We met eye to eye the moment the carriage doors swung open.
Is the seat free? I asked.
Certainly, he replied, pulling the luggage rack toward me. May I give you a hand with your suitcase?
Thank you its terribly stuffy in here.
Shall I crack the window?
Please do, if youd be so kind.
The wheels clacked as the night fell and the countryside slipped by the windows.
My names Emily, I said.
And Im Andrew.
Thus began a simple, fleeting conversation between two strangers sharing a compartment. She was twentytwo, he twentyfive, and an hour passed in talk. Then another, and another, until three hours had slipped away without either of us suspecting that the other might ever reappear in our lives.
What did we talk about? In truth, nothing in particular, and yet everything. As on any British train, the weather came first, then the cost of a pint, then, inevitably, life itself.
Andrew was the first to spill his story: a childhood in a small Yorkshire town, parents who worked the mines, and his current occupation as a percussionist with the London Philharmonic. He pulled a battered playbill from his pocket, showing photographs titled *Blue Bird*, *Gemstones*, and *Merry Lads*, and pointed out his own name among the stars.
Remarkable! I exclaimed.
What about you, Emily? he asked.
Im with the Central Committee of the National Youth Alliance, I replied, astonished. Right here in London?
Yes, that very office. I havent any photographs on me; Im on a brief leave, back to my familys village up north. It would take ages to explain how I ended up in the capital.
He urged me to tell more, and we kept prompting each other, our eyes locked across the tiny table. The night deepened, and the conversation stretched on, a steady stream of memories and hopes.
At dawn, Andrew escorted his new acquaintance to a deserted halt, gave a friendly wave, and vanished into the rush of commuters. From that day forward he could not speak to any woman without seeing Emilys face instead. No lady could stir his heart; each one he greeted reminded him of the nights fleeting companion, and he found himself apologising, cheeks flushing like a schoolboy caught in a mischief. He wrote countless letters that never left his desk, for he had no surname, no address to send them tohe had never asked.
It became almost a joke; at every concert he would sit behind his drum set, scanning the audience through the glare of spotlights, halfexpecting to spot her there. He even drew her portrait from memory, tucking the sketch under his pillow in every hotel.
All other women faded into the background; there was only one in his worldEmily.
Life, however, kept moving. The country swirled through the austerity of the early 70s, the miners strike, the fall of the old order. The Philharmonic, like all musicians, kept playing regardless of who held power; they sang, they danced, their lives forever on the road.
Years later, during another tour, Andrew entered the dining car, certain that a table would be empty. Yet there, at a corner table, sat Emily, as solitary as ever. The sight stopped him dead in the doorway. She looked up, eyes meeting his, and a silence settled over the carriage.
Just like that, Sam, Andrew said, lighting another cigarette, pouring the last of his pint, and continuing, thats when I finally understood the phrase like a hammer on the head. My ears were ringing, colours spun, my legs gave way, but EmilyEmily rose from her seat and placed her head on my chest. She whispered, Ive been looking for you forever.
And that was the whole story, Sam. I took her back to the north of England, where we discovered she, too, had roamed the streets of countless towns, watching men pass, attending almost every variety show, ever hopeful that a drummer might finally notice her. The day finally came when my cigarettes ran out on the train, and I fetched more from the restaurant carriage. The rest, as you know, Sam, is familiar territory.
I learned the whole tale from my old schoolmate Andrew on the second day of his wedding to Emily. We sat together in the kitchen as the guests had gone, Emily resting upstairs. A chance meeting on tour had brought us together weeks before the wedding, and I was formally invited to the ceremony.
Thus was their railway romance, and they live, it seems, to this day. Life goes on, and perhaps right now, in some train carriage, the door opens and a voice asks, Is the seat free?
Yes, replies the traveller, May I help with your luggage?
Thank you its terribly stuffy!
Shall I open the window?
Yes, if you please. The wheels clack once more beneath them, the night descends, and somewhere a drumbeat echoes faintly, like a heart remembering its rhythm.
