The Catalyst - Chapter One - Arrival

Joe Irving sat, head against the window, watching the world outside flash past. The snow was still heavy in places, the contrast stark between the otherworldly white of the fields and the sludge brown at the side of the track. The setting sun, weak through the bare branches of the trees, bruised the horizon a violent orange and purple. The first heavy snow before Christmas for over twenty years, short odds for snow on Christmas Day they said. For a brief time the snow had lifted people out of the ordinary, it wouldn’t last long, he thought, it couldn’t.

The closer the train came the more familiar the landmarks, the more insistent the past. Memories elbowed each other aside clamouring for attention. Each one reinforcing his apprehension, each one telling him he had been right to stay away, to not come back. Still no good fighting that battle any longer, here he was being pulled inexorably closer, memories, train, landmarks, colluding to break through his carefully constructed veneer.

‘Hey Joe, what do you think?’

He had fallen into one of the last available seats, one of those at a table facing each other. The crowded carriage was hot, his fellow passengers around the table were large and noisy, they knew each other and worse they involved him in their conversation, pressing in from all sides.
‘What? What do I think about what?’ he said.

The big guy with the broken veined cheeks, he’d forgotten his name, sprayed sandwich around, ‘weren’t you listening?’

He shook his head and tried what he hoped was an apologetic grin and shrug.

‘Well let me start again,’ big guy said, sandwich waving, ‘there I am in a hotel room, non-stop porn on the TV, fridge full of booze, and bibles in the bedside table, temptation and redemption, what are they trying to do to you? What do you think I did?’

Joe could feel his heart thumping, his mouth was dry, he felt clammy and his chest felt tight.
‘Excuse me please, I think I need some air, feel a little claustrophobic.’

He squeezed out of his seat, ‘Get back quick this one’s worth hearing again!’ followed him as he hurried down the carriage, going the wrong way up the escalator, he thought. He was going to be there soon, back to all he had left behind.

He found the toilet and locked himself in. He propped himself against the wall, tilted back his head and took a series of deep breaths, enjoying the comparative quiet. He didn’t know for how long he stood there, but the absence of people, the temporary solitude calmed him, focused his mind.
He dug into his jacket pockets, handfuls of stuff. He pulled out a watch, two rings and a wallet. He examined the watch, a heavy silver Tag Heuer, quite nice he thought, flipping it over he read an inscription, ‘To Paul with all my love Amy’. He dropped it down the toilet and flushed. He watched with satisfaction as the powerful suction pulled the watch out of sight.

Next he looked over the two rings, a plain gold wedding band and a signet ring with an unusual design of two interlocked hands, again with an inscription, ‘Felicitas multos habet amicos’. He dropped the wedding ring into the bin and put the signet ring in his trouser pocket, for later he thought.

Lastly the wallet, a beaten up brown leather affair containing credit cards, cash, driving licence, business cards and a couple of photos. He read the business card.
Paul Howard
Sales Manager
Ventorex UK Ltd
00 44 (0)1993 486777 office
00 44 (0)7899 9409090 mobile

‘Well Paul Howard, I bet you didn’t expect that,’ he said and tore the card into pieces. He pocketed the cash, wrapped the credit cards and driving licence in toilet paper and flushed them. He looked at the photos, a happy smiling couple in one, and the same lady, good looking, naked in the second. Amy? He looked at them for a second, tore them into pieces and dropped them into the bin.

‘Come on hurry up in there,’ someone shouted from outside, banging on the door.

‘One minute,’ he called back, in as pleasant a voice as he could muster.

He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out that letter. Carefully unfolding it he read it again.

Dear Joe.
I hope this reaches you in time, you are a hard boy to track down even
for me. I wish you would let me have your telephone number. I am afraid I have some bad news for you. There is no easy way to say it,
he has passed on. It all happened very quickly. I went round as usual to collect his washing. He was sat at the kitchen table, he said ‘Beryl I feel odd’, stood up and dropped down dead. Not another word nothing. The Doctor and the Ambulance man said nothing I could have done, heart failure, just old age. The funeral is going to be on the 23rd. I know you don’t want to come back but I need you to help and he was your father. Try to come home a couple of days early and I’ll find somewhere to put you up.
Call me.
All my Love
Beryl

He finished reading, refolded the letter and put it back in his pocket.

‘Come on will you, I’m breaking my neck out here.’

The shout startled him, with a sigh he carefully wrapped the wallet in paper towels and stuffed it to the bottom of the bin. He turned to the mirror and stared at himself. He saw the short dark hair showing the first signs of grey. Leave it or touch it up? He ran his hand across his chin, rasping against the stubble. His fingers traced the scar on his cheek. He tidied his shirt, straightened his jacket. Did he look more like his father or his mother? He hoped it was his mother, God rest her.

‘Tan’s fading.’ he said to the mirror, ‘you’re looking tired. Remember , we all build our own cages, you are not who you were soldier, we’ve all moved on, it was long ago.’
He tried a smile but his heart wasn’t in it. He turned and opened the door. The guy outside, a weasly looking runt, stopped in mid rant when he saw him, he had that effect some times.

‘Sorry to be so long, bit of a dicky stomach,’ he said patting his middle.

‘Oh yeah, yeah, right, ok’ mumbled the weasel.
He walked back to his seat and slumped down.

The tannoy announced the next station was Winterbourne. He took a few deep breaths as the train began to slow, stood up, apologised to big guy and his chums as he fought his coat and luggage down from the rack and shuffled his way back down the carriage towards the doors.
. . . . . . . . . .

He stood outside the station. It was good to feel the cold wind on his face. Looking around the wide open space, lit by Christmas lights winding through the trees, and bright spotlights, his eyes took in the familiar office blocks plus a generation of new ones and, looming at the end of the long descending staircase, the nineteen seventies town centre, all brick and concrete, all graffiti and grime.

The rubbish blew around his ankles. He looked up as the clouds scudded across a bleak darkening sky. Take me away from here, he thought. He watched as hordes of people moved off towards the town centre, or swarmed up the steps towards the station. The same blank, bovine expressions on their faces, the only difference between now and twenty years ago, they were fatter, a lot fatter. He wondered if his father had gone the same way, well he’d soon find out. He stumbled as he was bumped in the crowd.

‘Sorry.. excuse me... I do beg your pardon,’ said a small well dressed elderly man who had caught him as he brushed past. With him came a smell, a smell of old tweed and pipe tobacco.
Joe stopped abruptly his heart racing, his mouth dry. He saw the silvery grey hair of his assailant disappearing ahead of him into the crowd, walking stick waving in acknowledgment above his head. Why, why that smell, why did it panic him?
The wind whistled through the overhead cables and the snow blew in swift, cold and penetrating.
‘Who was that?’ he said to himself

‘Pardon?’

He looked down into the insistent pug like face of an old woman.

‘Pardon, what did you say?’

‘Oh nothing, sorry, talking to myself.’

‘You want to watch that,’ she sniffed and turned away.

I can’t walk in this snow he thought and looking round he saw, through the heavy flakes, a taxi pulling onto the rank. It stood out a beacon of hope, a red saloon, very shiny, very new. He strode towards the taxi, manoeuvring his way through a pack of office workers in fancy dress, elves, princesses, cartoon characters and too many Santa Claus’s. He opened the door threw his case in and slid in after it.