They scent him, close here. In the contained air, thick with transmission, they shutter from body to body, feeding on attention, on distraction, seeking him out. Most people don’t feel the impression, but some seem to accept it. This one, smell of oranges, looks at her reflection in the window, evades the eyes, picks at the teeth. The mouth floods with flavours. She touches her belly, stretched and pregnant, and the lips sink into a grimace. They feel her interior fascination, her estrangement from herself, the life that feeds on her life. Bladder, calves, the press of weight, the swollen ankles. The swish of her skirt against the legs when the train lurches gives her pleasure; she lurches with it. She looks behind her, where nobody gives up their seat. At the next stop, someone pushes past her, and they feel a hand pressed lightly against her lower back; they feel her whole body tense and hold itself from fighting. The fury in her, everywhere at once. They press themselves beside it, shift with her protection.
He’s tight as a rubber-band ball. The seam of rage under the surface. He gets off the train, avoiding contact. Nothing in his pockets when he taps at them. They don’t want him to go up the stairs, and he stays to watch the last carriage trundle away. A shimmer, a spark in the eye, enjoying this odd imprisonment.
He walks to the edge of the platform, peers back into the tunnel for the lights of the next train. Nothing comes out of the dark. They coil in him, wanting to build to a release like lightning. Uncertain if this pressure is their own, or if it belongs to the body. If there’s a membrane between what they are and him, it’s porous; they leak through.
Something in him that they recognise. Pain, demanding and dispersed. Some kind of homesickness. The platform is crowded but the crowd stands at a distance. He hears the train approaching with his whole body. His mouth fixes its tight line and his hands look for his pockets. Too close to the edge. Heart like a panic drum and no they are all at once no
‘No,’ she says and they are in her arm, wrinkled with the scars there, fired and clasping him by the shirt as the train rushes in. The wind catches at her lungs and she takes his shoulder in her other hand. She scrapes him away, burning the wrist with her nails. They feel the quick of her assessment. ‘Are you all right?’
He looks away. ‘I lost my balance,’ he says, frowning. Looks back. Black eyes don’t see them.
‘No, you, I. We can talk,’ she says, stuttering through the pronouns. So much meat in her throat the tongue doesn’t seem to fit there. ‘Listen, I can help,’ she says. She yanks her hair away from her face, loose, grey, untreated. The hand is shaking; she hides it behind her hip. A narrow ache in the ribs that comes from nowhere.
He quarter-turns. Won’t meet her eye, won’t see them. They wonder if he knows.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘This isn’t me.’
The air vibrates, the signal sings. Another train is coming.
Who, then?
She watches him get on it, doesn’t follow. The chimes go, and a machine-blurred and accented voice says, ‘Standcleardoorsclosing.’ Her breath corrects itself, and she glances at her wrist. His claws have burned her skin. They see the line of an old scar, the blur of a home-made tattoo beside it. Infinity. This slowing of the breath is a ritual, her way to safety. There is a hiss of doors about to shift and she takes a step towards the carriage, too late. They feel the wind of its leaving on her skin. Her eyes look for her reflection in the glass, but it’s moving too fast to see anything. Infinity is not available.
Absently, she reaches a hand to her neck and feels the life there, pulsing below the jaw. They flood through it, into her skull, and do what they can for her. Her breath relaxes, and the tightness loosens in her throat. They find an incipient headache, habitually placed, and try to unpick its stitches. I want to help, she said. Well, they could help too.
Several times they think they catch glimpses of him in the carriages, through crowds, on platforms through a window, but can never be certain. He’s always leaving as they arrive, moving on another track, travelling too fast to identify. There’s no way to call out to him, to make themselves visible. All that watching, and now he never sees. They wonder if he ever did.
They settle where they can for as long as they can, until the body shakes them. What is it that lets them stick around? This one, for instance. The body young, unfinished, still suffering its growth. So full of itself, its wants. And yet it lets them in.
The train rocks her at the hip, vinyl ripped beside her uniform where it was knifed open. She rests her hands on her thighs. Scabs itch in thin lines beneath the fabric. Her attention is with something concealed in the hem of the bra where it joins the strap, too tight a net over chicken-white flesh. She stares at an old woman standing opposite, and wrinkles her nose.
Prickling, she brushes something invisible from her leg. Chilled by the air conditioning? Aware of their presence? She looks over her shoulder at the nobody there.
She reaches into the bra where the attention tingles, and touches something warm. Brushing against it fills her with pleasure. It’s some kind of blade, they feel the shape of a razor under her fingertips. Hunger for it shudders through her. She watches the veins in the old woman’s legs, blue veins raised in pale paperbark. She might take the blade to them. Bloom rising from the skin. They wonder what it would be like, to open someone. Open him. Their desire and the girl’s desire interfere with each other. They try to wrest control of her, but she’s strong.
She doesn’t move. Her gaze crawls over the old woman’s face, which is in profile. The ear delicate, the hair so thin they could count the strands. She rests her eyes there. Inside her collar, the girl’s forefinger caresses her thumb, where a series of parallel marks remain beneath a scar. These lines shoot through her, she feels them in her spine, delights in them. Her feet react, tap rapidly under the seat, impatient. The old woman turns her shoulder, drops her eyes to the girl. Hot now, the straps too tight, she looks up into the milk of them. Blue like old china. Direct, and nearly blank. Unarmed as moonlight.
The old woman smiles. But she’s not smiling at the girl. Not looking at her, but through.
The girl is afraid, shuffles back in her seat.
They gather their energy, bring it forth. A longing to be recognised. The old woman comes for them. Puts her cool right hand to the girl’s collarbone, the backs of her fingers touching skin. The razor beats beneath. They can feel the girl’s pulse in her neck now, thick and fast. She pushes back against the seat, but doesn’t quite retreat. The threat fascinates her like any other hurt. A swollen warmth spreads through her, an unwelcome pleasure. Dry skin against young. Disgust and need embrace in her. This is an awful kindness.
The old woman tugs at the collar of the girl’s uniform, unfolds it from the neck and draws it out. When it is straightened, she pats it gently and smiles. Her mouth moves, the dry lips open, but she doesn’t speak.
The girl swallows, whispers to herself: ‘Omigod.’ Wriggles away from the old woman, eases herself in the seat. She turns her eyes to the glass but only escapes as far as her reflection. Her heart is like a bird concealed. She reaches her cool hand under the collar where the woman touched her, fondles the top triangle of her bra where the razor hides. Its power will return. That touch was nothing. She looks anywhere but at herself. They tend to her disgusted pleasure.
The exchange of a station, no sign of him, then the dark, then posters. The girl’s self-image vanishes against a display of wedding jewellery. Pink women grin. The heart glazed. The images ghost over. She wriggles again, the body struggling with discomfort. They give it back to her. They leave her alone.
In the seat across the aisle, a man. His body round-shouldered, soft. Brown hands fold together, push between the knees. His work-sore feet. They can watch the girl from here. Seeing her unease from the outside, they look more kindly on it. The roses in those cheeks. He lifts his eyes to the old woman watching, dips his lashes to her, the gesture respectful, a feminine observance.
The old woman turns to him. She watches him now with the same intent gaze that she laid on the girl. So close, so uncorrupted. They feel her recognition in him, tingling like a threat. They are sure that she has followed them across, traced their journey, watched them move. Now his forehead furrows, hands reorganise. He touches his watch but does not check it. Examines her expression. Meets her eye. The old woman gives him the same half-executed smile, and bends in.
‘There you are,’ she whispers. ‘There you are.’ Her mouth opens, shows the brown bloom in the teeth. She peers in at them.
They are here, near surfacing, rising to the gaze. But his body reacts too quickly, it sinks them. He reaches for a pole, gets to his feet. Offers his seat. She shakes her head, keeps her eyes on his. Brows folded now, a clever trouble. He glances down, relaxes his hands. Her wrist looks so thin in the cardigan, which half-conceals a narrow white band. He steps closer, letting the girl behind him blur past and shuffle for the door.
‘Where are you off to today?’ he asks, the voice sweet. Big smile, very kindly, not looking at her wrist. She covers it with her other hand regardless. Smiles back, but not the eyes.
‘Maybe I can help you,’ he says, and reaches for her sleeve.
‘You’re not him,’ she says. Vicious, then the lips go soft. He hesitates, examining her face. His body represses the dreadful tremor, which they thoroughly enjoy.
‘I won’t go back,’ she says.
‘Back where?’
She stares a long time, mouth working a puzzle. At last she offers her wrist. The scent of powder, of musk and lavender and rose. A plastic bracelet, and a name. The train is slowing.
‘Here we are,’ he says. He takes her arm and fumbles for something in his pocket, touches his smooth phone but doesn’t take it out. He leads her up the stairs towards the door of the train. They want to stay down here, look for Adam; they don’t want to leave the train. He grips her loose-skinned wrist, and they feel her resistance. ‘It’s okay,’ he says, a voice like roses. One strong thumb on the back of her hand. ‘I’ll get you home.’ He looks at her neck, at the collar of the cardigan. It’s inside out, the label tattered, the print fading away. The stamp of a hospital under the tag.
‘Home,’ she says, uncertain. She has already lost the place.
The doors open. The platform waits. He holds the panic in her wrist, restraining. They slip inside her, and her eyes go wide as she remembers. The body remembers.
‘Let go.’ She tears her wrist. ‘Let go of me,’ and he releases her. She doesn’t know him. She hasn’t seen them. She doesn’t even recognise herself.
The doors close, and they sink back with her into the train.