Glaciers

She looked at him and directed a finger towards the sign.

Turning away, he crouched into the aisle to better focus, the phone on one ear, an open hand smothering the other. Despite this, it was clear from the straining hesitancy of his voice that the connection was weak.

‘One fifteen.’

…

‘N-no, that’s alright, I’ve got an Uber picking me up.’

…

‘An ooo-ber.’

…

‘Yes, I do know what an Uber is, you cheeky bugger-‘

He crouched lower, almost doubling up.

‘Wha-?’

Then he began to laugh.

‘No, of course I didn’t order it myself.’

His laughter intensified, infecting several other passengers in the carriage.

She coughed pointedly.

‘Look,’ he said, sensing her disapproval, ‘I’ll have to go. I’m in a silent carriage.’

A short tunnel. He instinctively raised his voice.

‘A SI-LENT-‘

He heard a voice in the darkness.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’

Through the tunnel. He squinted at the phone.

No signal.

Calmly resigned to the situation, he settled back in his seat. He placed the phone on the table in front of him then looked amiably over at the woman sitting opposite.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Had to take that.’

She fixed the old man for a second and then looked back down at her paperback.

He picked up a cup of tea.

‘Granddaughters, eh?’

The woman continued to read.

‘I’ve only got the one,’ he said, blowing at the steam, ‘but she’s a gem. A real gem. They’re precious, aren’t they?’

She affected a thin smile. ‘So I’m told.’

‘Yeah, they keep you young.’ He lifted his phone. ‘I wouldn’t have one of these if it weren’t for her.’

The woman’s eyes flickered.

‘Not that I know how to use the bloody-’

The phone rang out. He panicked, cancelled the call.

‘Sorry.’

The woman lowered her book. ‘Why don’t you put it on silent and send her a text?’

His smile faded to a look of confusion.

‘Ah…’

Incredulous, she held out a hand.

‘Give it to me, I’ll do it for you.’

He passed her the phone and watched in awe as she went to work. She didn’t look much younger than him, but her long, burnished nails moved instinctively around screen’s surface.

A moment later she handed it back.

‘Thankyou very much,’ he said. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘Not at all,’ she replied, without looking at him.

She returned to her novel. He to his tea.

As he sat quietly sipping, contented in his thoughts, a comfortable silence grew between them.

One which she eventually broke.

‘Is that your granddaughter?’

‘Hm?’ Her question came as a genuine surprise to him.

‘On your phone. Your granddaughter?’

He looked fondly at the screen and nodded.

‘She’s very beautiful,’ the woman said.

‘Yes, takes after her mother.’ The edges of his eyes tilted slightly.

‘And my wife, God bless her.’

The woman considered him for the first time. His hair and beard, long and unkempt. His clothes, clean and comfortable yet creaseless and uncoordinated.

Like a soul displaced.

A widower.

She wondered what kind of husband he’d been.

Imagined the plans they’d made together.

Before even that, what hopes he’d nurtured as a young man starting out?

The sentimentality of the train of thought caught her by surprise.

Almost frightened her.

An announcement broke through. The train was pulling into her station.

Tucking her book away she saw that he too was preparing to disembark.

She left ahead of him, but once on the platform she slowed, pretending to search for something in her handbag enabling him to pass. Then she followed him out of the station.

Outside a line of cars with drivers standing patiently alongside.

He faltered on seeing them. He’d never been chauffeured anywhere before. He held up a hand. Hoped for one to call his name.

Two came forward.

‘Geoffrey Mercer?’

‘Katya Welles?’

As they spoke, the two names blended for the first time in over half a century.

‘Geoff?’ she repeated intuitively.

He turned. His tired eyes afraid.

‘Kat?’

Both rooted.

Together lost.

Found.

Lost.

Within themselves.

Memories thawed.

Ageless glaciers cracked and slid away, revealing a slew of memories.

Weightless reveries.  

Long since reconciled and catalogued, the dormant, distorted visions were now bought back to life. And with them, a breath-taking recollection of purity.

Of seasons too short.

Of unbearable pain.

‘We were…’ she started to say, before clasping a hand to her mouth.

He nodded.   

And for the first time they understood the gravity of time.

Editorial

This story stems from a question:

If you met your oldest friends for the first time now, would you still be drawn to them by their personalities, words, and deeds, or are your long standing relationships simply a product of a shared history of experience?

That’s a question that’s occured to me at various times over the years – by extension, I suppose it applies to family members too – but it’s one that came up (albeit in a slightly revised form) in Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel, The Passenger (very highly recommended, by the way.)

It’s the first time in writing this blog that I think the word limit fails to do an idea justice.