Kathleen sat on the train, waiting for it to depart from the station at Chesterfield. Staring not out of the window like you would think she was doing, but staring at her own blank face reflected back at her in the dark window. Her long black hair was tied very loosely back; her thin face looked pale and somewhat lifeless. She had changed so much over the last few years. The weight had fallen away from her quickly, she hadn’t had a holiday for years leaving her looking pale and thin, like she was constantly sad.
The train jerked and jolted into life she looked around at all the other passengers, each with their own story and unaware of the people around them and their stories. Kathleen liked to ponder what had brought each person on this train today. Where they were all going? What was each of them going to do today? Did anyone on this train suspect what she was going to do today? Some passengers read book or newspapers; some bobbed their heads to music. Several business men sat together, typing on laptops, arranging their lives on their high tech phones. One man appeared to be talking to himself,
“You’re such a fucking idiot! How did this happen? How much have we lost? That’s ridicules, you moron!” He turned his head and the headset could be seen protruding from his ear. Kathleen realised she had been staring at this man for several moments, it appeared he had noticed. Judging by the bewildered look on his face, she smiled sheepishly and looked away again.
The train had started to gather speed as it raced on to the next station, it was only a Two hour trip back to the nearest town to where Kathleen was born and raised after that 10 minute bus ride to a little village called Old Arley. Her mind raced in and out of memories, she hadn’t been back for around 4 years. Her racing thoughts landed on the last day she was in that village, when things had made a dramatic turn in her life.
A young Kathleen around 14 woke in her bed, feeling grumpy and still tired. She had barely slept the night before; an injury to her ankle had kept her awake tossing and turning for most of the night. Her mother, Angela, had brought her up a glass of water with 2 large dissolvable pain killers still fizzing in the bottom; she had winced and swallowed the ghastly mixture down. Finally then she slept, only to be awoken but a few hours later in an awful mood. She wasn’t sure what had woken her, but it had. The clock on the wall showed 8:10 but that couldn’t be right, why hadn’t her mother woken her for school? The bus picked her up at 8:10 at the very top of the village outside the only pub, The Wagon and Horses. She pulled herself from the warm bed,
“Mum!” she shouted, as she moved to the bathroom, She wasn’t in there. She pushed her mother’s bed room door open and peered in, the bed had been slept in but not made that was not like her mother. She ran downstairs, and looked round, no one there. Her mother’s Keys where in the door and the car on the drive, so where was she?
“Mum!” she shouted again, as she moved slowly up the stairs. She stepped into her mother’s room properly, and walked toward the bed. Kathleen could see two bare feet, then legs and then the rest of her mother’s motionless body came into site.
“Mum?” Kathleen said again hoarsely, she leant down to touch her mother’s arm and it was cold. Panic rose though every inch of the 14 year old Kathleen, she jumped away and ran back through the house. Kathleen ran from the house down the street to Graham’s house, her mother’s best friend. She pounded on the door for what felt like an eternity; finally through the patterned glass of the door she saw movement. It moved toward the door, the lock clicked and the door opened. Graham stood in his dressing gown, looking bemused at the panic stricken 14 year old.
“Kathleen what’s the matter”?
“Graham, I’m sorry its mum, something’s wrong. I found her this morning she’s not moving, please come quick!” Kathleen sputtered out her words quickly and they probably didn’t make much sense. Graham nodded and moved past her toward Kathleen and her mother’s house, running slightly. Graham and Kathleen ran into the house and up the stairs, He moved over to Angela and put two fingers on the side of her neck.
“Kathleen go downstairs and get me the phone.”
She sprinted from the room and grabbed the phone from downstairs and rushed back to Graham.
“Go down to your Granddad’s tell him to come up here quickly, okay?” Graham said in a soft voice that still sounded somewhat urgent. Kathleen nodded and ran down to her Granddad Malc’s house. She banged on the door until his wife Dot answered, looking just as bewildered as Graham had only a short time earlier.
“Is Granddad here? He needs to come quick its Mum!”
“Calm down Kathleen, what’s the matter? He’s gone up to the shop, what’s wrong?” She asked the fidgeting panting child.
“It’s Mum, something’s wrong, I think she fell. Grahams there now, he told me to fetch Granddad” She replied rather quickly and in a jumbled manner.
“All right, calm down I’m coming.”
Kathleen Ran down the drive and waited for Dot fidgeting cursing her to hurry, they started walking up the street quickly. In the distance sirens could be heard, Kathleen ran up the street as the ambulance turned on to their road. She stood outside their house flagging the screaming ambulance down, so they knew the house.
A man and a woman jumped out in paramedic uniforms and Kathleen quickly moved back to the house,
“This way, she’s in here”
They all moved into the house and Kathleen took the Paramedics upstairs, where her mother’s body lay motionless on the floor face up. Her face was pale and still and her lips had a gentle bluish tint to them.
“Go back downstairs Kathleen” Graham said looking up at the frightened child. She moved back downstairs slowly and shakily. Just as her Granddad got there Dot had called to fetch him, Kathleen sat on the arm of the sofa, feeling nervous, frightened and a million things all at once. Dot stood beside her and placed a comforting arm around her shoulder. After what felt like a life time Graham came down the stairs, the frightened girl sat as still as a rock. He placed his hands on her shoulders and took a breath,
“I’m so sorry Kathleen, she’s gone.” He said in a gentle and trembling voice. The 14 year old sat, still motionless frightened to breath. She sat waiting for the punch line for this horrid joke, after a moment she realised it wasn’t going to come.
Kathleen slipped out from the memories of all those years ago; as the train jerked into Nuneaton station she had reached her destination. She was back in the town she called home for several years; she walked from the train and out of the station. A warm smiling face greeted her, the smiling face of her step sister Mandy. Today 4 years after her mother’s death and funeral she was going to go visit the grave of her mother Angela Jayne Horton, a grave she hadn’t been brave or strong enough to visit.
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Submission Name: Trains
