Travel Short Story Competition - Winner

We were delayed at Calais.
But we weren’t complaining. The appointment was a week away, we had time. Time to reconnect, as the therapist advised. Charles was always relaxed about these things, his execution of life effortless. I was always the one with my eye on the clock; worrying about the amount of milk we wasted; writing lists. He shoved his hold-all into the luggage compartment overhead, his belt right next to my cheek, bisecting the cream of his trousers. I could see marks where he’d ironed.
“Pass me yours” he said and I did, feeding it up to him. We were travelling light and could buy things along the way, when we were over the border into Spain. That’s why we’d applied for this particular card to begin with.  Thank God for Charles and his impeccable credit score.
“Not had a lifetime of childcare bills”, he explained to people at dinner parties, laughing.
“What if it doesn’t work?” I’d asked him at Ashford.
“Bit late for that now” he’d said and kissed me in the midst of tannoy announcements and shrieking teenagers; whistles and human footfall rushing like water around us.
Eventually, the train pulled away. Charles shook his newspaper out as we gathered speed. I looked at the half-moon of his nails against the headlines, perfectly aligned with the curve of his fingertips. He glanced to his side and caught me looking at him. He leaned over and kissed my temple. His aftershave smelled clean, like watered grass.
“Excited?” he said, sitting back.
“Yes” I said, and smiled. The light dimmed as a cloud passed over the sun which I disliked so I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. “I hope the sun stays out” I murmured.
“Why?” he asked. “In less than ten hours we’ll be in Lourdes. And then it’ll be sun and Sangria all the way”.
###
We chatted about nothing much as we sped unseeing through Lille. The touristy things we had planned; a joke about the little cup and whether the dirty magazines would be in English or Spanish. Charles fetched drinks. While he was gone I pretended I was already pregnant and folded my hands across my stomach, trying to tune in to what I might feel like, repeating mother soundlessly and shy, feeling it on my lips and not able to grasp it as the train shot on.
At Paris, it was quiet. A paper bag blew in with the few alighting passengers and it made me feel forlorn. I shook the feeling off and noted to Charles that a mid-September trip had been a good idea. Cheaper, too. The advantages of childlessness.   
“Might be the last chance we get”, I joked, applying lip balm. He nodded and squeezed my hand. There was a woman with a screaming baby further down the carriage. She was struggling with him. I couldn’t guess his age but he had a dummy. I thought I could feel her distress. He was very upset about something. Eventually she pulled a biscuit out of her handbag. He took it and soon fell asleep over her shoulder, worn out with tantrumming and the sway of the train. Her shoulders rocked. I wondered where they were going, shooting through the rapidly falling light with us. To a Daddy, somewhere? Or away from one?
Charles said from the side of his mouth, “You shouldn’t give in to them like that.”
 I frowned. “Trains are boring for kids.”
“I know what I’d do” he said. I jogged his arm, crumpling his magazine.
“You sound like your mother”, I said.
“Thanks very much” he replied. His lips pursed.
I rolled my eyes and looked out of the window. Down the tracks I could see a tunnel. The sun had set and we were in open isolated countryside. No streetlights, no friendly glow from houses. The approaching mouth of the tunnel looked as black as tar and suddenly I wanted to stop, to wake in my bedroom, to feel the cool wood of the bedside cabinet and fumble for my glass of water. But we were being pulled on. I grabbed Charles’ hand and said his name.
“What’s up?” he said, letting his magazine fall forward on to his chest.
“I don’t feel well.”
“It’s hot. Do you want some water?”
“No” I said as we were swallowed by the tunnel. I looked out of the window but all I could see was my own white face and Charles looking at the back of my head, his tanned forehead creased with a frown. His cryptic crossword face.
I turned from the window, away from myself.
“I’m ok.” I said, “Just the heat probably.” He let go of my hand and I tried to sleep.
###
Charles woke me as we arrived at Bordeaux. Breakfast was arriving on plastic trays.
I went to the toilet, more to stretch my legs than to pee and looked at myself in the tiny mirror. I looked tired but decided against refreshing my makeup. It was hard enough to wash my hands without losing balance. Outside I could hear men shouting, and singing.
“They’re pissed” Charles said through a mouthful of toast as I got back to my seat.
“Is that allowed?”
“They sell it on board. What do you think?”
“They might not be pissed, just enthusiastic. It’s a lovely day.” I said, looking up and letting the morning sun fall into my eyes. We were snaking through mountains and I could see what looked like a town glistening in the distance.
“No Claire, they’re pissed. As well as being French.”
“How so? And since when were you a xenophobe?” He didn’t answer. “Are you grumpy this morning Charles?”
“Possibly. I’ll be glad to be behind the wheel of a car again, I know that.”
We ate in almost companionable silence.
###
“Lourdes in an hour.” He said, “Last chance hotel.”
“Stop it. Don’t say that.”
“I’m kidding Claire.”
“Well it’s not funny.” I opened my magazine and didn’t read it.  
Things settled. People slept. Babies, drinkers, Charles.
We rattled on, and my stomach lurched each time I thought of the border and more road stretching out before us; of swabs and sharp pricks; of waiting rooms; of tea that tasted weird and of time stretching out with Charles. Time to kill, to fill.
I remembered a dream as a decayed farmhouse flashed by, dappled with sun and shored up with long yellow grasses. I was being caught in that bar, again. Charles was telling me to go, and I was offering to make a sandwich and telling him there was something outside I was afraid of. I shivered. I had wanted to be caught. In the real world, not the dream-world. I had wanted him to see that something was failing. I went to stay with my mother and slept in my old room. She was kind, but sad. She said I had to fight to save our marriage. She said don’t throw away the gold and it sounded so serious and dramatic that I thought she must be right.
The counsellor had said we could recover, if we wanted to. I took all the blame. I just wanted it to be over. I asked him after one session during which I cried and he scraped his nails with a paperclip “Why don’t you touch me?” which was my way of saying can’t you see this wasn’t all my fault?
He had shrugged and said “I do.”
“No you don’t” I had said. “Only with your hands like you’re sifting through something, like I’m just scenery.” He said I was being stupid and melodramatic and how else was he supposed to touch me? We used up all our sessions. Things drifted and the truth sank into my dreams like a log thrown in quicksand. Talk of children distracted us, gave us a new destination.
The baby woke and shuddered against his mother’s neck. She brushed his hair away from his forehead and kissed him there. I wanted to cry and then I knew.
I shook his shoulder to wake him as the train pulled sighing in to Lourdes.
“Charles, we’re here.” I said.
He opened his eyes. I watched his pupils dilate and shrink with the light, a black hole in the green universe of his iris. We didn’t speak. We just looked at each other, suspended between those past and future stations. Every moment overlapped and became inseparable and the road beneath us forked. We were so close I felt his breath on the tip of my nose. I felt him knowing.
I started to speak as passengers pulled down luggage, yawned, stretched, adjusted belts. I said I loved him. I said I couldn’t do it. That a baby was not a destination. A tear trembled out of me when I said that. He took it away with a gentle forefinger. I said we could not travel to happiness on a train. He looked at his hands, where my tear was drying on his finger. I told him we’d figure the money out later. I kissed him and said I’d see him at home. I needed time on my own, on foot, in the air. I had a little cash of my own. I wanted to see San Sebastian, Barcelona, Pamplona. I wanted to not know where I was going and to let my hair get hot from the sun and my shoulders become freckled.
I took my case and walked off the train into the crowds at Lourdes. I wanted to do it without looking back at him, but this was not a film, or a song, or a book. I stood on the platform and looked for him in the window of his carriage. I watched him in frames as my vision was obscured by a confusion of nuns, station attendants and sick pilgrims. He wrestled his bag down, straightened his collar and smoothed his hair all in one easy movement.
I turned away, satisfied, knowing that he’d find his way.
And I knew that I would too.