Strangers

A dark-blue line forms diagonally into the distance. The blonde-haired baby is crying and his mother squats in front of the pram, cooing and giggling and gurgling until silence once more disperses across the tracks. The collapsed moon watches indifferently, its craters are barely visible in the black night. Jeremy stands ten metres away from the mother and child and checks his watch.  Debbie sits on a cold, metal bench at the other side of the mother.
“The 9.40pm Overground service to Richmond is delayed by approximately ten minutes.”
Jeremy leans against the railing, looking away from the tracks, up at the sentinel slabs of tower block above the station. He can hear distant cries of either laughter or fear. He presumes it must be laughter.
It is so cold Debbie can see her breath. She interrupts this sensation by lighting a cigarette. The smoke burns down her throat with a crackle. She lets it drift back out over the tracks. Across the station, she cannot see anyone waiting for the train going further East.
With a heady roar the freight train passes. The baby giggles at the onrush of air. Jeremy looks straight forward and thinks about eternity. Debbie throws her cigarette to the floor and treads it into the ground with one black, formless shoe. The train makes a sound that reminds her of something else, but she's too tired to figure out what. She wipes a strand of dark, auburn hair from her eyes and pulls her navy gloves further up her thin wrists.
“Chugga, chugga, chugga,” laughs the blonde-haired child.
  “Choo, choo, choo,” counters his mother.
Jeremy feels along the crease of the paperback in his pocket. He scratches absently at the corner of the pages. It makes a noise that is satisfying to him, but which none of the others can hear. He looks back down the dark-blue line but cannot see any tell-tale pupils of light. He sighs, and then he wonders why people sigh when they're exasperated with waiting, when it changes nothing.
Debbie's thoughts drift into her work, and how she thinks maybe she should report her boss for watching dirty films in his office whilst delegating the rest of the work to her. She shakes her head when she thinks about this, and looks back down at the track.
The screams trigger both Jeremy and Debbie instantaneously; Debbie stands up abruptly; Jeremy snaps his neck towards the shriek. What they see is the mother standing rigid. She has taken a step back from the pram, put her fingers to her temple, and is watching as her baby convulses violently.
Jeremy and Debbie arrive at either side of the pram in the same moment. The baby begins to vomit as they unstrap him and exchange a rapid, instinctual glance; a knowing look. They understand that the baby will be okay because of their help.

​

“It seems like such a terrifying place to bring up a child. Hell, I can never imagine having kids here, I was scared enough when we moved myself.” Blushing, she takes a sip from her glass. “It's a scary place.”
Jeremy nods in confirmation. He takes a drink of the beer she's bought him. He notices the waiter smiling at them, but quickly realises that the waiter is smiling at everyone, and not really paying attention to anyone.
“I could never imagine having kids,” she continues, “at least, not yet. Not when I'm so young.” She laughs to indicate it's a joke, but her light brown eyes search Jeremy's. Jeremy nods again, but otherwise remains silent.
“She must have had the fright of her life.” She shakes her head, and the dark folds of her hair bob against her fragile-looking shoulders, reflecting the sharp light above the bar in a way which Jeremy admires. He smiles.
  “I suppose anyone would,” he says. “If you've had a baby, a child, I reckon it's probably one of the worst things that could happen to you.”
Debbie nods and takes another sip of her glass. She laughs again, and sighs. But though this sigh changes nothing, it is charged with happiness and relief.
“How's your drink?” she asks.
“Fine, thank you,” Jeremy says. He looks at her and she averts her eyes, surveying their surroundings.
“I've never been here before,” she says.
Jeremy shakes his head.
“Me neither,” he says.
She stares at the smiling waiter for a moment, before looking back at Jeremy. She is solemn now, all traces of frivolity expired.
“You know, my husband copes with stuff like this everyday, if you believe that,” she says.
Jeremy looks confused.
“Stuff like what?”
“Like what happened just now,” Debbie says, her eyes widening. “Like that poor baby almost dying.”
She reaches for her pack of cigarettes that lie beside her glass and then, thinking better of it, retracts her hand and smiles weakly at Jeremy.
“He's a fireman.” She shakes her head, and again the folds of her hair bob effortlessly upon her shoulders. “Some of the things he tells me, oh God...” She looks past Jeremy with a milky gaze. It seems she's forgotten what she's talking about, but she hasn't.
“Like what?” Jeremy asks, interested. “What kind of things does he tell you?”
Debbie looks contemplative. She glances around before leaning forward conspiratorially.
“One story he told me, one that has stayed with me for God knows how many years, is when he first started the job. He was only eighteen, so didn't really know what to expect. They'd got to this fire too late, just the remains, the skeleton, of a building. A housing estate, I think. One of the older men gave him this bag. Just this black plastic bin bag full of something, tied tightly at the top. It was soft, almost liquidy, but it was really heavy. My husband, and he's quite a big fella himself, was having trouble carrying it about. He's struggling and says 'What's this for?' and the old man, this man who's been on the job for God knows how many years, he just tells him it's to take over to the ambulance, to give to the paramedics. 'Why?' my husband asks, 'what do the paramedics need it for?' And the old man looks at him with these watery blue eyes that've seen it all before, and do you know what he says?”
Jeremy shakes his head.
“He says, 'So they can take the body'.” Debbie sits back and puts her hands flat on the smooth wooden table.
“Imagine that,” she says. “Imagine going to that kind of work everyday.”

​

She showers and scrubs thoroughly. When she's out of the shower, she thinks she can still smell the faint acrid scent of the baby's vomit clinging to her skin. She sprays perfume down the length of her body and wraps herself in her nightgown.
When he gets in late from his shift that night, she tells him all about the events of the evening. He sits at their small dining table and half-asleep, he listens whilst she cooks.
“After it happened, I went with Jeremy to a bar to have a drink and get my wits together,” she says whilst chopping the mushrooms. “I was shaking all over, I could barely breathe.”
Her husband laughs and shakes his head in sympathy.
“You see what I mean now do you,” he says. “You see what a strange feeling it is, being in such an intimate situation with strangers? You get that...” He trails off and understands that he can't articulate what he means, how he feels.
Debbie stops chopping the mushrooms for an instant and looks over at him. They smile and shake their heads together. Then Debbie gets back to making the risotto; it's her husband's favourite. As she pours in the first glug of stock, she feels a hand begin to stroke softly up her inner thigh. She turns around.

​

Jeremy feeds the cat and sits in the armchair. He turns on the television and watches the images blur into one another. He gets up and takes the laundry from the washing basket. He sorts out all his whites and puts them on to wash. He sits back down and stares at the screen. The washing machine tumbles the clothes in the background. He turns up the volume until the TV, in unison with the washing machine, begins to vibrate its wooden shelf.
On the screen, a couple begin to take their clothes off. Their histrionic passion is transferred to Jeremy's front room in deafening groans and distorted, breathless speech. He changes the channel and watches two soldiers carrying a body bag over to a waiting helicopter. The helicopter takes off in the desert, causing a small spiral of sand to follow it up into the air desperately. Over these images, a voice tells him there has been twelve civilian casualties caused by a mortar attack. It does not mention who the mortars belonged to, nor go further to detail the term 'civilian casualties'.
He switches off the television and goes to the kitchen. He pours himself a large glass of red wine and holds it up into the light. He wonders what blood would look like in this quantity. Refocusing, he looks around the small kitchen. The debris of last night's dinner lies in the sink. He puts the glass back down on the fake marble surface of the worktop and closes his eyes. He listens to the rhythmic chaos of the washing machine and begins to lightly hum along with it. He feels the cat stroll over and press softly against his leg.
Eventually, he opens his eyes. He walks back into the living-room and takes his coat from the armchair. The black rectangle of the television regards him as indifferently as the moon. He opens the door and walks back out into the night.