Hello Stranger

by Jade West

forty-one years

Farewell, Chloe. I guessed I’d never see her again.

Twenty-two years

“Tell me about yourself,” she said over a hospital cafe snack, so I did. I gave her an overview of my textbook lovely life with a fresh new smile on my face. I told her about my awesome parents I visited every weekend, and our old family dog. I told her about the boyfriend I lived with over in Eddington. How I’d had a great time at Warwick university, studying psychology. How I was happy, happy, happy. Always so happy.

The glass is always half full in my world, even when there’s no water left to drink. After all, you still have the glass there ready for some more…

We’d been together since high school, for eight years straight.

“I lost the bookmark Granny Weobley gave me,” I told Liam, and this time he did flash me a glance. “No shit, really? The pink thing? Fuck. That’s crap.” Still, he went back to playing his game. I wondered how long it would take before I’d give up playing his game of life along with him.

Reading time was the only time I ever truly allowed myself. The only time I slipped out of my own world into someone else’s and left the heaviness of mine behind. My only escape.

It was when I looked across at him and my eyes landed on his that my breath caught in my throat. It couldn’t not. That man was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. For real. There and then, on that train carriage, before eight o’clock on a random work morning, that man was the beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

My breath stayed hitched up tight as the universe pulled a blinder on me. An absolute slammer of a blinder. Just like that, the man pulled out my pink bookmark from his novel. “For you,” he said, and I swear I almost fainted. Two simple words that had his voice sounding like velvet. As serious as the rest of him.

His smile flashed for just a second, and it was such a contrast to his usual heaviness that I felt something deep from him, something that made no sense to me, not with the usual zing of a high that I feel every waking minute of the day. A sadness. I felt a sadness.

What is your favourite novel?

What is your favourite novel?

What is your favourite novel?

What is your favourite novel?

What is your favourite novel, stranger?

What is your favourite novel, Chloe?

Yes, she had read Master and Margarita. Many times over, it seems. Extraordinary. She really was an extraordinary little bookworm with a zing in her step. Much, much different to mine.

I wondered if I’d see her again. I shouldn’t care, but I did. I did care whether I saw Chloe on the Harrow-bound train again.

Something about the stranger on the train.

I rubbed the leather of my bookmark between my fingers and thanked the universe again for bringing it back. But it wasn’t the universe I had to thank this time, was it? It was the stranger on the train. The stranger with the folded corner paperback. The stranger who was different to anyone else I’d ever met, even though I’d only known him for one random train journey.

I pushed Gone with the Wind back into its slot and knelt down lower, my finger brushing the spines, until it stopped in place. The Master and Margarita. There it was. There was a tingle of a glow as I held that book in my hands. Behemoth and the Devil and Pontius Pilate. Nobody I’d ever met as par for the course in my daily life had ever read it. Nobody ever knew what the hell I was talking about, let alone finished up a quote with me. I wondered what else he might know quotes to.

I didn’t bother sitting back down on the sofa with the guy who’d never met Behemoth or the Devil and would never meet them in his life.

I kept on going right the way until I was done. Until I reached The End. My heart was beating happy. My soul was alive. The words were my everything.

I flicked off the bedside lamp and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. The tumble of Behemoth danced with the stranger’s face in my thoughts. Both of them spinning and whirling.

What is your favourite novel?

What is your favourite novel?

“Hello,” I said. I said hello to the stranger. My heart was racing, and my breaths were fast to match, but I said it. I said hello to the stranger. My heart flew to the sky when the stranger smiled. “Hello,” he said right back.

She blew a stray twist of hair from her forehead, and then she spoke – one simple little word accompanied by one of the brightest smiles I’d ever seen. “Hello.” It may have been one simple word, but it was more than that in the making. I’d seen her approaching along the aisle of the carriage and checking out every seat. I’d seen the halt in her step as she’d seen me sitting there, minding my own business with my book in my hands. “Hello,” I said.

The contrast was palpable between us. Her smile was brighter than the morning sun and mine was concrete. Cold. Steadfast in its grounding. Yet, that contrast worked. It was inexplicable just how her buzz of life gelled with the overall flatness of death in my world, but it did. It worked. Nonsensical and illogical to the extreme – but it worked.

I wanted to ask her where she was going, and why she always seemed to look like the grinning centre of a hurricane, bounding between platforms.

And all the while, Chloe’s knees kept on shifting, and her eyes kept on flickering. Harrow drew nearer. Her knees shifted wider, her eyes flickered more. She was struggling. I could feel she was struggling – wrestling with words she wanted to say. And so was I. I was struggling too.

“What book are you reading?” Her smile over at me was the absolute world.

“Lavondyss,” I told her, as she stepped away into the aisle. “My favourite Robert Holdstock novel is Lavondyss.” She twisted back to face me, eyes open wide. “Lavondyss,” she repeated. “I love that one too.” I didn’t doubt it. It was written all over her face.

I never thought he’d like Lavondyss. He looked anything but a Lavondyss kind of guy. I was thinking more historical fiction, or political satire. Or maybe even some non-fiction about Saturn’s rings. But not Lavondyss. No way Lavondyss.

There was a whole fresh swirl of tingles as I thought about his skilled fingers on my skin. On my… No. No. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t.

It was Vickie on reception when I shot on past, and she laughed at me. She actually laughed out loud. “Easy, tiger. Do you always move everywhere at eight hundred miles per hour?” She had a point. I probably did move everywhere at eight hundred miles per hour.

“The department is headed up by Dr Logan Hall,” she told me. “And believe me, he’s amazing. An incredible man.” I nodded. “Dr Logan Hall.” “He’s tireless and giving, and never falters on his care for people, not even for a second. You’ll get on very well with him, on that score. I just know it.”

“But there are other aspects you’ll have to get used to. We all have.” “Other aspects?” She was staring right at me as she spoke. “He’s very… serious. He doesn’t speak much. Not unless it’s technical or work related. Or to a patient or their family. Around that he’s rather… stoic.” “Stoic,” I repeated, and realised I must sound like an echo. “Yes. Stoic.” She flashed another grin. “You will find out for yourself.”

“You have a few weeks until your training on Franklin Ward starts. You will crossover with Gina seven days before she leaves.” “A few more weeks at Kingsley?” “That’s right,” she said. “And between you and me, I’d make the most of them. Dr Hall is an incredible man, but his standards are high.” She smiled again. “I’m sure you’ll live up to them.” I wish I were as sure as she was.

“Dr Hall?” I asked. “You say he’s serious? Does that mean he’s… mean?” She shook her head. “No, Chloe. I promise you he’s not mean. Just… serious.” “Serious. Stoic,” I said again. “That’s right. Serious and stoic.” She carried on gathering bits of paperwork on her clipboard. Serious and stoic, and an incredible doctor. I couldn’t wait to meet him.

So long to my brilliant forming friendship with Vickie. But there would be more people I’d get on with. I’m sure there would be more. Maybe not with Dr Hall, not from the sounds of him. But I was sure there would be plenty of others who’d match my grin with their own.

I walked down the street towards the train station, and my heart was pounding fast, even though I was slow. Scared. For the first time in years, I was scared. It doesn’t matter how long you think you’ve prepared for saying goodbyes, there’s still that gut-thumping shock that comes when you see them truly looming. I was losing my mum and I knew it. I knew it better than anyone.

“You’d better find life in my death,” she told me. “I mean it, Logan. You need to live.” Even the words stabbed my stomach. Life. I really didn’t know what that word meant anymore.

“I’m going soon,” she said. “This time I’m really going.” My impulse was to argue, and tell her to battle on, but I didn’t. I choked on the words and stayed silent, just squeezed her hand right back.

“I want to see the sea,” she told me. “I want to hear the waves and taste the salt in the air.” I nodded. “We can do that.” She smiled her devilish smile. “Let’s do the bloody crossword first.” I was already picking up the paper.

It may have been a woodland fantasy tale, but even Mythago Wood had more rationale about it than the matter darting through my mind. It was Chloe I was picturing in the labyrinth of trees in Ryhope, and it was myself I pictured running there too. It captured me. She captured me. The girl on the train was a splash of brightness in my wilderness. A zany flash of colour in the grey. It made no sense. I didn’t want it to.

Liam hadn’t been happy with me last night. He’d cursed about my stupid books and said I should suck his dick before bed, but I hadn’t done. Liam’s dick could go suck itself, I wanted Mythago Wood. Right now, I wanted something else, though. It wasn’t the wind that had me in a shiver as I headed up the carriage. My heart was pounding, and my mouth was dry, and my stomach was a churn of wanting a man I didn’t know. And there he was. The stranger.

“Hi,” I said. “Hello,” he said right back. Hello. Hello, stranger. Hello.

Stupid. The whole thing was stupid. I felt like a teenager with a crush on a teacher, all giggly and goofy opposite the guy who made me gooey. Because that’s what this was, right? A crush.