The Next Stop

His name is Luke, and he is not having pleasant dreams.

The first is a classic of its genre. He is on holiday with his family, and they are at the beach, setting up next to a cliff wall, nicely sheltered. The sand rolls down from their spot towards the sea, where distant figures splash and swim. If you asked him later, he would probably say he is younger in the dream, maybe ten or twelve. But the dream version of Luke doesn’t consider his age; he scoops up soft sand and lets it fall between his fingers, then starts to dig. Luke used to love digging holes at the beach, as deep as he could go until he hit water.

He takes a break from digging and looks down towards the sea again. This time it’s not off in the distance, it’s sloshed up just feet away from him and it’s moving fast. They need to get further up the beach – he turns to his parents and sees they know this, but they’re moving meticulously, slowly, folding up towels as if they have all day. He runs up the beach for his bag, then remembers his shoes are in the other direction, towards the water. He dives at them, but a wave leaps over a low rock to claim first one, then the other. He knows he has made a mistake. Suddenly there isn’t very much beach left. All he can do is run back towards the car park, but he looks over his shoulder and a huge wave is rearing, taller than him twice over. He needs to run, but there is no route to the car park anymore, just him and the cliff behind him and the wave getting bigger, its churning filling his ears.

The churning is almost enough to wake him – he stirs in his sleep, eyelids fluttering. When he settles back in the seat, the dream has changed.

The second dream is one that he has had before. If he had to describe it, he would also have to explain why it is unpleasant, but during the dream his muscles tense and his heart beats harder, like it’s trying to pump honey instead of blood. The dream is based on a true story, so he knows that he is nine years old, or thereabouts. He’s standing in the living room, fiddling with the hem of his top. His mum is sitting on the sofa, engrossed in something on her phone. There is something on his mind.

“Mum,” he says. Her eyes flick up for just a second in acknowledgement, then they are reflecting the blue glow of her phone again. “Would you still love me if…” He pauses, mind stumbling to think of something he knows she wouldn't like, but that won’t make her think worse of him for asking. “If I robbed a bank?”

The phone lowers and his mum looks at him properly. “Have you stolen something, darling?” She asks.

He shakes his head and she smiles.

“Have you heard of unconditional love?”

He shrugs. He has heard of it, but he doesn’t feel like giving a description.

“Well that’s what I feel for you. I’ll always love you, no matter what you do. Even if you do something really bad, I may not like the thing but I’ll still love you.” She reaches out to hug him.

As always, his older mind is racing at this point, running over the intervening years, but this time the dream begins to deviate from reality. In the true story, he just accepted the hug and walked away, but this time as he kneels up on the sofa he pricks up his ears: there is a faint arrhythmic ticking sound, getting clearer and clearer. Something is wrong. He shoots up and starts to search under the sofa, behind the coffee table. “Mum – I think there’s a bomb.” Really the beat isn’t regular enough to be a countdown, but in the dream he doesn’t think about that. He just rushes around the room, searching, searching, creating more and more mess while his mum looks on with glassy eyes.

The train lurches around a corner and jerks him in his seat, so he is awake before the bomb ever goes off. He is in a window seat, rolling English countryside to his right. The ticking of the bomb was actually the clacking knitting needles of the old lady sitting next to him. He has never seen someone knitting on a train before.

More importantly, he realises with mounting panic, he has never seen this train before. It is not particularly different from any other train he has been on, but he doesn’t remember boarding it. He doesn’t know where he boarded, and he has no idea where he is going. The strip of lights above the carriage doors that sometimes shows a list of stops is blank today. How could he have got on a train and completely forgotten?

He forces himself to breathe normally. If he is on the train, he must have got on at Falford, and he must have a ticket which will say where he is going. He reaches into his pocket for his wallet and peeks behind his bank card. He always slots train tickets right behind it, but there is nothing there. It must have got mixed up among the IDs and random loyalty cards. He flicks through them, but still nothing. He plunges hands into both pockets – phone and keys, good, but still no ticket. He even checks his back pockets but there is only an old tissue in one of them.

He wipes his palms on his jeans, certain he will leave behind damp streaks from sweat. He clears his throat and turns to the woman next to him. She is wearing a purple cardigan and she pauses with the needles threaded through a loop of wool. “Excuse me,” he says. “Do you know what the next stop is? I’m not sure if I missed mine when I fell asleep…” He doesn’t want to sound like he has completely lost his head, even if he has.

The lady gives him a strange smile and shakes her head. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry young man,” she says. “I shouldn’t think it will be stopping for some while.” She goes on with her knitting.

He blinks and replays her words in his head three times, searching for an answer to his question. Does she mean he’s got on one of those trains that barely stops? Maybe he’ll shoot straight through every village between here and Manchester before he can get off. He thinks about turning to the seats behind him to see if he can get a clearer answer from someone else, but maybe the old lady would think that was rude.

Before he can decide whether to do it, she seems to lose track counting some stitches, sighs and places the knitting neatly in her lap, then turns to him. “So dear, what is it that you’re running from?”

His mind stumbles over the words. “Uh… running from – sorry?”

She folds her hands in her lap quite patiently and casts a glance about the train. “Sorry my dear, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Cynthia. And you know, everyone on this train is running from something. I suppose that must be why we’re here. I thought while we wait for your stop, we might pass the time with your story.”

He stutters again. “My story’s not that inter – wait, what do you mean that’s why we’re here?”

“I’m sure I don’t entirely know, dear. All I can tell you is every person on the train that I’ve chatted to is some kind of runaway. Or I suppose not all of them are actually on the train, as far as they’re concerned.”

Luke wonders if it was his own head he should have been worried about. “They are all… everyone here is definitely on the train,” he points out.

The old lady tuts and jerks her head to the side, brushing off the point. “Oh certainly they are as far as you and I can see, but that’s just because we’re on the train, and they’re here.” Luke frowns and he knows that she sees it. She points across the aisle, two rows back. The man in the aisle seat there is dressed a little oddly, now that Luke looks, in some kind of old-style military uniform. “That fellow over there, see, his name is Frederick and in his own journey he hasn’t even left his father’s castle. But his father doesn’t like his distaste for war, or the fact that he loves men and speaks French, so he’s running to England with his lover.”

“We’re in England now,” Luke reminds her quietly. “And we’re not in a castle.”

“I don’t think he makes it though,” she continues sadly, as if Luke said nothing. “And I don’t believe the boyfriend survives.” Luke stares at her. By way of explanation, she adds, “I think he will go on to become the renowned King Frederick the Great of Prussia, but I can’t quite remember how the story matches up. I shall have to check my history once I get to a library.”

Luke doesn’t know much about the apparently renowned – and definitely, by modern standards, dead – King Frederick the Great of Prussia, but he is fairly sure he is not currently sharing a train carriage with the man.

Cynthia barely misses a beat. “And the lady next to him, Mary, she’s certainly not on a train. She’s running from her sister Queen Anne’s court to be the wife of the man she loves.” She cocks her head to one side. “Well, she was sent from court in disgrace for marrying below her station, but it’s just as well for her. She won’t be there when King Henry cuts her sister’s head off. Mary Boleyn, I should say. I suppose she’s the sister-in-law of Henry VIII, for now. Well, not for now, but for then.”

Luke knows that his mouth is hanging open, but he doesn’t direct his energy to close it. He bounces between explanations: this is a complete hallucination, the old woman is crazy, he has lost his mind. It doesn’t help that he is the one who has no memory of boarding the train. “So,” his mouth is dry, and he licks his lips a few times to no avail. He wishes he had some water. “So, are you saying the train is, like, existing outside of time or something?”

“It certainly does seem to exist for us, yes,” she says impatiently. “But take the man right in front of us, George Byron, for him I believe it’s a ship. He’s running to the continent because everyone says he slept with his half-sister.” The woman grins at him. She seems to be enjoying sharing the gossip. “Mind you, he did sleep with his half-sister.” George Byron – Luke has heard of Lord Byron, famous for being a poet (he is fairly sure), being promiscuous and bisexual (he has heard), and being rich (he assumes).

“So,” Luke gulps and decides to accept for a moment that he is on a train outside the confines of time filled with people running from inconvenient parts of their lives. “So is everyone here some famous historical figure?”

“Oh no, certainly not everyone,” Cynthia says quietly. “The boy beside Byron is not remembered by history at all. He’s running from the workhouse. And the family three rows back, they’re migrating north to escape the effects of climate change. I’m not sure if they’re from the present or the future, by our measure. Or I suppose I should say my measure, not knowing how closely you and I match up.”

These pieces of gossip are suddenly less enjoyable, and the old lady frowns and turns back to Luke. “So, where do you fit in then? What is it you’re running from?”

Luke shakes his head. “Like I said, it’s nothing.”

Cynthia shrugs and picks her knitting back up. She is looking at the back of the seat in front of her now, not at Luke. “Nothing meaning really nothing, or nothing meaning something that you don’t want to talk about?” She says once she has counted her stitches again.

Luke is craning to look at the other people in the train, hardly even trying to hide his curiosity, but he can’t help a small smile. “Either way I’d say nothing meaning nothing, wouldn’t I?” he reasons.

“I suppose you would,” she agrees. “But nothing meaning actually nothing would be quite a surprise.”

Trees flash by the window, one after another after another, and then there is a break and Luke sees hedge-lined fields stretching away, then more trees. “If I’m honest I did think about jumping on a train,” he decides quite suddenly to admit. “I thought about going to stay with my cousin Emma in Brighton, just for a bit, you know. Not properly running away, not like the guy with the homophobic dad. And I never actually got on the train. I walked up to Falford station, but just thinking. I didn’t even pass the ticket barriers.” He looks doubtfully around. “Or I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

“I daresay you didn’t, my dear, if you don’t think you did,” Cynthia says mildly. “Like I said, Frederick over there hasn’t left yet either. Although he certainly seems to have made more concrete plans than that.”

Luke waits for her to ask him what it is that makes him want to stay with Emma in Brighton, but she simply keeps knitting, threading the needle, looping the wool, over and over, infuriatingly indifferent now that he has started to share. “It’s not like the rest of these though,” he blurts. “It’s just… a lot. A lot at once, you know.” He thinks he sees her raise an eyebrow, but that’s all the response he gets. “Like, A Level results day, everyone’s planning this celebration, jumping in the river. I don’t… I mean, swimming isn’t my strong suit… not that I can’t swim, it’s just – well, results day’s going to be a hot mess as it is. Now on top of that this river thing is all everyone will talk about and I have to either jump in the river or be the only guy not to jump in.”

He notices with some satisfaction that Cynthia is looking at him again now, knitting needles in her hands held still. So he goes on. “Plus, I promised my friend Sasha that I’d ask Layla out before the end of the year. I didn’t do it on the last day of school or after the last exam – there’s not many more ends of the year I can defer to.”

He pauses for breath. Cynthia has taken out a toffee and is chewing on it thoughtfully. “This Layla is who you’re running from? I for one would advise against making such a promise about somebody you don’t want to be in the same town as.”

“It’s not that. I mean, she’s great. It’s just… you know.” Luke thinks about Layla’s kind eyes and crooked smile, and is overcome by a sudden wave of honesty. “When I was a kid I used to imagine my first relationship would end dying in each other’s arms at the age of ninety-nine.” He laughs to make sure she realises he knows how silly it sounds.

“How nice it would be if you were that lucky,” Cynthia shrugs. “But it can’t happen to everyone.”

Oh, doesn’t Luke know that? “Nah, yeah, my first relationship already ended,” he says, laughing deliberately again. “In year 10 when I told him I was trans.” He glances sidelong at Cynthia. She is still chewing the toffee and gazing at him in mild interest. He breathes in and goes on. “First thing he said to me was ‘Are you going to cut your tits off?’ I told him I hoped someone else would do that. Then he told me I’d never be a real bloke because I only started supporting a football team a year ago.” The relationship hadn’t lasted very long after that. “After the trainwreck of a first relationship, see how much is riding on my second?” Luke finishes. Then he adds, “Who even says bloke anyway?”

Cynthia chews on the question, and on her toffee at the same time. “I don’t generally say bloke,” she tells him. “I don’t suppose it matters, but if it were me, I would just stay out of the river, and any of my friends who don’t like it be damned.”

That reminds Luke about the stupid river. “I mean, the river isn’t that big of a deal,” he says hurriedly. He’s fairly certain Sasha for one wouldn’t care if he didn’t jump in. For that matter neither would Layla. “I just don’t want to be around for results day at all.” It sounds silly when he’s sitting between the boy from the workhouse and the climate change family, but what can he do? “It’ll be bad enough without having to worry about that other stuff – Layla and the river.”

Cynthia doesn’t ask why it will be so bad, but she doesn’t stop looking at Luke either. She seems to be confident that he is about to expand. He studies the pattern on the seat in front of him diligently. His palms are damp with sweat again. “Look, I know I flunked maths, okay? I barely answered half the questions on that paper, so all that stuff people say about it probably went better than I thought is pure gold nonsense. I can’t look at my mum’s face when she finds out. She loves maths. Best thing that ever happened to her was when I got accepted for maths at Uni. Well, this might ruin that, I guess.”

Cynthia looks at him with blue eyes set in a weathered face. She offers him a toffee, which he takes and absently fiddles with. “Do you like maths?” She asks, watching the toffee flip over and over in Luke’s hands.

“You kidding? Only thing worse than going to study maths is my mum finding out I can’t.”

But the question rolls around in his head, a marble forever hitting walls and bouncing off. He is not sure when somebody last asked him that. He feels a bit too visible, as if he has walked into assembly late and there are no spare seats on the ends.

The train lurches and marches forward a touch more slowly. Since when did trains lurch so much? It’s not like this is some boat in choppy seas.

He feels eyes on him and shoots looks around the train, but Frederick the Great is rifling through a bag on his lap, and Mary Boleyn is gazing the other way out of the window. He flinches under the imagined gaze anyway.

Suddenly something occurs to him. “What are you running from then?” He blurts to Cynthia.

“Oh that’s no secret, my dear,” she answers, taking out another toffee. “I’m running from my husband. I don’t think he’s treated me very well for some while, you know.” She runs a hand over her knitting and holds it up. It is a jumper patterned with motifs of pinecones. “I’ll tell you something silly though. This was actually for him. I got on the train and started knitting to pass the time, and without even thinking, I was working on this old project. The first place he ever took me was to a park filled with oak trees, pinecones covering the ground. It was quite beautiful.” She sighs.

A great judder shakes the train, and Luke has to grip his arm rest to avoid being thrown into Cynthia’s lap. Once it passes, he realises they are definitely slowing. There are solid cobbles alongside him now, looking oddly familiar. The strip of lights above the door to the carriage flickers once, but gives up quickly.

“Do you know, my dear, I have a feeling we might be reaching your stop,” Cynthia remarks conversationally.

Luke had forgotten he was waiting for a stop. The train slides up level with a sign printed with the word Falford. He tenses. “I have to get off?”

“Have to? I don’t see anybody forcing you. As far as I can make out, if you stay on and nobody comes to find you, you’ll probably end up in Brighton, or if you prefer you can hop off now and head home.”

Luke thinks of the other passengers on the train, and of Cynthia and her husband. “I guess you’re going to tell me my problems are stupid and I should get off?”

“Me? Certainly not. I don’t know you nearly intimately enough to know what you should do. But I will of course stand up to let you leave if you choose to.”

Luke breathes in, and stands.

As he passes Cynthia, she slips a second toffee into his hand. “I assure you young man, your problems are not stupid,” she says.

He swears he sees Lord Byron wink at him as he steps from the train, Cynthia’s question about maths still bouncing in his brain like a logo in an old screensaver.