school photos 35

A companionable smog of fag smoke trailed behind passengers as they eased themselves into the cold  and each wandered off alone to find a place to stand sentry on platform two. The dented bottom plates of the aluminium swing doors of Dalmuir train station waiting room flapped open and shut, the rubber chamfers making shushing noises, as a man with a boozer’s nose  the colour of a turnip, rattled through one set of double doors and, avoiding the beagle eyes of the ticket collector behind the Perspex screen, shot through the others and onto the platform.   Janine perched on the end of a wooden bench clocked him out of the corner of her eyes, cold wind whipping against her face, reddening the tip of her nose. She searched her coat pockets for  the outline of her fag packet and lighter, sighing with pleasure as she lit one and inhaled.  Smoke hiccupping from her nose and mouth, choked her recollection of the expression  on John’s face when he realised that the little girl, Lily, wasn’t waiting for him. He’d peered into gardens and examined privet hedges as if she was a playing hide-and-seek among bare branches. And he thought he wasn’t mad. He didn’t know what to do. She calmly explained it to him. They had to go back to the ward. At least he had to go back to the ward. As a voluntary patient, she could do what she liked—which was to go back to the ward with him. She took a long drag of her fag. Leaning forward and balancing on the balls of her feet, she turned her face sideways into the wind and studied a broad square back of a black gabardine trench coat, thick ankles and  black mannish shoes with no heels, a woman standing a few feet away from her. The frumpy woman could have anywhere between thirty and fifty, but  Janine would have swapped places with her in a heart beat, because she was normal. Her musings she felt were sick, shaded pterodactyls nipping each other as they circled round her head, ready to rip apart the mask of composure and leave her screaming like a loon. Gartnavel was the only place that she could be herself and feel safe. The track squealed as the points unfroze and clattered rail against rail and the heavy metal wheels of the Airdrie train clanged into the station, each carriage lit with a cosy bright glow.

The sound of the train caught John flat footed. His head buried tortoise deep in the fur collar of  his Afghan coat and his hands slugs in its side pockets, shaped his bow-backed posture, his pacing, but not the pointless kicking over of the crowns of sludge. Other passengers made their way to the edge of the platform, waiting for the train to come to a juddering stop. He weaved his way through them and stood facing Janine, hopping from foot to foot and he grinned as if he were offering roses and not just his company. She flicked her dout away into the bank of salted piss-yellow snow, at the side of the office and got to her feet, clutching at the arm of his coat,  straightening up and sliding her arm through his, so they were once more coupled, going to the same destination.

            When they got on the Airdrie train, Janine slipped into  an empty window seat in the carriage to the right of the door, her head resting against the NO SMOKING sign. Couring in together, content with not speaking and holding hands  they passed through the first few stations of the line.  The conductress at Westerton clipped their tickets, but didn’t ask Janine, or the elderly man sitting behind them, to put their fags out. Hyndland was the next stop. The battlements of  Gartnavel came into view and were framed in the train window like a still life of a mediaeval castle on a frosted hill.

            Few other passengers got off the train with them and those that did hurried away. Janine and John stood beneath the truncated globe  face of the station clock, watching the back of the train bend away from them, the wind hunting for weak spots in their clothing, scouring their faces.  Janine’s thin fingers in a jerky movement, gripped onto his thick wrist, holding him back and her eyes pinned his, but her timbre was soft and cajoling. ‘Give me a ten minutes start, to get into the ward and have a word with the staff.’    

            ‘You mean I should wait here?’ His tone was petulant and his lip curled up at the side of his mouth like day old lettuce.  

            She pecked him on the lips. ‘Aye, it’s for the best. Probably, best no’ to mention you spent the night with me, or even you spent much time with me. If they ask you just say we split up outside the hospital.’

            ‘But I’m wearing your coat.’

            ‘Don’t worry, they’re a bit daft. They wouldnae blink if you walked up wearing bright red lipstick, a Doris Day wig, false boobs and a pair of size-twelve high heels. They’re all mental in there.’ She snorted at her own joke and crossed her eyes in mock humour. Before turning on her heels and leaving him, she offered one final piece of advice. ‘Just remember to say how sorry you are for causing them all that trouble.’ She shook the thought away. ‘You know the script. It’ll never happen again and you’ll live happily ever after.’ Her fist opened in the petalled fingers of  a wave. She disappeared down the steps and into the train tunnel.

            ‘I’ll get you in there,’ he shouted, but wasn’t sure if she’d heard him.

            He retreated to the shelter of the waiting room. A Helensburgh train came in one side of the platform, and he thought of jumping on it and returning home, but he dallied too long,  the doors slid shut and the vibrations of its departure travelled through the brick island of the platform. He squatted on the wooden bench, positioned himself underneath the orange glow of the two-bar heater in the waiting room, which was angled on its bracket down at his head.  He gazed at the retreating heads and backs of the passengers from the Helensburgh train, took a deep breath and went outside into the clean air.  

The damp tunnels beneath the station echoed with his steps and led into the grounds of Gartnavel hospital. He walked quickly, his eyes tracked the snow-weighted hills, squinted up the camel humps of the slopes towards the ward, hoping to catch sight of Janine in the distance. He avoided the thicker patches of snow, but his socks grew wet with the slush soaking through his Doc Martins. It took him about five minutes to reach the stuffy discomfort of the wards and the familiar whiff of bleach and pish soaking into his pores. He pulled the buttons of his coat, letting it hang open at the waist and bending down, cupped his hands to the window to look through  and eventually rang the bell to be let in. By his reckoning it would be near lunch time and he was hungry. His body began re-adjusting, morphing into patient mode, slowing down to the slower pace of hospital life. He waited a minute and rung the bell again. A white snailish shape loomed on the other side of the reinforced glass, the key jangled in the lock and the door jerked opened.

            ‘Oh, it’s you.’ There was no surprise in the psychiatric nurse’s gruff voice. ‘We were wondering when you’d get back here.’