Finding Henry Applebee. Celia Reynolds

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      A Pollock on the Floor

      KING’S CROSS STATION, LONDON, DECEMBER 6: DEPARTURE, 8:33 A.M.

       Henry

      What it all came down to, in the end, were the contents of a small brown suitcase, stored within stretching distance under the bed.

      By Henry’s own admission the case itself was unremarkable. Scuffed and shabby, it had mouldered, half-hidden in the semi-darkness on a slightly dusty, carpeted floor. The handle, which was made of a robust, finely crafted cowhide leather, had grown ragged, and the once shiny metal clasps designed to spring open with a conspicuously satisfying click were tarnished and dull. And yet, Henry reminded himself, appearances can be deceptive; what mattered to him lay meticulously preserved within.

      He kept a firm grip on the suitcase’s handle as he made his way onto the teeming concourse at King’s Cross train station. It was still early, the air charged with a melee of arrival and departure announcements, the throb of engines, the irritable drone of traffic from the nearby Euston Road. Henry felt a carousel of emotion crank into gear inside him. Focus! he told himself. Don’t let yourself get distracted until you’re seated on that train…

      He drew to a stop in the centre of the concourse and placed his suitcase at his feet. Overhead, an indistinct mass of words blurred and flickered on the electronic departure board. Henry rubbed his eyes and tried desperately to remember his Mantra of the Day:

      ‘Applebee,’ he mumbled under his breath. ‘My name is Henry Applebee…’

      Steadying himself with his walking stick, Henry lowered his gaze to the granite-grey concourse floor. Tiny spots of blood were raining down upon it, just inches from his black Derby shoes. It took him a moment to grasp where the blood was coming from, then he raised his hand to his face and realised with a start that it was trickling from his nose.

      Henry’s heart sank. The sharp slick of red struck a violent chord of colour amongst an uninspiring sea of grey and black, navy and taupe – flat, wintry hues which hovered like low-lying clouds around the shoulders of the commuters who stood transfixed before the overhead departure board, or scurried backwards and forwards, zigzagging continuously across his path.

      ‘Whatever you do next,’ he said in a valiant attempt at calm, ‘DON’T PANIC!’

      Henry’s eyes darted to the dizzying conveyor belt of faces sailing past him. One or two of his fellow travellers turned and cast a cursory glance in his direction. The majority, he noted, barely seemed to register him at all. He wondered if they were repelled. Perhaps they were just far too absorbed in the busyness of their own lives to notice an old man with a bloody nose?

      He teetered, incredulous, as blood continued to gush in slow motion from his body and began to form an expanding pool of crimson on the floor.

      It was out of his peripheral vision, as he detected the ferrous taste of metal trickling down the back of his throat, that he suddenly saw the figure of a girl running towards him. Henry scanned the outline of her face, caught the lightness and the ease with which she moved. For one brief instant, he debated whether she might be an angel. But then, as she drew closer, he saw to his relief that she was just a girl, an ordinary teenager like any other, probably seventeen or eighteen at most. Besides – now that he came to think of it – wasn’t an angel supposed to materialise in a nimbus СКАЧАТЬ