This is the first part of a short story I wrote a few years ago.
*
At 5.45 am, Mr Teruya got out of his futon. He let his wife lie in until the second alarm fifteen minutes later. He used the time to shave and wash his face, and put his short black hair in order.
Although in his sixty-second year, he wasn’t troubled by more than occasional grey hairs. He put it down to a diet of rice, fish and vegetables and moderation in his habits.
By 6.30 he was in the subway station, waiting in line for the train. He could get a seat about half of the time. It was early in the morning, before the rush hour really started. But the Oedo Line trains had few carriages and even at this hour the seats quickly filled up with commuters.
The train pulled into the station and the doors of the train and the barriers separating the train from the platform opened. Lifting his briefcase and newspaper, Mr. Teruya entered the carriage along with the four people lined up in front of him.
There was a slight rush as the doors opened and one of the queuing women bounded forward to capture a seat. The middle-aged woman won her prize and took one of the few remaining spaces, immediately shuffling backwards to get comfortable. Mr. Teruya had missed out today.
Standing passengers could use hanging straps to steady themselves as the train moved by taking a position in front of one of the rows of seats. They then looked down on the earlier arrivals who mostly sat sleeping or playing with their smartphones. Mr. Teruya chose a strap and put his briefcase and newspaper away on the rack above the seats. He looked down on the woman sitting in front of him.
She appeared to be in her mid-forties, probably an office lady. She had dyed brown hair, a hint of black visible at the roots. She sported a cream coloured blouse and a long beige skirt. Her face was wide and handsome more than cute, the skin around her eyes seeming slightly stretched. A number of wrinkles crossed her forehead in long lines which gave her an air of prim concentration. They were deepened by the studious attention she was paying to her smartphone.
Mr. Teruya wondered what she was using her phone for. She wasn’t using the buttons much. She was reading a novel, he decided. It was a love story, perhaps. A story about a prim Japanese woman in her forties who is swept off her feet by a handsome stranger.
Her eyes glanced up from the screen and briefly met his. He hadn’t been staring too obviously and his gaze flicked away quite naturally, settling on an advertisement for a language school which could be seen above her head.
Presently he looked at her again. Her chest was hidden, both by the blouse and a yellow shirt which was visible beneath. Her skin was light, as if she had spent her life with a parasol and long gloves, hiding from the sun. Around her neck and chin her skin took on a yellowish cast from the reflected light of the phone’s display.
Their eyes again briefly met. This time he gave her a slight smile. There was no apology there, no invitation. Merely a brief acknowledgement of their shared eye line which allowed them to smoothly part gazes.
Nakai Station pulled into view in the window behind the office lady. A few people got off. More got on. The woman rested her phone on her lap and took an interest in the coming and going passengers. She looked left and right as a few seats were opened up and then quickly filled again by the standing passengers who had been hovering nearest.
When the train pulled away again, she turned her head to look directly at Mr. Teruya. He returned her frank gaze and gave her his best smile. The corners of her thin lips upturned slightly in restrained response. Mr. Teruya revised his earlier assessment. She was cute in her own way after all.
Holding her smartphone in one hand, she pushed herself off the seat with the other. Mr. Teruya stepped back a little to give her room.
The woman gestured at the vacant seat with her free hand and looked at Mr. Teruya intently, her wrinkles sharpening in concentration.
“Please. Take a seat here. I’m happy to stand.”
Mr. Teruya didn’t let his smile slip. He felt butterflies in his stomach and a weight pressing down on him, as if the train carriage had passed suddenly into a tunnel. But he gave a little bow and took the seat she had offered him in deference to his age.
It was the first
time that anyone had given up their seat to him. A few moments before he had been considering
the woman’s breasts, the line of her neck.
He had wondered if she had been thinking of him too. Apparently, she had been thinking of his
cracking knee joints.
Vocabulary:
to put something
in order – to arrange something, or make it neat and orderly
to put (an
effect) down to (a cause) – to decide or explain that the reason for (an
effect) was (a cause)
a carriage – one
part of a train which is like a room, divided from the other parts with doors
to bound forward
– to jump forward quickly
to sport (a
blouse) – to wear or display (a blouse)
to have an air of (prim concentration) – to have a slight atmosphere suggestive of (prim
concentration)
to be swept off
your feet – to be suddenly involved in a powerful romance
to have
butterflies in your stomach – usually because of nervousness, to have a strange
feeling in your stomach, as if many butterflies were flying around inside
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