Chapter 2: Jeromy and the M606

Jeromy arrived at the refuge on a Tuesday, carrying a battered rucksack and the expression of a man who had recently been cheated out of his rightful place in history.

He had a narrow face, an impressive collection of opinions, and a habit of beginning sentences with the words, "The trouble with this country is..."

Nobody ever discovered precisely what he thought the trouble was, because he usually forgot the point halfway through explaining it.

Rachel fell in love with him almost immediately.

Jeromy was sitting in the communal lounge, complaining about the television, when Rachel approached him with a cup of tea.

"You're absolutely right," she announced.

Jeromy looked up. "About what?"

Rachel hesitated.

"Whatever you were saying."

He studied her for a moment, then smiled.

At last, he thought, somebody who understood him.

Rachel sat beside him, gazing at him with the admiration normally reserved for royalty, pop stars, or people who could successfully operate a washing machine without assistance.

Within a week, Jeromy had become the centre of her universe.

If he said the food was terrible, Rachel announced that she had never tasted anything so dreadful. If he complained about the staff, she complained about the staff. If he declared that the world was full of fools, Rachel agreed that fools were everywhere, although she privately assumed that he was referring to people who could not remember where they had put their slippers.

Jeromy, meanwhile, discovered that Rachel was an excellent audience.

She never interrupted him with awkward questions. She never challenged his conclusions. She never pointed out that he had contradicted himself three times before breakfast.

She simply nodded.

Their relationship flourished in this atmosphere of mutual misunderstanding.

One evening, Jeromy announced that he had reached a momentous decision.

"I'm going to Palestine," he declared.

Rachel dropped a biscuit.

"Are you?"

"I'm going to fight for the cause. Somebody has to stand up for what's right."

Rachel nodded gravely.

"Absolutely."

"People need to make sacrifices."

"Of course."

"I'm not going to sit around in Bradford doing nothing."

"No," Rachel agreed. "Bradford isn't really the place for that sort of thing."

Jeromy stared at her.

For a moment, he wondered whether she knew anything about Palestine. Then he decided that her silence was evidence of profound respect.

He spent the next several days explaining his plans to anyone who would listen. His understanding of the political situation was rudimentary, his knowledge of the geography was patchy, and his practical preparations consisted largely of purchasing a flag and announcing that he was ready for action.

Rachel helped him pack.

She placed his socks beside his sandwiches, put his toothbrush in a plastic bag containing crumbs, and somehow managed to pack his empty wallet while leaving his actual money on the bedside table.

Jeromy was too excited to notice.

On the morning of his departure, he stood outside the refuge with his rucksack over one shoulder.

"This is it," he announced. "History awaits."

Rachel's eyes filled with tears.

"I shall miss you terribly."

"You must be strong," Jeromy told her. "You must learn to stand on your own two feet."

Rachel looked down at her shoes.

"Are they not on properly?"

Jeromy sighed.

There were moments when even he struggled to understand her.

Then he set off.

He made it as far as the M606.

His grand adventure ended in a violent encounter with a stranger who attacked and robbed him. Jeromy was fatally wounded, and the journey that had existed so magnificently in his imagination ended before he had properly left the Bradford area.

The news reached the refuge later that day.

A member of staff sat Rachel down and explained what had happened.

Rachel stared at her.

"But he was going to Palestine."

"I'm afraid he died before he could get there."

Rachel's mouth fell open.

"Before?"

"Yes, Rachel."

"But he had only just gone."

There was nothing anyone could say that would make the world fit together in her mind.

For days, she wandered around the refuge in a state of confusion. She repeated the news to anybody who entered the lounge, each time with the same bewildered expression.

"Jeromy's dead," she would say. "He was going to Palestine, but he only got as far as the motorway."

Sometimes she added, "I always knew something like this would happen."

She had, in fact, said no such thing.

Yet she was convinced that she had.

Eventually, Rachel began borrowing other people's explanations for Jeromy's death. She repeated their condolences, their observations, and their attempts to make sense of the tragedy. If somebody told her that life was unpredictable, she repeated that life was unpredictable. If somebody said that Jeromy had been foolish, she agreed that he had been foolish.

She was devastated, but she had no language of her own with which to express her grief.

When the refuge grew quiet that evening, Rachel sat alone in the communal lounge.

Jeromy had left behind a mug, a coat, and a collection of opinions that she no longer knew how to use.

She missed him terribly.

Not because she understood his ambitions, or because she had shared his convictions, but because he had supplied her with the thoughts that made her feel like a person.

Without him, her mind was an empty room.

And Rachel had no idea how to furnish it.