Waiting

‘I’m t-aking off my T-shirt,’ says Johan.

‘Then I will too,’ says Toon.

They’re sitting on the last bench on Platform 1, a good distance from a group of passengers on the opposite platform. The train the other people got out of has been stopped for a long time; every few minutes there’s an announcement about an obstruction further up ahead. It’s been raining for a while. Not hard, but fat drops have started to fall from the crown of the elm behind the bench. On their shoulders. The platform lights are on.

‘N-ice,’ says Johan.

‘Yes,’ says Toon.

‘Ob-struction?’

‘I don’t know what’s going on either. They never say.’

‘But this way too?’

‘It’s a single track between here and Anna Paulowna.’

‘He’s s-till coming though.’

‘Of course he is. And if he doesn’t come now, he’ll come some other time.’

‘Attention all passengers, because of an obstruction between Schagen and Anna Paulowna, trains are not currently running. It could take some time for this to be rectified. Please keep listening to these announcements, we will provide more information as soon as possible.’

Yells and swearing from across the track. ‘Bring in a bus, then!’ someone shouts. There are other people who are almost undressed too, mostly young.

‘You really don’t know, do you?’ Toon asks, looking at Johan. Long wet hair, gleaming shoulders, big hands resting on his thighs.

‘T-eun?’

‘That’s right. From the swimming pool.’

‘But why are you called Toon now?’

‘Yeah . . . There was a time I thought that if you changed your name you automatically became someone else. My mother thinks names are very important.’

‘Some one else?’

‘I used to know you Kaans very well. And then we moved. I know you from the old days too.’

‘Yeah? I don’t know you. I d-idn’t know you.’

‘That’s because of your accident, I think.’

‘But J-an knows you?’

‘Be funny if he didn’t. But what he doesn’t know is that I’m me.’

‘Huh?’

‘Never mind.’

Across the track a group of young people have started chanting, ‘Bus, bus, bus. Now, now, now.’

‘Do you remember the Queen’s visit?’

‘Wh-ere?’

‘To the village.’

‘N-o.’

‘The Queen came in . . . June nineteen sixty-nine . . .’

‘Just before the man on the moon!’

‘Yep. How come you remember that? I helped Jan then. I held his hand.’

‘Wh-y? Was he s-cared?’

‘No. He was angry. Your mother wasn’t there. He was all alone.’

‘J-ust like that?’

‘Yes. Don’t you ever have that? A sudden urge to grab hold of someone?’

‘All the time,’ Johan says. ‘F-lower girl.’

‘What?’

‘Once I w-anted to g-rab a flower girl.’

‘But you didn’t?’

‘No.’ Johan looks down at his hands.

It’s getting busier and busier on Platform 1. The red letters indicating the length of the delay disappear. Then all the place names and the departure time rattle out of sight and exactly the same place names reappear with a new departure time. ‘They’ve just cancelled a whole fucking train!’ a girl swears.

Teun wraps an arm around Johan Kaan’s shoulders and pulls him closer. ‘And that same day your little sister died.’

‘Yes,’ says Johan. ‘But n-ow she’s got pretty s-tones. B-lue. And Jan made the letters white.’

Teun licks the rainwater off his upper lip and thinks about his yellow swimming trunks, and then about his mother, who couldn’t understand why he didn’t want a new pair. Because of his mother, he thinks of his father’s grave, wondering if he should go there tomorrow morning to clean it himself. The diving board. His diving board. Johan stares across the track, a deep groove over his nose.

‘Poofters!’ someone shouts from the other side.

‘Shut your trap!’ Johan screams.

‘Easy,’ says Teun.

‘I’m no p-oofter,’ says Johan.

‘I am.’

‘D-irty bastard.’

‘Shall I let go of you then?’

‘N-o.’

‘OK.’

‘Attention all passengers, the obstruction between Anna Paulowna and Schagen has been resolved. The delayed train to Amsterdam and Arnhem will enter the station in several minutes. The delayed train in the direction of Den Helder will depart after the arrival of the previously mentioned train.’

‘Phew,’ says Johan. ‘F-inally.’