Isobel and Emile (3 page)

Emile says: ‘Are you done?'

Nicolas nods his head. He puts the key to the bar in his pocket.

It is starting to get cold at night. Emile wishes he had a scarf with him. He has his collar turned up.

Emile lights his cigarette. He passes it to Nicolas. Nicolas starts to walk away from the bar. Emile picks his suitcase up. He walks away from the bar with Nicolas.

They walk to the next block. It is where the streetcar stops. It is where Emile got off the streetcar on his way here. They go to the plat form in the middle of the street. They wait for a streetcar to come.

They pass the cigarette back and forth between them.

A streetcar comes. It stops in front of them. They get on it and they put their fares into the fare machine. The driver gives them tickets. They sit down on the streetcar and the streetcar moves again. They sit on the streetcar for a while. Then they get off.

They are standing on a platform in the middle of another street. There are shops on this street. They go to a door between two of the shops.

Nicolas puts his hand into his pocket. He takes some keys out. He opens the door.

He says: ‘Welcome home, Emile.'

There are stairs on the other side of the door. They walk up the stairs. Nicolas is walking in front and Emile is walking behind him.

They go up one flight of stairs and then they go up another flight of stairs. They are at the top of the stairs. They are standing in front of another door.

Nicolas still has the keys in his hand. He opens the door. They go inside.

They are in an apartment. It is dark.

Nicolas turns on the lights. Emile puts his suitcase down by the door. He puts it down carefully. He takes his knapsack off. He puts it down beside his suitcase.

There is a table in the middle of the apartment. It has four chairs around it. Emile sits down on one of the chairs.

Nicolas takes his jacket off. Emile rubs at his eyes. He is tired. He rubs at his eyes because he does not want to be tired.

Emile starts to make a cigarette.

Nicolas looks at Emile making a cigarette. He says: ‘I'm sorry.' He says: ‘I need to get to bed.'

Emile says: ‘Oh.'

He stops making the cigarette. He says: ‘Do not worry about me.' He says: ‘I remember my way around.'

Nicolas says: ‘Okay. Good night, Emile. I'll see you in the morning.'

Nicolas goes into his bedroom. He closes the door behind him. Emile is still sitting at the table.

He remembers the girl on the platform. She did not wave goodbye.

She was standing on the platform. The train was going to leave. She was wearing a dress with frills around the collar.

She raised a hand to push her hair away from her face.

She did not wave goodbye.

Emile says: ‘Good night, Nicolas.'

2

Isobel is standing on the platform of the train station.

The train is gone. The people who got off the train are gone. There is no one here. The woman inside the station is knitting. She is making a sweater. Isobel is alone on the platform.

She is standing at the edge of the platform. She is holding her hands together in front of her. She wants there to be something to look at.

The train is gone. There is nothing to look at.

She is standing at the edge of the platform. It is where she was standing to watch the train go. She stays at the edge of the platform and then she walks away from it.

There is a bench on the platform. She goes to the bench. She sits down on the bench on the platform. She sits with her hands together in her lap. She squeezes her hands together. She does it so hard that her knuckles turn white.

She does not know that her knuckles have turned white. She does not know what to do.

The woman inside the station puts her knitting down. She gets out of the booth she sits in. She has her purse in her hands.

The woman comes out onto the platform.

She sees Isobel. Isobel is sitting on the bench. She does not say anything to Isobel. She walks to the end of the platform.

She reaches into her purse. She takes out a pack of cigarettes. She takes out a cigarette. She puts it to her mouth. She takes a book of matches out of her purse. She lights her cigarette with a match.

She holds the cigarette in her hand and she blows smoke out of her mouth. She looks at Isobel sitting on the bench. Isobel can feel her looking at her.

The woman narrows her eyes.

She finishes smoking her cigarette. She takes a stick of gum out of her purse. She puts it into her mouth.

She goes back inside the station. She walks slowly. She is very fat. Inside the station a radio comes on. There is music playing on the radio. Isobel hears it from where she is sitting on the platform.

Isobel stands up. She stands by the bench for a moment. She does not move. She stands still. It is like she is deciding what she is going to do.

She goes inside the station.

There is a snack machine inside the station. She goes to the snack machine. The woman is here. She is sitting in her booth. She is knitting.

Isobel looks at the woman sitting in the booth as she goes to the snack machine.

Isobel takes some coins out of her pocket. She counts them in her hand. She counts them and then she looks at the snack machine.

The woman behind the pane of glass stops knitting. She looks at Isobel.

Isobel counts the coins in her hand again. She looks at the snack machine again. She makes a decision. She puts some of the coins into it. She presses a button on the front of the machine.

Gears turn inside the machine. It gives her a snack. Isobel looks at the woman behind the pane of glass. The woman is looking at her.

Isobel scowls. She wants to scowl at the woman but she does not. She looks at the ground. She goes back onto the platform.

There is the bench on the platform. She goes to the bench and she sits down on the bench. She eats her snack. While she is eating her snack a train comes. It stops beside the other platform. Isobel stops eating her snack. She looks at the train.

Things happen on the other platform. She cannot see what happens on the other platform. The train is between her and the other platform.

She looks at the train until it leaves.

When the train leaves there is no one left on the other platform. She looks down at her hands. She is holding her snack in her hands.

She starts to eat her snack again.

Someone comes onto the platform. He is pulling a suitcase behind him.

He sees Isobel sitting on the bench. Isobel looks at him. She stops chewing and she looks at him. There is still some of her snack in her mouth.

Isobel is sitting on the only bench on the platform. He does not sit down on the bench. Isobel finishes eating her snack.

She looks at the empty wrapper in her hand. She closes one hand around it. She puts her hands in her lap.

She looks at the man on the platform. He is wearing a cap. He does not sit on the bench. There is room for him to sit on the bench but he does not sit on the bench.

He adjusts his cap. He stands on the platform. Isobel looks at her hands in her lap. The radio in the station is playing music. Her knuckles are white again. She sees that her knuckles are white. She does not want her knuckles to be white.

She stands up. She goes to the end of the platform. She wants to be able to see the trains that have left. She cannot see the trains that have left. They are too far away. She looks back at the bench. Her knuckles are white again. There are tears in her eyes. She looks down.

She is standing where the woman was smoking a cigarette. The butt of her cigarette is still smoking. Isobel scowls.

She does not know why she is still here.

She walks into the station. There are washrooms inside the station. There is a washroom for men and there is a washroom for women. She goes into the washroom for women. There is a sink by the door of the washroom. Behind the sink there are two stalls.

She goes into one of the stalls. She closes the door. She does not lock it. She does not think to lock it. She puts the cover of the toilet down. She sits on the toilet.

She drops her head into her hands. She grabs hold of her hair.

She does not know what else to do.

The radio in the station is playing music. The woman in the station hums the tune while it plays. She is sitting behind her pane of glass. She is still knitting.

Isobel is sitting on a toilet with her head in her hands.

She lifts her head. She stands up. She opens the door to the stall. The washroom is empty. She goes to stand in front of the sink. She looks at herself in the mirror.

She scowls. She hates that there is nothing else to do.

She takes some paper towels from beside the sink. She wipes at her eyes. She throws the paper towels into the garbage.

She goes out of the washroom. She goes out of the station. The woman behind the pane of glass watches her. Isobel scowls at her. She knows that she should not. She does not care. She scowls at her and she walks out of the train station.

Outside the train station there is the road that leads to the train station. Isobel stands on the road. She could walk back down the road. It would take her to the town. She does not want to go back to the town.

The train station is behind her. There are the tracks leading away from it. There is the road. There is nowhere else to go.

She walks down the road.

Isobel is standing in front of the grocery store.

She is back in the town. She walked down the main street of the town and now she is standing in front of the grocery store.

There is a sign in the window of the grocery store. It says that the grocery store is closed.

It is late. She does not know where else to go. She tries to open the door.

It is locked.

She is standing in front of the grocery store on the main street of the town. She is not supposed to have a key to the door. She takes the key from her pocket. She opens the door. She goes inside the store.

It is dark inside. She is not supposed to be here. She does not turn on the lights.

She is hungry.

There are vegetables in a basket in front of her. She takes some of the vegetables. She is not sure what the vegetables are. She cannot see them. She walks further into the store. She takes other things out of baskets and off the shelves. She holds them in her arms. She walks to the back of the store. There is a door there. It goes to the room at the back of the store.

The door is not locked. She opens it.

There are no windows in this room. It is too dark to see. Isobel takes a breath. She knows that there are things on the floor of this room. She is not sure where they are. She puts one hand out in front of her. She is holding the food she took in her other arm.

She steps into the room.

Her foot hits something. It hurts. She bites her lip. There are crates scattered around. She knows that there are stairs in this room. They go to the rooms that are above the grocery store.

She takes another step. She is going to where the stairs are.

Her feet hit other things. She stumbles. She drops some of the food she took. She cannot see where it dropped. She does not stop to look for it.

She reaches the bottom of the stairs. She puts her hand on the banister. She goes up the stairs.

One of her hands is on the banister beside the stairs. The other is holding the food she took. At the top of the stairs there is a room. It is not really a room. It is more like an attic. She goes to the top of the stairs. There is a door. She opens the door. She is in the room.

There is a window in one of the walls. There is a curtain over it. The curtain is flimsy. A bit of light from the alley comes through it.

Isobel can see a bed. It is against one wall of the room. She can see a sink on one of the other walls. There is a mirror on the wall over it.

She goes to the middle of the room. There is a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. She cannot see it but she knows it is there. She stands under the light bulb. She reaches up. She pulls on the string hanging from it.

The light bulb turns on.

The bed against the wall is a small bed. There is a bare mattress on the bed frame. It is the bed she woke up in this morning. The plain white sheets are gone. There is not supposed to be anyone here. The sheets have been put away.

Isobel sits down on the floor. The floor is made of planks of wood. She puts the food she took on the floor. She eats some of the food. She uses her hands.

When she is done eating she stands up again. She goes over to the sink. She washes her face. There is not a towel hanging by the sink. There had been a towel there this morning. It has been put away too.

She wants to feel at home here.

She scowls. She has to use her dress to dry her face.

She walks to the middle of the room. She pulls on the string hanging from the light bulb again. The light bulb turns off.

She lies down on the mattress.

She wants to believe she has come home. She is lying on a bare mattress. There are no sheets and no blankets. She is still wearing her dress.

She has not come home.

There is a truck in the alley behind the store. Its engine is running. It is morning. Isobel is lying on the bed. She had been asleep. Now she is awake. The sound of the truck woke her.

She rubs at her eyes. She sits up in the bed. It was cold during the night. She had no blankets. She did not sleep well. Her body is stiff. She is still tired. She stands up. She rubs at her eyes again.

She goes over to the sink. She looks at herself in the mirror. She looks like she just got out of bed. She tries to make her hair look nicer. She pushes at it. It does not make her hair look nicer. She looks like she just got out of bed.

She grits her teeth.

She wants to look nicer.

She turns the water on. She washes her face. She dries her face on her dress again.

She looks at herself in the mirror. She tries to not scowl. She takes a breath. She opens the door and she goes out of the room.