2 o’clock by Adam Parry
He had climbed the steep enclosed stairway dead slow up to the Bridges and by the time he got to the top and made it to street level his legs felt like marble throbbing with a volcanic fires flowing through them.
His heart.
His heart had to stand there at the exit entranced by the noise and movement on the road before him and when someone behind him brushed by, he moved to the side and lent against the railings. His gaze took in Little Italy perched on a hill over the other side of the Bridges. He would get a better view on the other side but the congested road put him off venturing away from his chosen path. Looking down he saw the well-known dirty glass ceiling of Waverley Station.
He had a ticket home for 2pm.
He realized that despite his efforts, in the time he had left he would barely make it to the enclosed wee park at Surgeon’s Hall. Between there and here there were at least two or three Independent bookshops; a Bisset’s and several Oxfams - one he been to before he liked.
Later he smiled at the memory.
When he had bought the coffee he liked and The Willow Tree by Hubert Selby Jnr., one of the old women at the counter said that’s rough going and the other just glared at him as if I was the anti-Christ.
Afterwards he hadn’t the time to spend long at the park.
He bought some peaches from the fruit and vegetable shop by the wee garden and found a seat in the spring grass and looked at borders of daffodils and snowdrops as he ate all the peaches: juice like a flood down his shaven chin, sticky on his neck. He emptied the bag and knew it was time to go back as if he had some internal PA reminding him of his next appointment.
It hurt, almost physically when he stood as if he were resisting the firm, forgiving force of gravity. That particular place with his peaches, with sticky juice all down him - it seemed the sun had always shone but maybe he was remembering it wrong. Yet why be gloomy? He was away, he had gotten away even if it were only for one day so unwillingly that spot on the Earth released him.
Just before the Bridges he looked in the window of an art shop and was lured inside. It was like stepping into Summer: the displays were magnificent, he wanted everything but in the end settled for a blue water colour pencil for his father. The cashier, who seemed from some other sphere of reality, looked at him with disdain when he put his small change on the counter. He ducked his head as he left.
Out again, pencil in a bag stuffed into his pocket, he checked his watch again. Two or three to two. He took the steps this time a bound at a time. At the bottom he ignored the need to check the watch again. He knew the platform number and he could not stop now. Somehow avoiding crashing into people, or losing anything, including his temper along the way, he saw the train still at the platform and he quickened his pace.
Itsgoingtogo. Itsgoingtogo.
His heart rattled to him through his chest. Now he is on the lonely platform and the nearest door of the train stretches away ahead of him never coming to an end, only stopping at home.
Itsgoingtogo. He wrenched open the door climbed in and shut the heavy door behind him. Itsgoingtogo, his heart continued as if his heart hadn’t realised they had made it.
He felt a joy now as the train set off and he was off home now, but no joy that he was leaving.
