A man and a woman

He didn't have much choice about it. How much choice do we have in
anything we do? The fact was his mother had turned. She could no longer
care for herself. His mother needed putting away, the neighbour shouted
down the line. It was a bad line, full of other people's conversations
and the popping of rain. She had been out in the garden at four AM,
pruning the roses in her nightdress. Not pruning, but snapping the
heads off, cursing at them. He smiled. His mother has always been prone
to bouts of impulse driven frenzy. But assaulting the roses? The woman
he remembered would never do that. She had turned into the woman they
always feared she would. It was time. He had no choice. He had to go
back.

The train doors hiss apart, the noise of a tomb opening and he steps
onto the platform. Stale air. The same air he left years ago for the
freshness of the highlands. If a glass of London water has filtered
through nine people, a million lungs have smoke each sour mouthful of
air. Sucked into vents, conditioned, and squeezed onto the tube, how
long has this air been down here? It's been so long he needs a map, has
to trace his finger along the coloured lines on the wall, each circle a
memory jogger whispered under his breath, ghost stations. He feels like
a tourist, he is a tourist. Some of the lines are different and his
finger strays. He starts again. This time his finger meets another
finger, a perfect nail and a ring. The girl laughs.
'I do not know the best way.' The accent is indistinct, central to
eastern European. She wears fur. Warm but old, reminds him of the
Moscow painted by a cold war film. She has the darkest of eyes and the
thinnest of skin. He holds her gaze a moment too long, she blushes. She
takes his hand, her skin soft, places it back on a circle and a line.
'This is where we are,' she says. They trace their routes again and
come back to the same place. 'This is fate, we will meet again.'
'Race you,' she said.
Then she was gone, a cloud of fragrance, a tinge of tobacco. He turned
to find the exit and tripped. She had left her bag.

--This is work in progress. If you would like me to finish it, please
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