Nothing but the Truth A Collection of Short Stories and Parables

They say you should never go back. I read a short story once that began with those exact words, and broadly speaking I suppose at the time when I read them I would have agreed. You never know what's going to happen when you take the risk of going back. That's why I was so surprised to find myself on Platform Nine of Clapham Junction Railway Station at a quarter to ten one cold autumn morning, probably the coldest of the year so far, waiting for a train that would take me to Winchester for the first time for more than two decades. With less than ten minutes to go before the train was due to arrive, part of me didn't really believe I would actually get on when it rumbled to a halt. Why in a month of Sundays, I kept asking myself, should I actively court the pain and disappointment that could easily result from such an emotionally loaded expedition? What was the point of risking some kind of inner disaster when, at a pinch, I could manage to go on living with the tightly tied knot that had been in my stomach since I was a young boy? It was my wife who had finally persuaded me to do the thing I feared so much. 'You may be able to go on living with it,' she said one day, 'but I'm not sure the rest of us can. Seriously, John, why don't you pick a day and just go. I know it won't be easy, but you'll be so glad when you've done it. I'll come with you if you want. I tell you what - I'll take you out and buy you an Indian as a reward when you get back.' She was deliberately being flippant about something that really mattered to her, but she was right. There's something about the idea of an Indian meal that brightens just about anything up. It was the trigger. I said I'd go, but on my own. 'Winchester, Winchester, Winchester . . . ' I whispered the word neurotically over and over to myself as I paced up and down the long platform trying to keep warm. For me, the very word sagged with significance, like one of those poems that tries to make you feel too much. I did board the 9.56 when it arrived. If I hadn't been as frozen as I was I might have dithered and changed my mind, but it was so wonderful to step into the heated interior of the train. Not only that, but I also found a vacant window seat by a table almost immediately. On the other side of the table sat a young chap of about eighteen, lost in the private world of his personal stereo. Outside this little universe all that could be heard of the recorded sound was a featureless buzz. Settling back into the warmth and comfort of my new surroundings I found myself idly wondering if this was a happy person. He looked quite together and content I thought, the sort of young man who is just beginning to feel a genuine confidence in himself. He had a well-cared-for, secure look about him. Good parents probably. A mother who'd consistently done her very best for him, a father who was never intrusive but always there if he was needed when things started to fall apart. Sports. Advice. All that stuff. Yes, by the look of him that was exactly the sort of father he'd got. And would he realize just how bloody fortunate he was in that respect? Oh, no! You could bet your life he . . . I squirmed in my seat as all the old boringly familiar feelings of helpless rage began to mount in me. How long was I going to have to put up with the past reaching out to grab me by the throat like this? What a maniac I was becoming. Pushing the hair brusquely back from my forehead with one hand, I dragged my attention away from the innocent music lover on the other side of the table, and gazed out of the window. As if in some fever dream, I rehearsed the past in my mind as I had done a thousand times, helplessly aware that ten thousand repetitions would never make any difference to the way things had been. I never had fully understood why my parents separated. I lived with my mother, a very efficient, undemonstrative, quietly unhappy woman. The only thing she ever said about thePlass, Adrian is the author of 'Nothing but the Truth A Collection of Short Stories and Parables' with ISBN 9780310278597 and ISBN 0310278597.