Interchange

This piece was short-listed for the Listowel Writers Week Bryan MacMahon Short Story Award in 2021 under the title ‘Sunday : October 31st

   Cillian almost didn’t notice the panicked boy running past him. The carriage was empty and he’d been lulled into a doze by the hypnotic swaying of the train as it barrelled through the night. At the patter of footsteps he looked up and saw the child frantically hitting the door open button to the next carriage. He glanced back at the empty seats and, finding no one else, turned back to the small figure.

   “Hey.”

   The child didn’t look round and the door began to open.

   “Hey little man. Are you OK?”

   This time the kid turned around. His cheeks were wet with tears and he was taking rapid, sobbing breaths. He was a stocky child with fine blonde hair and a ruddy face. At Cillian’s words he stopped and stared at him.

   “Are you lost?” 

   The child took a snotty sniff and nodded. 

   “Where’s your mam?”

   With this his face scrunched up and the stifled sobbing got louder.

   “Hey, hey! It’s OK, I can help you find her. She can’t be too far away.”

   That was all the child needed. He let out a keening wail. “Fantastic, well done,” Cillian thought to himself. He tucked his headphones away and stood up facing the child, trying to make sense of his stuttering speech.

   “She… she’s not on… the train.”

   “Look at me man, c’mere. Look. We’re gonna find your mam, OK? I promise. You understand?”

   The child nodded, his breathing slowly slightly.

   “Good man. Everything’s gonna be OK. Take a deep breath. Good. I’m gonna need you to tell me a few things so I can help get you back to your mam more quickly, OK?”

   Another nod.

   “Good lad. Now, where did you see her last?”

   “At the station.”

   “Great! That’s great, what happened then?”

   “I… I got on the train first but there were a lot of people and when I looked she was gone and the doors closed and…” The sniffling began again and Cillian quickly interrupted.

   “That’s fine man, it’s no problem. Don’t worry. How many times has the train stopped since you left your mam?”

  “Few…. few times…”

   “No problem. No problem…”

   Cillian considered their next move. He wasn’t particularly well-equipped to handle a panicking child. If anything the kid’s wailing was triggering his own anxiety but the carriage remained stubbornly empty of caring middle-aged women or empathetic rail staff to take the youngster off his hands. His thoughts were interrupted by an announcement. At the mention of the upcoming station’s name he laughed despite himself. His sniffling companion looked at him strangely.

    “Sorry, I just…  I really, really do not like this station. But that’s not your problem. Here’s what I think we should do; how about we get off here and wait for your mam?”

   He could sense the child’s discomfort but the train was already slowing. He sank down on his haunches until he was level with the kid.

   “Your parents probably told you never to go anywhere with strangers, right?”

   A nod.

   “That’s really good advice, they’re right. But we need to get you off the train otherwise your mam won’t be able to catch up with us. You understand?” Cillian pointed to the station they were pulling into. 

   “See that bench there, under the light? That’s where we’re going. You’re gonna sit down there and we’re gonna wait for your mam. We’re not going anywhere else. Right now your mam is getting out at every station and looking for you. Eventually she’ll reach this one. We just need to wait here for her a while. OK?”

   A long pause, then another nod, just as the doors opened. 

   “Good man. You’re being really brave. I’m gonna let you walk out first OK? Just to the bench. That sound all right?” Another nod. 

   The doors opened and they exited the train together. The child hopped up on the bench and stared straight ahead. Cillian stood several feet away as the train pulled off into the night. Silence returned. All around them train tracks and telephone wires stretched off into the inky darkness, gossamer shadows linking little oases of light. But right now it was just the two of them. The kid looked so small and vulnerable, sat alone under the harsh lights in that empty station. Cillian checked the time on his phone and cleared his throat before speaking.

   “Here, I’m gonna go get the security guard…”

   “No!” The panic returned to the child’s eyes.

   “I’ll just be a minute.”

   “No!” 

   Cillian looked at him for another moment and relented. “OK, I can hang out with you for a while I guess. But I’m gonna need to know your name.” There was a long pause before he replied.

   “…Robbie.”

   “Hi Robbie. I’m Cillian. What were you and your mam doing in London?”

   “Shopping.”

   “Shopping for what?”

   “My dad. It’s his birthday.”

   Cillian leaned back against a pillar and stared out into the dark. A chill wind blew across the platform.

   “That’s great. What did you get him?”

   “A t-shirt. With lights.”

   “No way! What kind of lights?”

   “Police car lights.” Robbie braced his hands flat against the bench and swung his legs lazily. “My dad’s a policeman.”

   “That’s very cool,” said Cillian. He did not think it was very cool. In fact he had a deep-seated dislike of all cops but he felt the kid had enough problems without putting that on him. “How old is your dad?”

   Robbie, after some fumbling, held up four fingers. “For-ty!”

   “That’s a big birthday! And how old are you Robbie?”

   “Nearly seven.”

   “Are you in school?”

   “Yeah”

   “Do you like it?”

   The swinging of Robbie’s legs slowed.

   “Not really. It’s boring.”

   “Don’t worry. It’ll get better.”

   Robbie lifted his head and looked directly at Cillian. “You don’t know that,” he announced decisively. Cillian stared at him surprised, then burst out laughing.

   “You’re absolutely right, I don’t know that. Nobody does. You’re a clever kid Robbie.”

   Robbie seemed to consider this. “How old are you?” he asked.

   Cillian pulled his collar tighter against the cold. “How old do you think I am?”

   Again Robbie counted on his fingers. Cillian’s brow furrowed as the digits continued to increase.

   “Fiv… fifty?” Robbie offered.

   “Jesus Christ kid! That’s it, you’re on your own,” said Cillian, clutching at his chest and pretending to stagger away. Robbie laughed. 

   “I’m thirty six, you bollocks.”

   “Your accent is funny.”

   “I’m Irish.”

   Robbie responded with the sage nod of a child who has been told a spectacularly useless piece of information that they neither sought out nor cared about. He stared out into the night again.

   “I like your shirt Robbie. You play Minecraft?” Cillian indicated the blocky creature on the kid’s t-shirt. 

   “Yeah”

   “Me too.”

   “No you don’t!” Robbie looked suspicious.

   Cillian pulled out his phone and sat perched on the edge of the bench. He held it out to show Robbie, whose eyes lit up. Cillian passed the phone over. “Have a look.” Robbie swiped across the phone screen with obvious glee. 

   “This is so cool… You must play a lot.”

   “Yeah, a bit. I’ve been gaming for a long time.”

   Robbie handed back the phone carefully. “Dad doesn’t like me playing games. He says they’re stupid.”

   “Well, your dad’s wrong.”

   “He makes me play rugby. I hate it.”

   Cillian looked at him, surprised at the hardness in Robbie’s voice. Before he could say anything he saw the kid sit bolt upright. A train was pulling into the station. Cillian tucked his phone away and stood up. The doors opened, spilling light onto the platform and revealing a group of raucously drunk university students in costume. Cillian looked up and down the platform but no one debarked. As the train pulled away he turned back to a deflated Robbie. 

   “Don’t worry. If she got out to look for you at the last station it’s gonna take her a little while longer to get here. She won’t abandon you.” Noting the concern on Robbie’s face Cillian searched for something else to say. 

   “Hey, why aren’t you wearing a Halloween costume? Shouldn’t you be in full Creeper getup?”

   Robbie shook his head. “Mum doesn’t like Halloween. We never do anything.”

   “Well your mum and me have that in common. I don’t like Halloween either.”

   They sat in silence again. What sounded like the muffled cries of far off mechanical creatures waded through the night air around them. Cillian looked over at the kid again. He couldn’t clearly remember being that age; in fact most of his childhood was a slightly unpleasant blur. He was sure he had t-shirts of beloved games, maybe even a story of losing his mum in a supermarket but he couldn’t bring any to mind. A few months before he had gone to his parents house and searched through boxes of childhood memorabilia; rocks, notes, drawings, photographs. Looking through them he had felt those memories at a distance, from behind a screen. They had a kind of hyperreality, like props from a movie set. He knew they represented things that had happened but he felt he didn’t know the child who had experienced them. Maybe that child wasn’t even him. Maybe it was Robbie. As if on cue, Robbie spoke up.

   “I’m thirsty.” 

   Cillian looked around. “There’s a vending machine over there. I could get you something.”

   “…my dad told me never to take things from strangers.”

   “Ah, more good advice from your parents. How about this; I can give you some coins, we’ll walk over there together and you can buy your own drink. Sound OK?”

   Robbie thought for a second then gave an enthusiastic nod. Cillian dropped some change into his hand and the kid immediately bolted deeper into the station.

   “Fu… Robbie!” Cillian ran after him. By the time he caught up Robbie was standing on his tiptoes in front of the machine and fully extended his arm to slide the coins into the slot. The clang of the can being dropped echoed through the station. He forced his tiny arm inside, withdrew his prize and stood sipping it.

   “This place is scary at night.” Robbie offered.

   “Yeah. Reckon we’re gonna run into any Minecraft monsters?”

   Robbie shook his head decisively. “If we do we can beat them.”

   “I like your confidence,” said Cillian, checking his phone.

   “Is that why you don’t like this place? Cause it’s scary?”

   “What’s that?”

   Robbie took another sip. “You said on the train that you don’t like this station. Is it because you’re scared of it?”

  “No, it’s not that. The reason I don’t like this station is because I have good memories here, not bad ones.”

   Robbie thought for a moment. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

   “Ha. I suppose not.”

   Robbie stared at him and repeated himself. “It doesn’t make sense. How can good memories make you hate a place?”

   Cillian looked at him and Robbie met his gaze unflinchingly. Somewhere off in the distance someone was hammering on an iron gate. He felt that same pounding in his chest, like unsettled stones shifting atop a steep slope. For a long time he watched them, wondering if the avalanche would come. When they settled Robbie’s eyes were still locked on his. There, in that circle of light in that empty station with that almost-unknown child, Cillian decided to let one of the pebbles tumble down the mountain. He took a deep breath.

   “A long time ago there was a girl I cared for very, very much,” he said. “We lived a long way apart from each other so I would come visit, as often as I could. I would take taxis and buses and planes and eventually a train which would drop me here, at this station. He pointed back to where they had been sitting. “She would wait for me at that bench.”

   Robbie looked at the bench. “Is she your girlfriend?”

   “She isn’t. And she wasn’t.”

   “Why not?”

   “Lots of reasons, Robbie.” He could see this wasn’t satisfying the child. The kid looked him dead in the eye and took a gulp of his drink. He made the action look judgemental, somehow. Cillian sighed.

   “There are lots of different ways two people can fit together. One of them is love, but… there are others. This girl wanted certain things from life and I wasn’t ready or able to give them to her, at least not back then. But someone else could, so they found a way to fit together instead. I didn’t do anything wrong.” He immediately wondered why he’d said that last sentence.

   “That’s stupid.” Robbie countered.

   “It is. But it’s also life. It’s hard to hold on to people. You’re lucky to have your mam out here, looking for you in the night. You’re lucky to have your dad giving you good advice. And your parents are lucky they were able to find each other and stay together long enough to have you.”

   Robbie digested this while sipping on his drink. 

   “Mum and Dad are always fighting.” Robbie said, matter of factly.

   “That’s what parents do. It’s normal.”

   “It’s so loud.” He had stopped drinking, and now a little emotion was creeping into his voice. “They say my name when they’re fighting sometimes. Dad says my fault they fight. Sometimes he’s nice but then he gets so angry at me…” He was speaking faster and tears were starting to well up in his eyes.

   “Listen.” Cillian took the drink out of Robbie’s hand. He crouched in front of him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Your dad is wrong. He’s wrong to say that to you and he’s wrong because it’s not your fault. Someday you’re gonna realise your parents aren’t perfect. Hopefully they’re going to do their best to take care of you and hopefully they’re going to do a good job but if they don’t you have to be ready to take care of yourself. Parents are people, and they can fail. You can’t depend on them. But you’re a smart kid. You can depend on yourself. You’ll be OK. Don’t let your dad’s problems affect you. That’s his shit. It’s nothing to do with you. Do you understand?”

   Robbie nodded, sniffling.

   “It’s his shit, not your shit. Say it back.”

   Robbie looked at him surprised. 

   “What is it?”

   Robbie thought carefully before he answered. “…his shit…”

   “What ISN’T it?”

   “My shit.” Robbie giggled as he said it. 

   “Good man. Remember that.”

   With that another train roared into the station. Cillian stood up, his hand still resting on Robbie’s shoulder. This time a few figures debarked. From their spot in the shadows by the machines they observed them one by one until Robbie excitedly pointed and exclaimed, ‘That’s my mum!’

   A slim brunette woman in a long dark coat was looking up and down the platform frantically. Even from this distance Cillian could make out her green eyes and the laughter lines beneath her worried expression. His mouth dropped open slightly.

   “That’s your mother?”

   “Yeah!” said Robbie. 

   “Of course it is…” Robbie started to move but Cillian was still staring paralysed at the figure on the platform. His hand tightened on the kid’s shoulder. Robbie struggled, before yelling. “Let go!”

   This snapped Cillian awake and he loosened his grip. He spoke quietly. “Robbie, is your dad’s name Jack?”

   “Yeah…” he answered distractedly, looking to his mother.

   “Ah.” Cillian finally tore his eyes away from the woman and looked back to Robbie, observing him as if for the first time. He gave a wan smile.  “You look like him.”

   Robbie looked at him confused for a moment before turning and dashing out across the platform. As he passed the bench the woman heard his echoing footsteps and turned to him, running and sweeping him up. Their muffled voices carried across the platform to where Cillian stood, half-hidden behind a pillar watching the reunion. As Robbie pointed back towards his spot he almost caught the woman’s eyes. Suddenly he realised they may seek him out to thank him and felt a nag of panic. He couldn’t imagine anything worse. Like it or not, this was his stop.

   He exited the station and wandered down a side street. In a harshly lit shop he bought a naggin of whiskey and re-entered the night, filled now with the loud washes of passing cars and busy bars. He let his feet guide him past old haunts and memory-filled places, rewalking and rewakening frozen parts of himself as the whiskey burned warmly in his gullet.

    Years later and while halfway down another bottle he’d tell a stranger about his theory; that the space in our hearts is curved just like the universe; you can feel like you’re moving in a straight line directly away from something only to find you’ve approached it again from another angle, that our lives are circles within circles and cycles within cycles, the same pains and disappointments echoing again and again underneath everything we do, like a discordant harmony that we try desperately to play along with. 

   He set off East in the crisp night air. After twenty minutes he reached the river and the silhouettes of the houseboats. Voices and sounds of partying reached him across the water. He sat on the steps of the overpass and lay back on his bag, lifting the bottle to his lips. Strains of an old song came back to him, something about a trapeze swinger. He lay there, caught halfway between then and now like a humming string, and let the memories batter him as the boats thudded against the banks below.