The first month she had started catching the train, Henry had noticed no less than five different books pass through her hands; the second month he had been watching with a little more of a passing interest and the count had shot up to seven: Mostly Harmless, The Lady Vanishes, My Sister’s Keeper...
And then, three weeks ago, he had noticed her in the crowd of nameless, faceless passengers wearily journeying home on his 5pm route – it was the fiery orange of the paperback that had caught his attention; a pair of gates lit up by deep red and gold that faded into the rest of the black cover: Rebecca. He was sure he had seen it that morning... And then he had looked higher up to find her face above the cover, reading as intently as she had at 8am. From then on, it had become routine to find her on both journeys, almost always in the same carriage as him... After a week of this, Henry – spurred on by Ben’s drunken urging – had determined to do something to catch her attention in return.
He contemplated reading a book too, perhaps prompting conversation, but quickly dismissed this idea. He was never awake enough in the mornings to focus his attention on anything more than watching the scenery roll calmingly past the window as they rattled through the countryside towards the urban sprawl of Manchester. Besides, if he sat down reading the same book as her when it wasn’t something as culturally explosive as The Da Vinci Code, for example, how stalker-like would it look? Henry had already spent hours at the pub desperately musing with Ben over whether he was practically a stalker anyway; for God’s sake, he knew the titles of her latest literary forages going back a month!
But he was twenty-eight years old and his last serious relationship had been almost two years ago; he last kissed a woman nine months ago, hadn’t been on a date for six... Because, outside of University it was virtually impossible to meet anyone without looking like a stalker; you couldn’t date colleagues without risking the unprofessionalism of post-break-up office sniping and, after about the age of twenty-four, pulling girls in loud, sticky clubs and bars lost something of its suavity. As Ben often liked to point out, this wasn’t the 1950’s anymore – you couldn’t attend a dinner dance or a street party, meet the woman of your dreams and just whisk her off under the starlight. Now it was either the lucky dip lies of online dating, or the mortification of being set up with one of the other tragically single acquaintances of your “long-term couple” friends.
Since neither of those seemed like viable options until the bitter tang of desperation finally soured everything, Henry guessed he was left with this: trying to strike up a polite, witty, friendly conversation with the girl on the train. At least he saw her every day, so it wouldn’t be too... weird.
So – again with Ben’s drunken urging – Henry had determined that the next time he caught her eye, he would smile at her.
And to his surprise, it worked.
It was the 5pm journey home; Thursday, raining, with the dull grey of evening leeching away all enthusiasm as everyone realised that there was still another day left to get through before the weekend. They had boarded the train in the usual crush of barely restrained rudeness, everyone hurrying to grab their own seat at the cost of politeness; noticing a young, pregnant woman trying to move towards the aisles, Henry hung back and gestured for her to precede him, determined not to lose his own soul over the price of standing for the forty minute journey home.
With a grateful smile, the woman moved past him to the only remaining seat – right next to his literary vision. As the pregnant lady sat down, the reader glanced up from her novel and, noticing the woman’s appreciative look, followed her gaze... straight to Henry.
He paused for a split second, heart thudding in his ears loud enough to drown out the music from his iPod – and then his natural delight at finding his plan so easily fulfilled overwhelmed his shock. An easy smile spread across his face, as he held her eyes – deep, hazel brown – thrilled to find himself locked into a moment with her finally.
The elation grew as, after a moment’s surprise, she returned the smile, a slight blush creeping across her cheeks. Pressing her lips together, as if trying to shrink from the attention shared between them, she turned her eyes away and back down to her book. Henry watched her for a split-second more and then relinquished the moment, albeit happily.
She had smiled back – actually smiled back.
The way was paved, the scene was set...
Friday morning swapped another shy smile; the journey home, a brief nod accompanied it... A second week passed in the same vein, morning to night. The following Saturday, Ben slammed his pint down and demanded to know why Henry hadn’t wrangled a coffee date yet – they both worked in the same city, for God’s sake! But she always looked so absorbed by her book and Henry didn’t want to come on too strong... He had swallowed his beer without tasting it; what was that about him not being so clichéd? Even so, they caught the same train every day, that was all – it made a nice quirk in their daily life, swapping a familiar smile and nod like veteran commuters... Could he really try to add another layer to that foundation, actually ask her out?
What if she said no?
His early morning spark would be snuffed out, the one interesting glimmer in his day tarnished by the feeling of rejection. Every paperback he glimpsed would be a reminder of what he had lost...
But, equally, could he live with not saying anything at all? What if he kept quiet, held onto the nods and the smiles like tiny treasures tucked inside a keepsake box – and then one day she just wasn’t there anymore? He’d be kicking himself forever...
Perhaps he was over-thinking this.
Perhaps he should just seize the day, like Ben kept demanding belligerently.
As it turned out, Henry needn’t have worried – because, come Tuesday evening, the day seized him.
*
Henry was late leaving work and, consequently, had to suffer the awkwardly panicked half-run, half-lumber that was the embarrassing symptom of dashing down the platform right on the last minute, fully visible to everyone both on his train and on the one waiting to depart opposite. He jumped the gap with roughly forty seconds to spare; one swift glance told him that there were no available seats, but for once there wasn’t also a multitude of people crowding the aisles either. Henry briefly debated heading into the next carriage, or even the one further along from that, on the off-chance of finding an unoccupied place, but he always got on the first carriage – creature of habit. Plus moving along, banging open the connecting doors and muttering a constant stream of ‘excuse me’s would cause a stir – Henry’s innate British nature cringed at the thought of drawing such attention to himself.
Besides, he suddenly realised, his literary vision was just across from him, seated by the window in one of the centre rows of three. She caught his eye as he straightened up, back resting against one of the glass partitions between carriages; the brief, familiar smile quickly followed and Henry decided that standing wasn’t so bad really...
When she was once again immersed in her novel, Henry – under the pretence of eyeing the disappearing Manchester skyline out of the window – tried to sneak a glance at today’s cover. To his surprise, the author’s name was familiar to him, even if the title wasn’t: Stephen King. The cover was orange, with a black mobile phone picked out in a Dali-esque style and black letters almost oozing the title across the front: Cell.
Henry blinked his gaze back up to the gentle face above the pages; the brown eyes, the thin reading glasses she quirked back up her nose every few minutes, framed by stray wisps of hair... He would never have pegged her as a horror fan – but then again, she did seem to read anything and everything...
With a sudden jolt, Henry realised he wasn’t the only one in the carriage watching her intently.
The young man sitting opposite her, scruffy in a faded Oasis-fan kind of way, was firmly fixated on eyeing her up. Complete with natty, zipped-up parka and stubble that looked ten steps away from ‘cool’ and headed more towards ‘degenerate’, he coul
dn’t seem to keep himself contained within his seat – every few seconds, his legs would twitch, his feet would tap, he would drum his fingers against his thigh and just generally shift irritably. With a sinking feeling, Henry realised that he could smell the alcohol wafting off the guy from his standing position, three rows back. No wonder the woman sat next to him was leaning unnaturally away from him and the window, the seat between them pointedly laden with her shopping bags. The two men completing book girl’s row had their newspapers raised before their noses like shields.
The guy’s eyes jumped from the novel in book girl’s hands to the curve of her legs beneath her patterned skirt and back again. He was going to do something, Henry could tell. His stomach sank further.
‘Good book, yeah?’ The guy finally burst out; his voice was too loud within the tired, reserved stillness of the carriage. A few people looked over, everyone pretending not to hear whilst at the same time fascinated by this departure from traditional commuter rules. For her part, book girl pretended not to hear, clearly uneasy from the overpowering stench of alcohol wafting across to her. The guy’s tone rose another notch. ‘I said, good book, yeah?’
How could anyone be drunk at this time of day?
It was barely gone five-thirty.
Henry kept his eyes fixed on the situation; everyone in the carriage was pretending to do otherwise. Unable to avoid answering the man’s question any longer, book girl lowered her novel slightly, looking over as fleetingly as possible.
‘Erm, yeah, it’s very good.’
‘Sca-aa-ry, yeah?’ He waggled his fingers, inebriated and Henry – along with the rest of his fellow passengers – watched uncomfortably as a creeping flush of embarrassment stole over his book girl’s cheeks. Henry felt the same sense of cringing mortification as she obviously did; not necessarily for her, but for the palpable desperation of the drunk guy’s advances. He wondered if he should look away, but he couldn’t take his eyes from the scene – he felt protective of his literary compatriot and wondered if he should intervene...
‘Yeah,’ Book girl cast another fleeting look in the drunk guy’s direction, fingers clutching the cover slightly tighter. Sadly, it didn’t register.
‘So what’s it about?’ He leant further forwards and book girl winced; hesitating a second too long, her silence became obvious – and the guy took offence. ‘I said, what’s it about?’
She opened her mouth, but it was too late – without warning, he snatched the book out of her hands and blearily started yelling out segments of the blurb on the back, clearly attempting sarcasm but not quite hitting the mark.
‘The Pulse takes over... the entire world! Those re-rece-receiving calls would be infected...’ He snorted derisively, gesturing dangerously at book girl, who recoiled, but still stoically held out her hand for her book. ‘So everyone becomes zombies or something then?’
‘Erm, yeah – can I have my book back please?’
‘Hey, hey, come on, maybe I want to read it?’ He jerked it out of her reach and the woman at the other end of the bank of seats tutted loudly; this only seemed to spur the drunk’s aggression. ‘Or what, am I not smart enough for stupid horror shit or something?’
‘Look, please can I just have my book back?’ She made another grab at it and, once again, the guy swung it out of her reach. He lurched to his feet and staggered into the aisle, still waving the book tauntingly in her face; Henry felt a surge of irritation for the way everyone else was just attempting to pretend this wasn’t happening.
‘If you want to be scared, baby, you don’t need books...’
Henry felt a surge of fury; slinging his bag over one shoulder, he prepared to stride forward – but book girl had already leapt up and, with a surprising amount of courage, shoved the guy sharply backwards, snatching the fugitive novel out of his grasp. He staggered back in astonishment.
‘You know what, you’re not impressing anyone,’ She snapped forcefully. The drunk swayed precariously in line with the train’s rattle, eyes narrowing. Henry hovered anxiously on the edge of the scene, but book girl continued, gesturing angrily with her novel. ‘Why don’t you just sod off and bother someone else? Or better yet, sober up.’
The furiously waving book drove the drunk guy back another unsteady step; Henry was now just slightly between him and his literary vision, and he watched with a sudden mounting resolve to step in as the guy clenched his fists, spitting words back at her like gritty pebbles.
‘Screw you, you little bitch – ’
‘Okay, mate,’ Henry slipped in front of book girl, barring the drunk’s way with both hands raised in a placatory gesture. ‘I don’t want to get involved here, but maybe you should just leave her alone, yeah?’
He risked a sidelong look at his literary vision, and paused as he found her dark eyes fixed on him; his heart rocketed with a second boost of confidence. The young drunk’s eyes were also trying blearily to focus on him, but he was rocking ever more hazardously with every curve of the track – an ugly incident was on the brink of development here...
‘Oh yeah? Yeah? Well, you know what, mate –’ The guy swung out a fist and Henry jerked back, knuckles landing on open air barely an half an inch from his nose. A second shaky punch followed – Henry was vaguely aware of book girl shrieking something as he swung back out of the way again, striding back into the carriage entryway. The drunk guy lurched towards him in pursuit, and a second passenger rose to his feet too, aiming to join Henry in his attempted chivalry – but before he could get any further, the train shifted particularly sharply around a bend and the drunk found himself thrown forwards with the momentum, crashing against the opposite glass partition as Henry sidestepped quickly.
There was a moment of taut silence within the carriage, during which Henry was very aware of book girl standing close behind his shoulder, one hand clapped to her mouth. Stunned, their assailant looked up at them, unfocused and seemingly confused as to how he had ended up on the floor. Henry glanced around at the judgemental looks of their fellow passengers and ran his hand over the back of his hair; feeling slightly sorry for the guy, he extended a hand.
‘Here, come on...’
The drunk reeled to his feet, fury spiking across his face. Ignoring Henry’s outstretched hand, he batted the offer away with a clenched fist and stepped directly into Henry’s path, glaring all the while. Raising an eyebrow, Henry squared his own shoulders, drawing himself up to his full height – and at six foot, he was well aware that he could look reasonably intimidating when he wanted to, although the courage he was clinging to was something that he had only ever had to muster once before, in a particularly tense bar brawl at Uni.
With the addition of the second passenger though, and the condescending looks of pretty much the entire carriage alongside them, it seemed to work – after glaring for another long minute, the guy staggered away, shaking his head and yelling, ‘Screw you all anyway!’
Henry sighed as he watched the drunk’s retreating back disappear down the carriage; the rhythmic clack of the train seemed suddenly loud in his ears – or maybe that was his heartbeat, because his literary vision was suddenly standing right in front of him, one hand resting on his forearm lightly.
‘Hey, um – thanks. He was kind of starting to freak me out.’
‘Yeah, well – no problem,’ Henry smiled, a larger version of the last fortnight’s exchanges. The easiest way to strike up conversation with his literary vision? Get into a fight with a drunk guy during the early evening commute – he should have thought of it sooner... Now that she was in front of him, she suddenly seemed even prettier too; her smile was slightly crooked, adding to the charm of her face, and there was a small smatter of freckles across her nose.
Henry realised he was staring and hurriedly cleared his throat. Casting his eyes down to the floor, he noticed the controversial item that had started all of this in the first place: her book, obviously knocked to the ground during the melee. Bending down, he quickly fetched it up,
shifting the rescued novel from one hand to the other. ‘Well – here you go. Sorry about... everything.’
‘No, it – it was really... Thanks.’ She took the book from him and held onto it for a second, before finally raising her eyes. ‘You know, you just stood up for me and I don’t actually know your name?’
‘Huh? Oh,’ Henry exhaled a laugh, sharing her awkwardness. ‘Henry, I’m... Henry.’
‘Henry – thank you. I’m Molly.’ Molly – Henry had dreamt of discovering her name and now finally he knew. He would never have guessed it in a million years but... it suited her. She hung back a little now, glancing around the carriage; the passengers had gone back to their usual facade of pretending not to listen in, when actually they were hooked on every single sentence that passed between the literary damsel and her unexpected hero. Henry felt a burning urge to alleviate some of the blush that was returning to her cheeks.
‘Well, I hope it’s a good book – I’m not sure I could have gone to so much effort if he’d been trying to steal Fifty Shades of Grey off you,’ he joked – then blanched.
What?
Was that even funny?
Thankfully, Molly seemed to find it so, as she grinned.
‘If it had been Fifty Shades of Grey, I think I’d have let him have it.’ She tapped the cover of the paperback with a fingernail. ‘No, Stephen King is definitely worth it – he’s an amazing writer; scary, but gripping.’
‘Really? I’ve never read anything by him before... I’ve seen The Shining though – it was good...’ Molly nodded, her entire expression lighting up.