Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (4 page)

The traffic wasn’t particularly bad despite the rain, just slowing a little in the usual bends and up‐
slopes. Maybe it was lighter because people had knocked off early when they saw the deluge through their office windows. Nicholas looked at the LED clock on the dashboard. He’d be home in forty minutes at this rate. Janine would greet him with a kiss and a glass of Merlot, while he would reciprocate with the new dress he’d bought her. She wouldn’t be wearing it for a while, but he remembered his sister saying how just such a gift had meant a lot to her when she was advanced in her pregnancy. It helped remind her that she hadn’t always been in that condition, although it often felt that way, and gave her something to aim at for getting back into shape afterwards.

With that, his mind turned to what might be on the menu. A cassoulet perhaps, he thought, breaking into a broad smile. That’s what she’d made a night last week, but when he arrived home she discovered she’d forgotten to turn on the oven, and they’d had no choice but to have a bath and make love while they waited for it to cook. They were like teenagers these days, doing it all the time. Perhaps it was hormonal on Janine’s part, or perhaps it was some natural inclination to draw closer together in advance of becoming a family. Who knew? Who cared?

He hit the disc‐
shuffle button to cue forward to the next CD, OK Computer. Not an ostensibly romantic choice, but it had come out when he and Janine first moved in together, and hearing it always made him think of that time. The traffic began to pick up speed once he was over the hill, past the cement factory. He could revise his ETA to nearer half an hour.

Tanya was beginning to wish she had been born in a future century when teleportation had supplanted all other means of transport, though she’d settle for one in which personal hygiene had become enforceable by law and trains didn’t resemble some Communist‐
era social experiment on wheels. The carriage was, as ever, packed beyond capacity, and in accordance with the first law of public transport, the ratio of genetic sub‐
species and mental inadequates to normal human beings was ten times that of the normal per‐
capita average. She had managed to secure a seat at the window, which meant trading off the freezing draught against only having some soap‐
allergic plebeian squeezed up against her on one side. In this case it was a cabbage‐
smelling old crone whose leather complexion and rasping voice suggested she smoked more than a laboratory beagle.

She was, mercifully, abstaining on this trip, presumably in deference to the toddler wedged into her lap, who was not so much eating a boiled sweet as breaking it down into its molecular constituents, the better to spread it as far around his sticky little person as was physically possible. His glistening hands swayed precariously close to her good coat every few seconds, and when Tanya tried to compact herself closer into the wall, the old bag simply took up the slack and brought her syrup‐
coated runt back into smearing range.

Directly across from her, there was an ostentatiously snogging couple who had come up with an ingenious way of compensating for the over‐
crowding by attempting to occupy the same space simultaneously. If Tanya closed her eyes it would be easy to mistake the slobbering noises for the bubbling of a volcanically heated mud‐
pool, though the infant was still producing more drool on his own than the pair of them could collectively muster. They were like a shape‐
shifting entity, every so often metamorphosing to thrust forth a different limb or appendage, the effect all the more grotesque due to at least one of the male’s arms being inside his partner’s blouse the whole time. There were three moving indentations on one side of the girl’s chest, squirming knuckles where a solitary nipple should have been. The old bag tutted every so often but it would have taken a bucket of ice‐
water to break them apart.

Next to them was the statutory mutterer, a bespectacled middle‐
aged man who looked as though he had been collecting nervous tics as a hobby since early childhood. He sat there, eyes darting furtively but randomly around the carriage, while his fingers fidgeted and his mouth poured forth an incontinent torrent of unconnected words and sounds.

A curse on her parents for not giving her the air fare. They said they’d already given her a sum for the coming term, and it was up to her to manage it, but for goodness sake, they knew she hated the train. Did they want her to have to take a bite out of it before the Christmas break was even over? It was because of her exam results for last term. They hadn’t said anything – they never did, just huffed around and waited for her to read their minds – but she knew that’s what this was about. It wasn’t as though it was her fault. The urchin she’d paid to do her essays had proven to be a dud, and she’d ended up with Cs all round. Typical of her luck: everyone did it but she had to be the one who backed a loser.

She wiped the window clear of condensation with a paper handkerchief, not daring to touch the grimy pane with her bare hands. It was the last one in the packet, and it had crossed her mind to offer it to the brat to clean some of the adhesive gloop from his paws, but she needed the distraction of a view. Hardly worth it, of course. Nothing but snow. She saw some soldiers by the side of the track, which suggested they would be passing the army base soon, thank God. That meant there were only about forty‐
five minutes more to endure.

There had been some soldiers at the Christmas party at Peter’s place, an old school friend of his and three of his comrades. And God, could they drink. Her head throbbed at the mere memory. It had gone well beyond the usual outrageousness, and of course it had to be Helena who outdid herself. She had gone down on two of the soldiers in the middle of the room, with everyone cheering and looking on. Talk about trying too hard. She badly needed to learn the difference between decadence and stupidity. The idea was to not care what anyone thought of you, as opposed to merely having a complete lack of self‐
respect. Socially, it should have been the end for her, but the guys would undoubtedly still let her hang around for obvious reasons.

Through the window she saw the army base’s outer‐
perimeter fence, whizzing past in a blur of posts and wires. She let her focus blur by staring at the snow, while around her the kissers squelched, the mutterer burbled and the sprog finally ended the tension by wiping a palm on her thigh. Tanya looked down to examine the damage but was promptly thrown back against her seat as though the train had been cracked like a whip. The carriage had suddenly jolted to one side, accompanied by a shuddering creak of steel and a grinding rumble from beneath. The couple and the mutterer were thrown forward into the gap between the seats, while those in the aisles fell to the floor or on top of the seated passengers on either side.

Around her the air filled with gasps and screaming, above which the grinding still boomed, the derailed train driving forward with terrifying momentum. The carriage shook and bounced as its passengers struggled to support themselves. Her forearm was gripped by the now disentangled female on the floor, while the woman at her side tried to curl herself around the now bawling infant. All faces were filled with fear, eyes widened, breath held. Each new jolt or shunt spilled body against body while voices cried in pain or strain. The girl in front fell forward as she tried to right herself, her elbow landing in Tanya’s thigh like a spike. Her boyfriend sprawled sideways, nose streaming with blood after the mutterer’s head struck him, the mutterer himself slumped against the old woman’s knees like a marionette.

The shuddering intensified, the carriage shaking left and right, faster and faster as it bludgeoned forward, building and building until there was a cracking, smashing, snapping sound from up ahead. Tanya instinctively braced herself, pulling her legs up and huddling into a ball against the seat‐
back and the panel separating the windows.

The initial derailment had been merely the overture; now the symphony of destruction truly began. The carriage was flipped from end to end along the horizontal, then turned on its side and rolled a full three hundred and sixty degrees, all the while still skidding forward through the gravel and snow, until brought to a standstill by its collision with the side of a barracks building, which it partially demolished.

The effect inside was like a liquidiser.

Tanya only knew that the carriage had halted because the thunderous rumbling stopped. Inside, there was still motion as bodies tumbled and rolled, those still conscious struggling to extricate themselves from the tangle and crush; those less fortunate lolling helplessly at gravity’s dictates.

She knew she was alive because she could hear screaming and she could feel pain. Her left ankle had been snapped like a chicken‐
bone, but she couldn’t see the damage because she was trapped from the waist down under the combined weight of the girl and the old woman, both of whom appeared to be dead. The girl was lying face up, her head at an impossible angle, neck broken, eyes open. The old woman was face‐
down, motionless, blood puddling beneath her.

The screaming was everywhere, but its omnipresence seemed curiously to mute it; either that or she was losing consciousness. Amidst it, however, she could hear a slightly different cry: higher, insistent, younger. It was the child. Tanya turned her head and looked either side. She could see him, under a seat which had miraculously not collapsed. His face was red with crying, a look of frightened confusion in his eyes. From somewhere she summoned the strength to reach out and grab one of the seat’s supports, trying to pull herself out from under the two bodies. Agony seared through her leg at the first hint of movement, but it was enough to cause the old woman to slide off to one side. After that, Tanya was able to roll the dead girl off too, then dragged herself close enough to reach out a hand to the child. He didn’t respond at first, still too enveloped in his little world of distress to notice her. Then, when he did, he tried to shrink away.

‘Come on,’ she attempted to say, her voice a broken whisper, inaudible amid the cacophony.

Her hand touched his foot, then he tentatively took hold of her fingers, before finally crawling forward from his refuge.

She heard a shout from outside, through the shattered window. There was a soldier looking down at her, offering his hand through the empty frame. Her voice still failing, she pointed down until he noticed the child. The soldier pulled himself part of the way inside and took hold of Tanya around the torso, hauling her through the gap as she continued to voice her hoarse concerns for the tiny creature still down on the floor.

‘I know, I know,’ he said quietly, setting her gently down on the ground before clambering back into the train. Tanya looked around. There were soldiers attempting assistance all along the side of the carriage, one end of which was sticking into the barracks. In the opposite direction she could see the other carriages, all of them having crashed through into the compound. Soldiers were running from every building towards the scattered wrecks.

Her own rescuer re‐
emerged, the toddler under one arm, suddenly quiet. The soldier handed him to her as she sat in the snow, then commenced another sortie inside the mangled compartment. The child began sobbing again, throwing his little arms around her neck and burying his face in her coat. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his hair, the pain in her leg seeming momentarily that bit more distant.

Then she heard the bang.

Tanya looked up and saw the front‐
most carriage and the locomotive disappear in a ball of fire. The ground shook beneath her as the explosion grew and expanded, faster and faster, ever outwards, unstoppable, inescapable. In a fraction of a second she saw it consume soldiers, carriages, buildings, billowing forwards like a tidal wave of flame.

She clutched the child and closed her eyes.

A brilliant flash lit up the rain‐
blackened night. Nicholas presumed it to be lightning, as his wipers battled to make an impression against the downpour and the spray. It was followed in a fraction of a second by a clap of thunder that shook the sky, the ground and the car, though this last was through his startlement at its suddenness, its volume and its awesome power. Nicholas refocused on the taillights in front, all of them turning red to brake as the wipers bought him another millisecond’s clear view. The flyover ahead was collapsing, the vertical columns crumbling and buckling as the top section crashed down on top of the traffic in huge broken segments.

He stepped hard on the brakes but the Audi slid on the drenched road surface, aquaplaning at ninety kilometres per hour towards the car in front, itself still hurtling forward, brake lights no more than a panicked wish. As he skidded he heard a series of bangs, like his fellow condemned being executed by gunshot while he awaited his own bullet. He covered his head with his arms as the Audi slammed into the car in front, the airbag bursting out to envelope him before he was jolted again by an impact from the rear.

He was hyperventilating, but at least he knew he was alive. Behind him he could hear more crashes; in front of him he could see only the airbag. His arms were pinned, but he could move them a little, and his legs were mercifully intact also. He attempted to slow his breathing, compose himself. He was okay. Shaken, probably looking at back pains for months, but he was alive. Uberleben durch Technik.

There was another bang from ahead, louder than any of the crashes, followed by another, then another, the relentless sequence accelerating as it continued. At the top of the windscreen he could see red and yellow light dancing in the raindrops.

Fire.

Nicholas clawed at the airbag, struggling to escape its now deadly embrace. He reached below for the seat‐
adjustment lever and slid backwards, giving himself the precious inches he needed to manoeuvre.

The car in front exploded as he pressed the seatbelt release.

He closed his eyes.

‘Janine.’

The first thing Tony saw when he opened his eyes was his hand, balled into a fist in front of his face. It was still holding the banknote he’d proffered at the concessions stand for Maria’s ice‐
cream, the only thing she’d agreed to let him pay for. Beyond that was a haze of smoke and dust, so much dust. It billowed around him, obscuring all but his immediate surroundings, occasionally allowing a glimpse of what lay a few more feet away: a cornflower sundress, the figure face down, twitching, convulsing.