A Goldfish, a Decision and a Train.

Look…. 

 

There’s a goldfish in a bowl of water.

 

The bowl of water is on a table, the table is in the middle of a room, the room is in a house, the house is in the middle of a forest and the forest is next to the sea. The sea goes all around the island, on part of which a forest grows, in the middle of which is a house, which houses a room with a table supporting a bowl of water. Four people are sitting around the table watching the goldfish which is in the bowl on the table in the house in the forest by the sea. 

 

One of those four people is Andy; he is the most uncomfortable of the four. 

He is the most uncomfortable as he is also the tallest, and the chair on which he is sitting – next to the table in the room of the house in the forest by the sea encircling an island – is too small. 

Watching the goldfish swimming in the bowl of water is making him dizzy as well as uncomfortable, so he stands up and walks across the room, opens the only door and steps out onto a terrace that looks across to the forest which grows all around the house. 

On the other side of the trees, there is the sea; Andy can smell the sea but he can’t see it. He sighs, he understands why he is uncomfortable and would prefer to be swimming in the sea than sitting at the table where the others are making plans, of which he does not feel part.

“Ok, so… who wants to?” John is speaking, he is not the leader of the four but he is the one who invited the other three to be here.

“I do.” Chris is the first to speak. He is staring at the goldfish as he says this, and he is thinking of another goldfish from another time – a goldfish in a small plastic bag of water that is handed to a small boy at a fun fair; he has just knocked a coconut from a pole and the goldfish is his prize.

“He needed a bowl,” Chris adds, surprising the others by the incongruity of the ideas expressed. 

Jan looks at him, she is hesitating before answering the question that is still hanging in the air over the table, in the centre of the room downstairs in the forest house. 

“Who needed  a bowl?” She asks, happy to delay any commitment on her part.

Chris looks up, confused. He hasn’t realized that he had spoken out loud. He looks at Jan; he doesn’t really know her very well so he is uncertain how much to tell her about the funfair, the plastic bag and the young boy’s mother who was unhappy to have to go to town a buy a bowl, when really she wanted to meet her friend Alma for tea.

“Jan?” He is saved the need by John bringing the question back down onto the table and offering to Jan.

“I can’t.” She knew before arriving at the house that this was her decision, she only hesitates because she felt feels she will be letting the others down.

“I have a good job at the T.V. station, I want to commit there. Besides, I’m writing a book too and I need all the extra time to finish it. It’s been fun, but you should go on without me.” 

“What’s the book about?” Chris is happy to take the conversation elsewhere, the repercussions from the decisions being taken around the table frighten him a little and this is his way of denying that everything is said and done.

“Andy?” John looks toward the terrace and watches Andy turn his back to the forest. He stoops a little as he comes back in through the door, closing it gently behind him.

“I feel like I’m standing on a harbour-wal,l watching a small boat setting out across the sea.” He folds himself back into the chair.

“It’s a beautiful boat. It looks exciting. But I’m not ready, I still have things I want to do up north. Fare ye well.” 

Silence settles on the four friends, some of it spilling into the bowl of water where the goldfish swims in a bowl sitting in the centre of the table, which itself is in the middle of the room, in the centre of the house, surrounded on all sides by forest; in the south east corner of an island in the middle of the swirling seas that cover most of a blue planet spinning in the dark vastness of space.

 

                                                           ***

Jan is the only one with a car, her job pays her well enough to also have a mortgage on a small flat in the city, so it is her who drives Andy to the nearest station. His train back to the North is delayed by snow and she waits with him on the platform.

“What’s the book about?” He asks.

“Magic.” Jan smiles, she loves saying that. When people meet her they never imagine that she might be a magician, she has come to love the power behind the new image people are forced to adopt.

“Can you show me a trick?” Andy is still in his twenties, young enough to be considered a child by some, but he is old enough to know that the magic Jan is talking about is not actual magic; he knows that also exists, but not here.

Jan reaches into her pocket and takes out a packet of cigarette papers, she knows that she should stop smoking but cigarettes are such a part of conjuring she finds it difficult.

“You’re addicted,” her friends told her.

“I’m not!” She answered defensively. “I’ve given up loads of times!” Her friends had laughed, she had felt stupid and promised herself to try again.

Andy is also a smoker and accepts the offer of one of the cigarette papers, takes some tobacco from his pocket and starts to roll a cigarette as he watches Jan take another paper and tear two small pieces from it. She carefully moistens each one with the tip of her tongue, allowing a little of her lipstick to attach itself to the corner of each. 

Jan is attractive, Andy is attracted to her, but he also understands that a good magician uses misdirection and he tries to remain focussed. 

Jan looks into his eyes and gently places the two pieces onto the nails of her two index fingers, the nails are pained the same colour as her lips. Black.

“This is black magic,” she purrs. It isn't, Andy knows that. He knows it is just spiel. But he believes it; he is happy to believe it, just to watch her perform.

“Two little dickie birds, sitting on the wall.” She is almost singing.

“One named Peter, one named Paul.” She wiggles her two fingers on the edge of the railings at the back of the platform where they are standing. 

This was a trick her father showed her when she was a little girl, if she closes her eyes she can still see his hands on the back of the green armchair that was part of a three-piece suite decorating her childhood home. It isn't really a trick, it is more of a game, both for her father and for Jan; it won't feature in her book 

“Fly away Peter.” She moves her right hand behind her head and when she brings it back onto the railing the paper has disappeared.

“Fly away Paul.” She repeats the action with the other hand and the second piece of paper disappears as well.

“Come back Peter, come back Paul.” Her hands pass behind her head and reappear on the railing with both pieces of paper clearly fixed to the black nails, that a moment before were empty. She starts to cry.

Andy felt uncomfortable in the house, he feels even more uncomfortable now. Anyone crying upsets him, a young woman crying upsets him more. In equal measures he is impressed by the magic yet unable to respond physically to Jan’s distress; he is untidy in his own body, too long and to thin.

“How did you do that?” He is lost for words on both counts.

“I was thinking about my father,” she replies, choking back the tears. “I miss him.”

Andy searches for the right words: when did he die? - seems cruel, what was he like? – is only more likely to cause more distress.

“What was his name?” He hates the way he used the past tense. 

“Is?” he adds, and then feels foolish. 

He isn't ready to set sail in the boat with the other two and he isn't ready for situations like this. Up north he works with children on a play project run by the social services; he understands the under-fives. 

“Bert.” Jan replies, peeling the paper from her nails, rolling them into a ball and then, for reasons she can never explain but often wonders over, gives them to Andy.

“Herbert was his full name, mum shortened it.”

Andy stares at the lipstick stained paper, wondering if he has made the wrong decision back in the house. Once the train comes, he will probably never see Jan, or the others ever again. He puts the ball in his tobacco pouch.

“Herbert the Turbot, the fish with two tails, swam up the river to visit some snails.” He recites, trying to cover the blush he can feel rushing over his face.

“But when he got there, it started to rain. So Herbert the Turbot swam home again.” Jan has noticed the blush and she also knows the poem, so takes the opportunity to finish it and to give Andy time to compose himself.

“That was a big decision we took back there,” she says, feeling composed now herself.

“For all of us.” 

Andy nods. For the first time, Jan saying this makes him realise that he has not failed to set off on the journey with the others, but has decided to step out his own way -his own future, as Jan is setting off on hers. 

He looks up and sees the train finally pulling into the station.

“Fare ye well,” He repeats as he steps into the carriage.

“Adieu.” Jan answers, then feels terrible as the words sound so final; until we meet before god. She doesn't even believe in a god! She wavs, then changing her mind blows a kiss.

 

She stands on the platform for a long time once the train has pulled out. 

She watches it disappear into the night and thinks of her father’s funeral and watching the coffin disappear for the final time. She is alone now on the station platform, and then she had remained alone in the funeral chapel once the ceremony had concluded.

She was in another country when her father died and returned just in time for the funeral. Watching the coffin disappear made her realize that her father had simply vanished, one moment he had been alive and well, the next moment there was nothing. It was like a magician, disappearing in a puff of smoke, except there was no smoke and she had not seen him disappear.

 She hadn’t cried.

 Now, on the empty platform of the village station she starts to cry. 

And as she starts crying snow begins to fall.