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Back Platform Seven Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. Landing Page
  3. Platform Seven
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. PART ONE
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. PART TWO
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. PART THREE
  16. 7
  17. 8
  18. 9
  19. PART FOUR
  20. 10
  21. 11
  22. 12
  23. 13
  24. 14
  25. PART FIVE
  26. 15
  27. 16
  28. 17
  29. PART SIX
  30. 18
  31. 19
  32. 20
  33. PART SEVEN
  34. 21
  35. 22
  36. 23
  37. 24
  38. 25
  39. Acknowledgements
  40. About the Author
  41. By the Same Author
  42. Copyright

I sit next to Dalmar on the step and if I could cry I would be crying too but for Dalmar, not the man. I cannot summon pity for the man, desperate and bleak as his situation must have been, I’m too upset for Dalmar – the other staff as well, of course, but there is something about Dalmar that fills me with a yearning, a desire to make him safe, in the knowledge that he will make me safe in return: this large, soft man, who seems to be so hard on himself for reasons that I don’t understand.

And so we sit next to each other, waiting for the inevitable dawn: a ghost that nobody can see and a security guard that hardly anyone notices.

3

I leave Dalmar on the steps and go through the barriers, across the station concourse and outside. The arc of night is lightening, from indigo with strands of cloud to pale, smudgy grey, the strata losing definition as cloud blends with sky. The streetlights that appear so orange when the sky is deepest blue are fading too, losing clarity. Nighttime is defined; dawn is blurry. Why is it that we talk of dawn breaking and dusk gathering? Dawn gathers just as much, or so it seems that morning: the day is gathering itself, unwilling and opaque.

Outside the station, three taxis sit in a row, their engines running to keep the drivers warm. By the roundabout beyond the taxi rank, cars queue to get into the commuters’ car park. Behind me, the train announcements drone, repeat. Twenty or so passengers wait on the small concourse, their faces lifted to the electronic display boards. A group of four schoolboys in maroon blazers chatter as they exit the station on the way to school and something about the sight of them tugs at my memory in the same way as the mother and child: in the next moment, it’s gone. The day gathers pace as the sky lightens until it reaches the point, some time around 8 a.m., where everyone has to accept that yes, indeed, they may not like the idea all that much but it’s time to accept it: they’re awake.

The insult of that ordinary dawn – no one knows a man has died here. They will find out later, from social media or Look East or the Peterborough Telegraph, ‘Trusted News Since 1948’. But for now the business of the morning turns as it has always turned.

I am learning what it must have been like after me.

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