reflections from a train

It began half an hour ago.
In many ways, I Thought I would remember... but time has blurred things; and it was amazing that I forgot! I was sitting on the train; it’s a journey I always take twice a month, to my parents’ house; as, being elderly, they are in need of help from time to time. The journey was mostly uneventful, the train expanding to take people at each station, then deflating as they got off... people, young, old, rich or poor, captured in their own silent worlds, never really talking, meeting, but never really touching; preferring to hide behind their books, their newspapers or their itouch or another version of the mp4; which nowadays is just one more item that adds to the inevitable background hiss, that has become a part of modern life.
I was sitting there, alone, looking at the rain sliding down the window in long thin lines; noting that as the droplets were being sliced apart by train, they seemed to diminish in size, but the shape always remained constant; I always find little things like that fascinating, the detail and the beauty of life... I felt a tug on my jacket sleeve, and found myself pulled away from my study, as I turned to face whoever it was.
‘Your David... David Compton? Right?’ The pretty, middle aged woman asked uncertainly, in a faint South African accent. I silently nodded my reply; at which she smiled affectionately.
‘It’s Nikki...’ She smiled, and then looked a little sad. ‘You do remember, don’t you?’
I felt awkward, nervous and put upon the spot; as I didn’t recall her at all, but she knew who I was; so I tried to pretend that I did remember, but I have always been a lousy liar.
‘Yes...’ I said.
She could see right through me as I lied, and then said ‘Brighton 1999?’
Brighton 1999. My god, twenty years ago! Nikki, Brighton, twenty years, had it really been twenty years?
It was March the 17th -my birthday- I was thirty two. The sun shone from a clear warm sky, the sea had a deep blue green tint, the air was rich with salt and expectation; and I was in an Irish bar, full of re-hashed chairs, and olde oak round tables, stained with aged beer, old silver crisp-packets and exploding ashtrays with brown cigarette buts, and white-grey powdered ash; as well as surrounded by green and white flags and Patrick party-goers; with a beautiful woman, whose eyes shone into mine.
I recall the beach, the stones how they felt that warm spring day; I recall the laughter, the sunlight, the happiness, in fact everything about that day was truly perfect. I was in love, actually in love... it was a feeling, but it was deeper than a feeling, it was everything. From the curl of her blonde hair, to the light that shone from her blue green eyes, her oval mouth, the delicate sound of her voice; and a she spoke I felt amazed that someone as beautiful as her, would be interested in someone like me. We laughed and joked as we shared our thoughts and feelings; we laughed and smiled as we reached out to touch each others hearts; and as we embraced, our bodies apart, but whole, we entwined, we danced, we kissed... and as we kissed our spirits made love with passionate abandon as the other revellers around us Bellowed “Wild Rover” followed by “Black velvet band”, followed by “whisky in the jar” and “seven drunken nights”. We sang till we were hoarse, we bellowed with the rest, we danced whilst slowly the night embraced us. Twenty years... where does it go? All those missed chances, all those hopes... all those fears...
‘So...’ She asked. ‘How’ve you been?’ She asked. I could tell she was sincere. It was her most defining and most endearing quality.
I could have told her the truth; that I was dying of liver cancer; a time-bomb of my own making, driven by the booze; which over the years, had finally taken its toll upon me, no matter how many churches I attended, no matter how many times I received prayer, The temptation was always too strong, and I was always too weak. I could have told her about my failed marriage, my three kids; all teenagers now; I could have told her about the endless books I had failed to write, the endless rejection slips I had received until one day, someone looked at a short story of mine and thought it might make a movie; and now I had more money than sense, but nothing to do but die slowly, painfully, horribly. I could have told her everything. I wanted to. The pain is great with liver cancer; unbearable, and impossible to describe. In fact it eats you up, the kidneys and the liver don’t break the food down, so your weight fluctuates; from being bloated one minute to skin and bones the next. The prognosis is terminal... I haven’t told my ex-wife yet. I don’t think that she care anyway.
‘I’m ok.’ I said simply.
She smiled, as she told me of her now dead husband; their four kids; now all off to university, of the life she had experienced, how she had lost her job just after the recession began; how she found another in selling her art-work. It was simply little things, but somehow it all sounded so wonderful so energetic. I sat and smiled, nodded, imagined it all... It was wonderful. It was as if we had first met. I was in love again.
‘It all sounds so sad, and yet so lovely.’ I said as she finished; she smiled, and then looked down. It was in that smile that I saw something I had never seen before, a look of sadness. ‘It’s my station.’ She said; as she picked up her bags and left; and then she was gone, lost amid the unknown faces of the train as it came into the station, emptying its passengers upon the grey platform.
That’s it, and here I sit. The train has yet to leave the station, and I never really told her how I felt, when we parted twenty years ago, though... in that last stare, I wonder... shall I dare to leave the train?