A Station In Life (12 page)
Authors: James Smiley
“Damn your eyes!” he
cursed and returned to his chaise, a hoodless carriage with scant provision for
inclement weather.
The undignified
dignitary, manifestly unaccustomed to managing the reigns himself, unleashed
his surplus venom upon a wild-eyed pony and took off.
The Giddiford train left
twenty minutes late, its First and Second class passengers lamp-lit but not
amused, its spirited Third class passengers in darkness but highly amused.
Chapter
Ten — First day ends
with kissing conundrum
Hauling the last train
of the day, Lacy trundled into Upshott station on its return from Giddiford and
Driver MacGregor alighted the footplate to have a word with me. Grinning
devilishly, he stopped some distance away and pulled the creases from his oily
waistcoat, from which protracted instalment I sensed that he was the indulgent
bearer of bad tidings.
Before uttering his
piece, however, the Scotchman stepped closer and beamed at me mischievously
with his bloodshot eyes. His two sparkling rubies, caught between a blazing
red beard and a red tartan tammy, blinked lazily as he scratched his ruddy
nose. His nose, it will amuse you to know, was a somewhat comical protuberance
which the heat of the fire had cruelly inflamed.
“Which of your orramen
laid on the Chinese crackers?” he wheezed.
“Crackers?” I queried
him.
“Aye, the pot-lamps, Mr
Jay. Fizzling like fireworks, they were. Och, and the smoke was enough to
asphyxiate ye. I should expiscate the matter if I were ye.”
“Very well,” I responded
listlessly, having no idea what the driver was talking about.
“Aye, well, I should, Mr
Jay. T’is a good thing we were nay inside Splashgate tunnel or we’d have had
passengers breathing their last.”
“Splendid,” I replied
through a stifled yawn.
Nonplussed, MacGregor
scratched his head and stared at me . My docile response to his grave news was
not what he had hoped for.
“As a matter of fact, Mr
Jay, the pot-lamps were singing with the skirl of the pipes,” he boomed loudly
in another attempt to startle me, but I was too tired to be startled. “T’is
why we’re running late. We’d to empty and refill all the lamps at
Widdlecombe. T’was nay picnic making up the lost time.”
“And you have not done
so yet,” I reminded him with a glance at my fobwatch.
Eventually my indifference
to the matter drove the driver’s hands aloft with exasperation. “Aye, but then
ye dunny noo what I’m tocknaboot, do ye?”
MacGregor was wrong. I
knew precisely what he was ‘tocknaboot’. He was ‘talking about’ his innocence
should there be repercussions over the incident.
“The details of your
poor timekeeping are of no concern to me,” I dismissed him.
Having closed the
subject I removed myself to the Booking hall.
In the flickering light
of the departing Blodcaster train I spotted Wheeler and Turner sloping off home
so I sprang across their path with a crooked finger and beckoned them to my
office for a progress report re snaring the lamp oil thief. It seemed likely
that Driver MacGregor’s ‘fizzling’ pot-lamps had something to do with Jack
Wheeler’s ‘smoke telegraph’ signals and this was a good opportunity to get to
the bottom of the matter. I decided that in the prosecution of my enquiry I
would intimidate the two clerks with talk of dismissal.
Unfortunately, being
gifted with no demeanour of authority, my stern words failed to cause any
apprehension and I was tendered an explanation nothing short of flapdoodle. It
was obvious that something had gone wrong with Jack Wheeler’s doctored lamp oil
but, the hour being late, I was compelled to postpone the hearing until
tomorrow when I would be more perceptive. The two clerks, believing that they
had outwitted me, backed out of my office deftly.
I concluded my duties
with a tour of the station, locking each door and window with a grunt of
relief, darkness following me like ink soaking through blotting paper as I
dimmed the gasses. I cannot exaggerate how glad I was that my first day was
behind me, for in any job the first day is the most difficult one, but this I
had thought would never end. Fatigued and demoralised, and with the unfamiliar
musty smell of my new abode in my nostrils, I climbed the stairs to my
quarters. The station house was curiously quiet and I could hear in my
cavernous mind the squire’s clicking teeth berating me.
‘I doubt your aptitude
for this post, Jay’ the porcelain incisors percussed, and I began to wonder if
they were right.
Convinced that I really had
exceeded my abilities I kneeled beside my bed and prayed for deliverance, for I
was not equipped for an alternative occupation should my career upon the
railways come to a premature end. I explained to my Maker that on this, my
first night to be spent at Upshott, I was feeling insecure and vulnerable in a
way that I had never done before. As you will appreciate, when a single man
finds himself displaced to the point of foreboding he not only craves the
support of familiar faces, he needs a personal confidante. A shared pillow brings
both encouragement and sweet diversion, and returns a man to strength. In this
job, then, the satisfaction of aloofness looked like becoming the demon of
loneliness.
Yet no matter the dint
to my self-esteem I would be expected to meet the 5.05am Mail train tomorrow
with the stature of a man unscathed by doubt. Not wishing to disappoint the
trusting simpletons whose ignorance of my ebb matched their contribution
towards it, I climbed into my bed to get some much needed sleep.
Having reclined,
wriggled, and squirmed until I was acquainted with all the unfamiliar lumps and
bumps that were to become my nightly tormenters, I snuffed my bedside candle
and shut my eyes. Exhaustion claimed me instantly.
With so few hours in
which to repose I was not pleased to be awoken repeatedly by rain lashing
fitfully at my window, and by the Waiting room sign squeaking all night just
below my sill. Nor was I pleased by the whistling of an otter seeking a mate
in the stream beyond the sidings. If I slept two hours I fared well.
However, during one
period of slumber I was refreshed by a most arousing dream. In it, I was
picnicking at Upwater in the late afternoon sunshine in the company of two
exquisite females. One of them was the belle in white lace, the other Rose
Macrames. Let me not be abashed to reveal that being flanked so intimately by
two such beauties in these heavenly surroundings did unharness me from my cares
awhile, and with the promise of complete abandon there was more to come!
My two pink lipped devotees
had each presented me with a hamper packed with gastronomic delights and insisted
that I choose between them. This was no easy matter because the confections in
Rose’s hamper were on full display while the Belle’s were concealed. The
contents of the latter I could only ponder, not peruse, and when I declined to
partake of Rose’s offering until I had fully contemplated the potentially more
rewarding alternative, the lady with no parasol became petulant. To settle the
matter I became the subject of a kissing competition and would marry the
seductress whom I considered to have the most sensual effect upon me. Stirred
by their competing efforts I was then given but three seconds to make up my
mind.
Needless to say, and it
was probably for the best, at the count of three I woke up. The disappointment
was unbearable.
Chapter
Eleven — Second day begins with
bully conundrum
By dawn I was back upon
the platforms breathing air that was lighter than claret, all exhaustion caused
by nocturnal rattles and squeaks having been chased away by a brief encounter
with pursed lips and an attention seeking slap. I took to the footbridge to
savour the morning’s moist fragrance before it could be sullied by the first
locomotive of the day, and here found the world keen edged, crystal pure, and
glistening larger than life under a sky like a silk scarf. Cold blue in the
west, heaven’s eastern fringe was aflame with a new sun pulling mist from the
dewy soil and stencilling long shadows down the slopes. Having checked that no
one was watching me I took a deep breath and stretched my arms. To see the
disbanding cloud-wrack of yesterday’s storm was, in the midst of so many
anxieties, to feel my heart beat anew.
At this point you will
permit me, perhaps, to acquaint you with the phenomenon of Upshott’s belated
sunrise. This was caused by a circle of standing stones atop Splashgate hill
to the east of the village. When the sky was clear the sun would lift the
village from the shadow of this hill with amber fingers as if granting the
community a primordial privilege. It was a spectacle that I found strangely
stirring, for its effect upon my imagination was to turn those stones into
infants playing ‘ring a ring o’ roses’ at the dawn of time. In defiance of
their petrified state the ‘little ones’ would appear to move from time to time,
when they thought no one but I would notice. The personal charm of this somehow
allegorised unmapped desires of my soul.
I unseated my top-hat to
feel the day’s pleasant coolness while surveying the station, whereupon my head
was struck by a slimy dollop of something. I looked up cautiously. In the ash
tree overhanging the footbridge were jackdaws chuttering and shaking the
branches. Thankful that their jetsam was but dew, and not wishing to test my
luck further, I replaced my hat and transferred myself to the opposite end of
the bridge.
From here I admired the
silver railway stretching towards each horizon with such purpose through the
random landscape, as if a shooting star down the tail of which a man could
slide from his own community to any other, dissolving the barriers of class and
culture while mocking the costly turnpikes. A reflective morning stroll such
as this, I decided, would become part of my daily routine to maintain self
esteem. Through these few steps had I rediscovered my sense of novelty and
pride at becoming a fully fledged stationmaster.
Keys jangling attracted
my attention to Ivor Hales unlocking the signalbox. He interrupted his morning
ritual to wave to me, and pointed to a siding upon which was parked a solitary
ballast truck. Across the truck was stretched a canvas sheet, one end of which
was depressed with accumulated rainwater. In the pool so formed were crows, as
polished as boots, squabbling and scuttering for bathing space, and
occasionally waddling to the top of the cover from where they would slide back
down to the water, seemingly for the delight of it. I have always revered
birds as nature’s comics, and watching their antics around Upshott station would
frequently uplift me to the point of a private chuckle. Today I would take
control of the station. Somehow I knew it.
In a matter of minutes
the ‘down’ platform was populated. Harry Peckham, whistling one of his
rambling melodies, had arrived and was guarding his empty mail-cart amid a
crescent of domestic servants. These servants, who came from such influential
households as the Highams and the Lacys, would gravitate around his cart to
exchange pleasantries and trade gossip. Nearest the postmaster was the now
familiar figure of the coachman from Albury Hall, having ridden to the station
better insulated than most in the damp morning air. Waiting to collect the
London newspapers for his master, the dark green fustian of his thick,
double-breasted cape had been crystallised by the mist to make him look like a
sugar-fruit.
Being short staffed, the
proprietor of the Coach House, Upshott’s largest though not its principal
hotel, had dispatched his ostler to meet the Mail train. An ugly cove, ill
shaven and possessed of a questioning stare as if affronted by everyone’s
business, the horse handler had few friends. Beneath his mop of sable hair a black
linen jacket and trousers transformed his vastness into a shadow in a coal
cellar, a man to be avoided because his percussive utterances were difficult to
understand and his temper short.
Mr Phillips, looking as
wan as ever, appeared among the crowds upon the platform. Instantly he became
irritated by the presence of the solitary goods truck parked near the
footbridge. As I descended the footbridge steps to join him in his
investigation of its contents I was intercepted by the aforementioned ostler
who used his physical bulk to impede my progress.
‘What business can you
possibly have with me?’ I wondered as I attempted to circumvent his beer barrel
body.
Cornering me against
railings, the cove stared at me probingly. When it suited him, after almost a
minute, he bothered to speak.
“Macrames. Stayway,”
his voice vibrated through my chest.
“And pray, sir, what
have my dealings with Miss Macrames to do with you?” I asked.
The difference in pitch
between our voices was a cause for concern but held my ground with a rigid
stare.
“I hurt you,” he vibrated
again, raising his fist and pulling a face.
The ruffian’s
gesticulation appeared to be in substitution of a third party script which he could
not fully recall. Miming fisticuffs again, presumably hoping that I would
infer the remainder of the threat for myself, he grinned darkly.
Gauging the cur to be
incapable of instigating any kind of business of his own account I levied a
more direct approach.
“Sir, I demand that you
tell me who you represent in this matter.”
Ignoring my enquiry, the
ostler walked away with a turgid plod.
It was clear that
someone objected to my associating with Miss Macrames, but I was puzzled that
something so innocent as helping to locate an item of lost property should
cause such an intervention? Dazed and incredulous, I joined Mr Phillips on his
walk to the mystery truck and together we scared the bathing crows into a spray
of flight, making our uniforms glisten in the morning sunshine.
It was Mr Phillips’s
misfortune to play Pinkerton, and having lifted one corner of the truck’s cover
to satisfy his curiosity he received an olfactory shock. I detected that nasty
smell again as he released the canvas smartly and pinched his delicate nose. This
had the whiff of skulduggery. In an attempt to deceive me, someone had moved
the sewage from its long established location in a far corner of the south
siding, where Mr Phillips had become accustomed to ‘overlooking’ it, to this
new and rather ill considered location outside the Goods shed. That same
someone had also covered the fetid heap with a canvas blanket in the hope of
disguising its unsociable nature.
It was obvious that my
Goods clerk had not been party to this ruse but I censured him nevertheless,
pointing to the wagon with my handkerchief draped across my fingers
“I believe I requested
its removal, not its relocation,” I said.
“I was never in favour
of harbouring this beastly stuff from the word go, Mr Jay,” Mr Phillips pleaded
indignantly.
“Who orchestrated it?” I
asked, exploiting his moment of contrition.
“Jack Wheeler,” he
replied without surprising me very much.
“It will take more than
a sheet of hemp to put me off this scent,” I said. “Have it removed from the
station immediately.”
How many more times
would I have to issue this instruction before the truck finally went away? Mr
Phillips replaced his monocle and studied me as if I were a curious, surgical
specimen.
“I do hope there’s to be
no power struggle, Mr Jay,” he sighed ominously. “There can be only one
stationmaster. I’m afraid your predecessor, Mr Mildenhew, had no grasp of this
precept and history shows us the result.”
Mr Phillips departed for
his office, leaving me to grapple with his theory. Perhaps Jack Wheeler was
really the stationmaster and I merely a figurehead.
Where was Diggory? The
level crossing gates had been swung and the air was rippling with the approach
of the Mail train, yet none of Diggory’s duties had been carried out. The
station draw-well at Busy Linton had been fouled by misuse and the
Stationmaster there was expecting me to send him several pitchers of fresh
water aboard the first train of the day, yet when I peered into the allotted
vessels I found nought but dead flies, dust and cobwebs. I set Snimple the
task of filling them quickly.
It became apparent that
something was terribly wrong when the driver of the approaching locomotive
leaned out of his cab and waved his cap. No sooner had the engine reached the platform,
still travelling at a speed, its whistle shrieking continually, than the
fireman leapt from the footplate and stumbled towards me purposefully.
“There’s been a nasty
accident!” he blurted, pointing towards the parcels van.