(This is so ‘drafty’, it could blow out a candle!)
Squealing wheels cross points,
the train rolls in under arches
and stops with a shudder.
I stretch and rise to join a shuffle
of passengers moving down the aisle.
House prices are like London, sod the job,
I don’t want it anyway. Who wants to work
in Oxford on a sink estate: Fire; burning tyres;
screaming brakes, but the dread I felt
coming home from the interview
was more to do with her.
She was getting high before I left,
I always recognise the signs - the looks,
her fear - before the doctors do.
They never act until it’s too late.
The tube is oily, snot-blackeningly dusty,
I look at my fingernails. I hate this city.
She is out as I turn the key,
I knew she would be.
Hours of fretful silence later,
they giggle, stumbling up the stairs.
She freezes in hate in the doorway
when she sees the worry on my face,
and who the hell is he?
Always a weekend, an emergency call,
a locum doctor to be convinced
she's off the rails, usually by her reference
to my inherent evil and, on this occasion,
her conviction that her drunken friend is Jesus.
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