I’m no psychoanalyst, but I’d say there’s definitely some orphan/daddy stuff thrown in there too for good measure. But fantasies are fantasies, and I haven’t actually done anything wrong.
I relax back into my seat, my eyes flitting over the packed subway carriage. A sleeping girl with headphones on catches my attention, her face so peaceful as the subway rattles on around her. I used to be able to do that back in London, sleep on the Underground, but I don’t think I ever could here. Then, breaking the tranquillity of the moment, I notice a man beyond the sleeping girl staring at me.
He isn’t looking at the girl; he’s looking directly at me. As soon as I catch his eyes, he stands and calmly slips deeper into the busy train car, as if caught. As if I knew him or he knew me.
I repress a sudden urge to jump up and follow him; to confront him. Oddly, I can’t help but feel this has something to do with the Holbecks. The knowledge of Robert’s tape and what might be on it is burning in my mind.
The train doors slam open and a fresh batch of travellers bustle on, replacing those that disembark. I watch the crowded platform beyond, hoping to catch a glimpse of him disappearing, but he is nowhere to be seen.
I run his appearance back through my mind. White, mid-forties, short brown hair, dark trousers, dark jumper, non-descript jacket and a dark baseball cap. All deliberately unassuming.
Before I can stop myself, I am up on my feet and making my way further into the car, in the direction he went. I dodge through the packed carriage as it shudders on, my nerves tightening into a ball in my throat. I know how irrational I am being right now. I have no logical reason to be doing what I am doing. I’m just following an instinct.
Then, just as that instinct begins to wane, a woman ahead of me shifts position and I see through to him in the next car. The baseball cap, that same, oddly calm energy. His eyes meet mine, and I see a flash of concern.
The carriage doors behind me clatter open at the next stop. Another passenger pushes roughly past me, my focus momentarily breaking as my bag is knocked from my shoulder onto the carriage floor, its contents scattering chaotically. Keys, wallet, phone, and everything else, suddenly tumbled between the legs of strangers.
I dip, frantic to gather what I can as more passengers surge on and off the train past me, jostling my loose possessions. But as I squat to gather them, Robert’s tape slips from my pocket and ricochets away from me in the melee. I watch it skitter across the carriage floor wedging itself precariously in the rubber gap between the closing doors and the carriage floor. I lunge towards it to stop it slipping out onto the tracks below, but when I reach it it’s thankfully stuck solid in the closed door, until I give it a good yank. Freed and still in one piece, I deposit it safely into the pocket of my coat, much to the interest of everyone watching.
When I rise and look back towards the next carriage, the man in the black baseball cap is gone.
12 M.H. Electricals
Friday 25 November
‘We got it, but you gotta wait – few hours, maybe,’ the short, animated electrical store worker tells me with a little more vehemence than my question really warranted.
‘No, no, that’s fine. I don’t mind waiting,’ I lie politely. Because, of course, there is a rush. I need to listen to Robert’s tape now, this very minute. I need to know what’s on it.
I watch the short man tap through his computer system searching for what I need as my mind wanders back to the incident on the subway. The more I replay it, the less sure I am that the man in the other carriage was the same man after all. Had he been wearing the same black cap, or had his been a blue one? I get a twinge of concern at the direction of my thoughts; I’ve been on the lookout for this very feeling since I packed up my things and moved here from London four months ago.
Throughout my twenties I had recurrent bouts of PTSD, from the trauma I experienced the day my parents died. Major life overhauls always seem to trigger them: a job loss, a break-up, change. These periods are earmarked by hypervigilance, paranoia, familiar faces seen in crowds, with all the physical symptoms of panic but without the actual feeling of being panicked. But I haven’t felt anything like that in years. The pregnancy could be to blame for what happened earlier, or this sudden and intense introduction to my new family.