Wait at the Gate

“Old freight gate,” the man said. “Before they lock it.”

Mavis kept her foot on the brake. He had opened the rear door beside the bus shelter without waiting for her to nod. His coat dripped onto the seat.

“There isn’t a freight gate now.”

“There is when I’m there.”

It was ten past ten. She had one more journey in her if it went toward home. Her rent was due on Friday. She drove evenings because the pay helped and because she liked deciding when her day was over.

“What’s your name?”

“Rook.”

She entered it in the booking screen. “The old gate was on Pier Street. Is that where you want?”

“Yes. He’ll be waiting.”

A little stack of coins appeared on the front seat. She had not seen his hand reach forward.

He leaned back, closing his eyes. Mavis drove.

At the lights her son called. She took the call through the car speaker.

“Still breakfast?” Len asked.

“Eight fifteen.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I’ve booked the table.”

“Booking’s not the hard bit.”

Behind her, Rook opened his eyes. Mavis wished she had taken the call with an earpiece.

“I’ll be there,” she said.

“I leave at eight thirty. I’ve got work.”

Len ended the call. He was twenty-eight, old enough to eat breakfast without her. Lately that had been exactly what he’d done. She always had a last fare. Once she had fallen asleep at home and called him at noon.

Her passenger looked out at a row of new flats.

“They’ve pulled the houses down.”

“They’ve pulled quite a lot down.”

He pressed two fingers against the window. Water marked the glass.

Mavis had heard about a man who took a car to the freight gate and vanished without paying. Every driver had a version. Some put him in a white coat. Some said he had been killed by a train. None agreed on a name.

His coat was brown. That did not make her feel better.

“The road ends at the supermarket now,” she said. “I’ll let you out by the corner.”

The coins on the front seat disappeared.

Mavis looked in the mirror. Through his shoulder she could see the little light above the rear door.

She pulled into the lit service road and stopped. Her hands stayed on the wheel.

“Get out.”

He looked at her as if she had said something very cruel.

“Please don’t leave me there.”

The coins returned. So did his shoulder. Mavis could hear water dripping from his sleeve.

She pressed the call button for dispatch.

“Una. I’m on the supermarket service road. I’ve got a passenger asking for the old freight gate.”

“Pier Street?”

“Yes.”

A brief silence. Then Una asked for the car number, though she knew it. She sounded like a person doing each part of her job very carefully.

“The gate was by the loading bay,” Una said. “They kept the two brick posts. Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can stay on the line.”

Mavis put the volume low. Una could hear her, but did not begin supplying a story about trains.

Rook took something from his pocket. A worker’s pass, with his young face on it. He had the same sharp nose now.

“My brother asked me to pick him up,” he said. “When his shift ended. I was supposed to wait at the gate.”

“What happened?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Where is he now?”

He turned the pass over. “I don’t know.”

Mavis looked at the road ahead. A pair of metal posts blocked cars from the pavement. Beyond them, the supermarket’s side wall was bright under its lamps.

“When I get out and there’s nobody there,” he said, “I’m back where you found me.”

“At the bus shelter?”

“Yes. Getting there again.”

“Other drivers took you?”

“They stopped. They watched me get out.” He folded the pass into his palm. “Then they went.”

She had not moved her feet since stopping the car. The brake pedal was hard beneath her shoe.

“You want your brother to be waiting.”

“I want somebody to be there.”

“If I get out first, you won’t go back to the shelter?”

“If you’re waiting for me, I can come to you.”

Una spoke quietly through the speaker. “Mavis?”

“I’m here.”

“Do you want me to call someone?”

Mavis glanced at the wet coat. His hands were shaking. She did not know whether he could hurt her. She did know that she could turn the wheel, reverse along the clear service road, and leave him at the shelter.

“No. Stay on the line.”

She drove to the marked public parking spaces beside the shop. Rook pointed beyond the metal posts.

“Through there.”

“The car doesn’t go through there.”

“The gate—”

“I can walk.”

He stopped pointing.

Mavis sent Len a short message: Home after this fare. Still eight fifteen. It was not a guarantee that he would believe her. Then she took the keys and her phone.

“I’ll go first,” she told Rook. “You wait by the car until I call.”

Una could hear her steps. The path was open, with no fence between the parking spaces and the two old brick posts. One had a piece missing near its top. There was no gate hanging from either.

Mavis stood between them.

The empty place beyond her smelled of wet cardboard and oranges. A delivery lorry slept against the loading bay. She could hear its engine cooling.

“Rook.”

He was beside the car. His coat had stopped dripping, though the shoulders still shone with rain.

“Come here.”

He took a step, then another. Halfway along the path, the light showed through him again.

Mavis’s stomach tightened. She wanted the car door around her. She wanted Una to tell her she had done enough.

“Don’t go,” he said.

She stayed between the posts.

His shoes made a scraping sound. She could hear them after she could no longer see his legs. Then she could no longer see any of him.

The footsteps continued toward her.

She held the phone so hard its edge hurt her fingers.

“I’m here,” she said.

The steps stopped.

For a moment something stood close enough to take her hand. Nothing touched her.

“Thank you, Mavis.”

She had not seen his brother, a train, or another world.

After a while, she said Una’s name.

“I heard you,” Una answered. “I didn’t hear him.”

Mavis walked back to the car. The coins were gone. She looked at the booking screen, then ended the fare without entering a payment.

“Are you taking another?” Una asked.

“No.”

At home she slept for a few hours. When the alarm rang, she wanted to roll over. She sat up instead, found a clean shirt, and made herself leave the house.

Len was at the cafe at eight twelve. There was a coffee in front of him and an empty chair opposite.

He looked at the clock when she sat down.

“I know,” she said.

“Did you take your last fare?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“He didn’t pay.”

Len pushed the menu across the table. “You always make it sound like you couldn’t say no.”

Mavis looked at the breakfast pictures. A message from dispatch lit her phone: short local trip, driver wanted.

She turned off bookings and put the phone in her bag.

“I could have,” she said. “I took him anyway.”

Len studied her, still annoyed. Then he called the waiter over.

She ordered eggs. He ordered another coffee. He had eighteen minutes before he needed to leave, and she meant to use them.