The Commuter

Once a week, he catches the 8am train into the city, wearing the short-sleeved shirt, which mother bought for him three years ago, just before her illness took hold. The shirt is made of thin white cotton and has a collar embroidered in yellow and blue. It's fraying at the cuffs, and has a button missing. But he wears it anyway, rain or shine.

He always times it so that he just makes the train. He lingers outside the station building, until he sees the train crossing the viaduct over the market and then he races into the station, buys his ticket and then races up the stone steps and leaps aboard just as the train doors start bleeping close.

He always has to stand, since the carriages are always full come this stop and only those timely enough to be standing on the platform as the train arrives, stand a chance of finding a seat. He always stands in the vestibule near the door, with his hand gripping the metal railing that goes from the wall and bends down to the floor. He does this once a week. Without fail.

It's early September. The hills are covered in a thin veil of mist and as he waits outside the station, the sun is struggling to come out. It is a calm morning, and very still. He can hear cars pass by on the main road, pouring out their fumes into the morning air; a drill in a nearby house; the church bell tolling eight o'clock. And then the train horn sounds as the train rushes out of the tunnel on the other side of town and charges his way. He can hear it then, or at images that he can hear it, the tracks picking up the vibrations, the stone of the viaduct trembling at its approach. And his skin begins to tingle.

Sunlight breaks out of the mist and hits the red and white carriages, glints on the windows, as the train begins to slow. He clenches his fists and races into the station building, buys his ticket in cash and then races towards the stairs. An old woman is dithering ahead of him. He should help her. She has mother's coat on, that faded blue woven woollen coat. Perhaps she picked it up in the charity shop, where he'd taken everything after mother died¦ perhaps¦ but he hasn't got time to think of this. The train has slowed to a stop. The doors are sliding open. He passes her, turns and hesitates for a second

"Don't worry love, she says, noting his distress. "Just going to the ladies.

He turns and legs it up the stairs. His chest leaps, tightens, he can hear the train doors start to bleep. He pushes his foot up, bounds onto the platform and in one stride he makes it into the carriage as the train doors slide shut behind him.

He relaxes into his place by the door. His white cotton shirt is damp with sweat. It's a warm morning, which is good. Warm mornings are better because people don't wear so much. In winter it's all gloves and overcoats. He's standing next to two pouty school girls, chewing gum and scowling at everyone, with their skirts hitched up around the tops of their white legs and their blouses open to the navel, exposing black t-shirts underneath. They look his way, wrinkle their noses and turn back to face one another. He looks away, his face burning red, and re-adjusts his glasses. Mother used to say his head was lop-sided, one ear higher than the other. She said things like that, hurtful, in a silly way. In way that shouldn't matter.

There's a businessman in front of him. Head bowed on his morning paper, a gold wedding ring glints in the sunlight now streaming in through the windows as the trains bounces out of the town. Like how she used to say he smelt like rotten cabbage. The businessman coughs, but doesn't look up from his paper.

He knows every part of this journey. He knows where the hills crumble into a valley just outside town, and the way fields open out all of a sudden and how to the right you can see down cross country towards distant grey towers. And then the canal draws up alongside the track and rows of graffiti scrawled terraces line up like defeated soldiers. And the train begins to rattle to a slower pace, as it shoots under a bridge, and through a tunnel under the main road, and then the brakes really come on as the blue domes of the mosque comes into view on the left as the train squeals to a halt.

The doors bleep open, and the whole carriage bustles in preparation for the onslaught, since this is the last big station before the city and the platform is always packed with people waiting to squeeze aboard. He pushes himself to the side of the door, not quite sure what to do with his hands, put them back on the railing, or keep them in front of him. His toes curl inside his brown loafers as they begin to board.

And here they come, squeezing their way on, a mass of bodies, men and women, business suites and pregnant girls in cut off tops. But it's a lad in baseball cap today, who comes a little too close, carelessly pushing himself aboard, his large hands brushing people aside. He nudges his way against the metal railing and for the briefest of moments his hand brushes by and skin connects to skin.

The lad in the cap looks round and the corner of his mouth twitches as he moves on past and down into the aisle. And just as the train doors start to bleep close again, he steps off onto the platform, his legs still quivering. And he stands there, watching as the train pulls out and heads on towards the city. And then he crosses the tracks and waits for his train home, the hair on the back of his hand still burning with electricity.