
again. He'd forgotten how bad the connections were around here. It was
nearly half an hour since the London train had spat him out, and the
cold was beginning to get boring.

A bell rang somewhere on the station, and a man in a fluorescent vest
reluctantly stirred himself from his television to go and wave a torch
at the oncoming train. Richard shuffled forward pointlessly, making
sure he was poised and ready to board the train as soon as it pulled
up. He stared blankly in at the windows, watching the flickering frames
losing momentum. A face rolled by, oblivious to the world outside, and
stopped. A flash of horror exploded in his belly. He felt sick. It was
Clare. How long had it been? He had managed to stop thinking about her
a while ago. He looked again, but he wasn't sure. It did look like her,
but his memory had been clouded by the last four years, and there was
no way of knowing how much she might have changed. He boarded the train
and looked again. A greeting rose up towards his mouth, but stalled at
the top of his throat. The doubt was just strong enough to halt him. He
installed himself in a seat nearby, and tried to dispel the quizzical
frown that had parked itself on him.

As the train jiggled around, he sneaked the occasional glance up. No,
it wasn't her. Surely she would have said something, or at least given
him a second look. She would have at least given some flicker of
recognition, some brief look of discomfort. Wouldn't she? Had he
managed to fuck things up so badly that she wasn't even the slightest
bit curious about him four years down the line? He gave her the benefit
of doubt. He had probably changed too.

How could he not be sure if it was her? It hadn't been that long ago
that she was everything to him. She'd been a permanent fixture inside
his head, or so it had seemed. He would have done anything for her, or
at least that's what he told himself at the time. He laughed at himself
for it now. How could he have possibly have cared as much as that about
somebody? He was old enough to know better now. Sometimes it was hard
to believe that he was the same person. Since her, he had never been
satisfied with any of the girls he'd been with. None of them had quite
matched up. He knew it wasn't right for him to compare them, and he
didn't mean to do it, but they just hadn't been, well, her. There was
always a temporary feeling about them, a knowledge of the terrible
imperfection of it all.

There were only three or four other passengers on board the train, and
the guard couldn't be bothered to come round to check the tickets. At
this time of the evening, it just wasn't worth the hassle. As the train
slowed, he could feel the terrible weight of his history lowering
itself onto his shoulders again. With the final, awful, screech of the
brakes, he lurched forward under the tawdry G-forces. He could almost
see the ghosts of the town rising up like a mist to surround him and
claim him as one of their own. It was small enough that he was bound to
bump into someone he knew sooner or later. Shuffling towards the door,
he tried not to recognise the faces ahead of him. Some things never
changed. He hadn't been back in nearly two years, but the place
retained its dreary grey familiarity. Going back was an ordeal that
occasionally he couldn't avoid having to endure. The sight of his
parents filled him with an unpleasant mixture of dread and pity, guilt
and loathing, love and disgust. He didn't like the person he became
when he was around them. They were becoming frail, and he hated to see
it.

A taxi waited forlornly at the rank outside the station, the driver
briefly looking up from his crossword as the passengers dripped off the
train. Richard lowered his head and set off for home, the route etched
into his memory only too well. At the roundabout, the other passengers
went their separate ways, striding purposefully into the gloom.
Not-Clare walked along the main road, a few yards ahead of him. The
rain was settling into an annoyingly feeble drizzle, a steady net
curtain of something only slightly more than mist. It wasn't enough to
make the air feel fresh, but as he walked home in the pale orange
underglow he heard occasional crunchings beneath his feet. The moisture
and darkness were enticing the snails out into the open, tempting them
to mount a takeover bid on the pavements. The town had always had a
half-day closing feel to it at the best of times, but now the place
seemed even gloomier than ever. As his reflection prowled through
darkened shops, a stream of memories kept coming back at him, making
him uncomfortable. Every paving slab, every doorway, every street light
called out to him, taunting him with reminders of his shabby past,
prodding him towards guilty recollections of misdeeds that weren't
quite juicy enough to be sordid. He was quickly realising again why
he'd been so keen to get out of the place.

The girl who probably wasn't Clare was just in front of him. She looked
back over her shoulder, and there was an eye contact, a faint shift as
she asked herself the question he'd been asking himself for the last
half hour. The certainty was swelling up like a bruise now. Still he
held back, though. Having not said anything at first, he felt too
awkward to break the silence now. Besides, if it was her, he wasn't
sure what he could say. He wasn't even sure that he wanted to talk to
her. What was there to say? "How have you been?" "What have you been up
to for the last four years?" "Forgotten me yet?" He felt his chest
beginning to tighten with a blend of embarrassment and anger as he
recalled the last time he'd seen her. He'd said some pretty stupid
things. Come to think of it, the whole of their relationship consisted
mainly of him saying stupid things.

They carried on walking, the distance unchanging, as if they were
joined and separated by a metal bar. He wasn't following her, but for
some reason he was going in the same direction as her. She seemed to be
quickening her pace. He couldn't believe this. How dare she ignore him
like this? What had he done to deserve this treatment? As he passed the
house where his friend Mark used to live, he looked up as the street
light jolted off, and the usual paranoid thoughts came to him to be
dismissed.

She came to a house, fumbled with her keys, not looking back. He hung
back a little, slipping into the darkness. She managed to get the door
open and went inside. He heard a man's voice calling to her. He looked
up at the window. He could see an upstairs light flicking on, two
shapes moving closer together.

He leaned against the lamp post and wondered what he was going to do.
In his mind he walked over and rang the doorbell, she came downstairs,
and she told him that this new lover would never match up to the memory
of him. It wasn't that he wanted her back. The knowledge that she could
be happy without him stung him. He wanted to hear how miserable her
life had become since splitting up with him. He wanted to be told that
he meant something. He wanted to have made a dent on her life. He
shifted his weight slightly, thought about going over there, thought
about causing a scene, thought about keeping hold of his dignity. He
told himself to get a grip. The light flicked off, and he turned round
and walked away into the rain that was falling on other people's
lives.