Night Train (Part 1)

I’ve been tinkering with this story for a few months now, pretty much since Liv and I made this same overnight journey from Madrid to Lisbon. It’s not quite finished yet, but as it’s already well over 2,000 words and heading rapidly for 3,000, I’ve decided to take a leaf out of Jayne Renault’s book and publish it in installments. I hope you enjoy Part 1…

Night Train

I fucked my boyfriend for the final time in a public toilet cubicle at Chamartin Station on the outskirts of Madrid. His cock was so hard that he made a curious, half-choked sobbing sound every time he pulled me back onto it, but afterwards he didn’t say a word – just handed me a wad of tissue and slipped away with my coat and handbag to wait in the concourse while I sorted myself out.

As the door swung shut behind him, I sat on the toilet and let the unused tissues drop between my legs, into the bowl. I wanted to feel his jizz inside me for as long as possible; long enough to leave a physical memory of its presence, so that when I walked down the train later that night, at least one part of my body would still recall what it was like to be completely full of him.

At the sink, I stared down at my hands as I washed them. When the woman next to me finished reapplying her make-up and moved towards the door, I lifted my head and regarded myself in the mirror. I saw no physical evidence of what we’d just done, but noted with detached concern that the rings under my eyes – already stubborn little smudges after our first night in Madrid – had deepened in colour and spread out like an invading army, colonising the pale white skin along the top of my cheekbones.

It had been a short trip, but a hard one. Too many late nights, too much booze – and too much sex, really, given how bad things were between us. My cunt ached from him, rather than for him, and when we fucked that morning in front of the mirrored hotel wardrobe, I’d glanced up in time to see the blank look on his face as he sawed into me.

Love forgives many crimes, and God knows there’d been enough of them between us – on both sides. But indifference stings more than the harshest words or the cruellest betrayal. I’d spent two weeks watching Ed fall out of love with me a little more each day, except of course I experienced it in the same way one does a star in the night sky – as the distant echo of something that has already happened, at a time and distance far beyond my control. As realisation dawned on both of us, so did the knowledge it was too late to change any of it.

I pushed myself up from the ceramic sink unit and wheeled my suitcase out past the shuttered shops and cafes, towards the small group of people clustered under the Departures screen. Backpackers, mostly, keen to get on board and start the next big adventure. “Oh my God, they’re us 10 years ago,” Ed had whispered as we trudged up the ramp from the Metro behind a trio of sun-kissed students. “You mean they’re happy,” a small voice inside me whispered in response.

It was one of many thoughts to which I hadn’t managed to give voice since arriving in Madrid and switching on my phone to find the text he’d sent an hour earlier. ‘Covering Sam’s shift. Not coming to airport – go straight to mine. Left keys + cash for a taxi in the normal place.’ It was the first sign that I was now expected to find the gaps between everything else in his life and fit myself inside them; the first sign, in fact, that whatever we’d built together in the past, this was his life, not ours.

I suppose it sounds silly now. But a relationship has its own cadence, and you know when something’s off, even by just a half-beat. However much you try to ignore it, your ear can’t help picking up on each bum note. Ed’s stiff courtesy cut into me in a thousand different ways over the course of the week, and as I bent to pick up my handbag from the floor next to his feet, I felt all those tiny wounds pull tight across my skin, till they’d knitted together into one long, deep gash.

I let the pain wash through me for a few seconds, my mouth suddenly full of the battery acid tang that warned of imminent nausea. I looked up again in time to see my platform number flash up on the screen. Ed grasped my hand and pulled me into the moving crowd.

“Come on then – let’s get you to Lisbon,” he said. I followed without a word.

At the ticket barrier, I took a step back and turned to face him. Unable to meet his gaze, I looked instead at the two-day stubble covering his jawline, and the lines around his eyes. I took in the boyish curl that still licked his forehead, even as a growing army of grey hairs marched along his temples toward it. Most of all I tried to see him for what he was: not a bad man, nor an especially good one – just a man whose lukewarm heart no longer loved me in the way I needed it to.

I swallowed hard as Ed opened his mouth to speak. “See you in three w-“, he started to say, before I closed the gap between us and pressed my lips gently against his.

“I think you mean ‘have a great trip’”, I said, brushing back the curl so I could reach up and kiss the smooth skin under it. “And I will.”

~

Coach J stood halfway along the train. Ed was out of sight by the time I pulled my suitcase up the metal steps and hauled it on board. I looked at my ticket, wondering again whether the whole thing would turn out to be a colossal waste of time and money. It’s easier to justify extravagance when you’re happy – or at least once the initial shock of unhappiness has passed, and you’re ready to reward yourself for making it that far. I’d thought the sleeper train to Lisbon would help me hold on to the afterglow of seeing Ed for another 24 hours. That I could wrap my greedy arms around all that joy and warmth, and clutch it to my chest in the darkness.

Best-laid plans, huh?

“Lo siento, puedo pasar?”

I turned to find a middle-aged couple waiting patiently behind me, and realised I had no idea what to do next. As they squeezed past, the sliding door opened at the other end of the carriage. Through it stepped a tall man in a navy suit, wearing the peaked cap that marked him out as a RENFE conductor. He walked towards me and I held out my ticket for inspection.

“¿Necesitas ayuda?”

His voice carried easily over the idling hum of the train engine. To my shame, having a long-term boyfriend in Madrid had done little to improve my holiday Spanish, and I nodded mutely in response.

“Ah, you are English. Muy buen. I will show you, yes?”

Without waiting for a reply, he looked at my ticket and spun round, making for the door that had only just slid shut behind him. He stopped at the end of the corridor and gestured extravagantly. For the first time in what felt like days, my shoulders came down and I allowed myself to relax. Maybe this was going to be okay.

The conductor ushered me into a compartment dominated by two bulky fold-down seats, facing the door to a small private bathroom. I couldn’t imagine sharing that cramped space with another person, yet it felt oddly large for just one occupant. I dropped my bag between the chairs, and looked around for somewhere to stash my suitcase.

“Here, I show you” he said, taking the case from me and swinging it up onto the shelf above in one fluid motion. “It can go here.”

I nodded once, and he smiled back at me. Clearing his throat, he stepped back into the doorway and pointed towards the front of the train.

“Food and the bar are that way. At 23, I will come past and fold down everyone’s beds. That is OK for you?”

“That is OK for me,” I said, returning his smile. “Thank you…?”

“…Luis. I am Luis.”

“Then thank you, Luis.”