The Passenger by Daniel Hurst (great book club books TXT) 📕

At least there I had some free will. Not like these people. They think they are free, but they are wrong. None of them want to be here, yet here they are, because they have to be. Go to work. Go home. Do it all again tomorrow. And they think they have a better life than an inmate. At least I had free accommodation and food. I dread to think how much these guys are paying for the cost of living around these parts.

Amanda is just like them. I can see that on her face as I maintain a visual on her while waiting for the 17:35 service to arrive. She looks bored. A little lost.

Sad.

She doesn’t want to be here. She’d much rather be doing something else. But this is her life. Every decision she has made has led her to this moment right now. It’s those decisions that have also led to a man like me being so interested in her. But there is still time for her to make one more decision. It will be a big one, and the outcome of it will have a significant impact on both her and her daughter. It’s a decision she would never have expected to have to make. But she will make it.

She has no choice.

I notice Amanda turn her head in my direction, so I quickly avert my gaze from her pretty face and look down at the empty tracks in front of me. Soon a train will fill this space, but until then it’s just a cavernous gap that only takes one push to send a person tumbling down into it. Sometimes the trains around here get delayed because there’s a person on the tracks. But that doesn’t mean somebody is playing around on them. It means they either jumped or they were pushed. A scary thought. Not one I’d like to entertain for long. But a thought that reminds me how fragile life is. The edge of this platform is literally a precipice between life and death.

I know which side I’d rather be on.

Looking up from the tracks again and back to my left, I see that Amanda is no longer looking in my direction. She doesn’t know it yet, but it won’t be long now until I’m the only thing she is looking at.

By the time we reach the end of this line, I will no longer be just a stranger in the crowd to her. She will know me almost as well as I know her. She will also have made that decision. I just hope she does the right thing. For my sake. For her daughter’s. And for herself.

But there’s only one way to find out.

We need to get on board.

Now, where is the train?

2 AMANDA

I stand on the same part of the platform that I stand on every day. I’m in the middle, not at the end because that part of the platform is exposed to the open air, and not at the beginning where the majority of commuters wait because they are too lazy to walk further than they have to.

The middle. My spot.

It’s familiar. It’s routine. It’s my life.

But not for much longer.

I glance up at the digital screen hanging above the platform for an update on the service that is due to take me home tonight. The train should have been here by now, but there is no sign of it yet. The combination of digits and words on the screen tell me why. The 17:35 service from London Victoria to Brighton is now due at 17:44. A nine-minute delay. The train might come sooner, but it could be even later. Until then I’m stuck here with the hundreds of other people who just want to get home, put their feet up, and have a glass of wine.

It’s frustrating. It’s out of my control. It’s not fair.

Welcome to my world.

The crowd swells around me as more and more commuters make their way through the ticket barrier and arrive on the platform. I watch them all jockeying for position as they attempt to get as close to the edge of the track as possible in anticipation of the train that will eventually arrive here.

The heat is stifling and not just because it’s been a hot summer’s day in the capital. It’s because of all the extra body warmth around me right now. I really hope the air-conditioning is working on this train tonight. It failed on yesterday’s journey home, and I was so sweaty by the time I got off in Brighton, I just about felt ready to throw myself into the sea. But I shouldn’t complain. It’s rare we get this kind of balmy weather here, and the way my finances have been over these last few years, the English sun is the only kind I get.

Somebody nudges me from behind, causing me to turn around and look at them. But they just stare back with no apology. I didn’t expect one. This is London. But I’m not moving. I have my spot, and I’ll be damned if anyone is going to push me out of it.

It’s a sad indictment of how predictable my life is that I know exactly where a certain set of doors on the train will be when it arrives here. The doors to the fifth carriage will stop right in front of me—I’ve done this so many times that I have it down to an art form. While many of those around me will push and shove in their rush to get a seat when the train arrives, I will simply step right on and go to my usual seat because I have memorised the most efficient way to do this.

It’s depressing that my life is this mundane, but you have to take the small victories when you can, and it’s much better to have a good seat for the upcoming journey than be one of the people who end up standing