The Railway Station Man (5 page)

What an odd word, Jack thought. One half of his face was seemly, fleshed out, quite precise in its good looks, the other half a travesty of seemliness.

Mr Hasson came out from behind the bar with my drink in his hand and plodded across the room. He put the full glass down on the table and picked up the empty one.

‘Jack here's at Trinity,' he said. ‘Trinity College Dublin. A famous seat of learning. Maybe you've heard tell of it?' He spoke slowly and with great precision as if he were speaking to a child, or a foreigner. Jack felt himself blushing.

‘A very famous seat of learning indeed,' agreed Mr Hawthorne. When he smiled the scar down his cheek puckered and the skin over his jaw tightened with the strain. ‘I had thoughts of going there myself once. My mother was Irish. It seemed appropriate at the time, but my education, that is my formal education ended somewhat abruptly at the age of eighteen. I was misguidedly led to believe that my country needed me.'

Mr Hasson winked at Jack again.

Grace Kelly was standing there crying.

‘We are very foolish when we are eighteen.' Mr Hawthorne looked at Jack. ‘You, I take it, have passed that foolish age.'

‘He's a very clever fellow,' repeated Mr Hasson, moving away from the table. He tapped his head with his finger in case Jack hadn't got the message.

I must face a man who hates me – the music crescendoed –

‘I'm in my third year.' – or lie a coward, a craven coward –

‘What … if I may be inquisitive?'

– or lie a coward in my grave.

‘Politics and economics.'

‘Didn't I say he was clever?' Mr Hasson stepped in behind the bar and lifted his eyes to the screen. The serious shooting was about to begin.

‘Little did she think in them days she'd end up a princess.'

The man, Roger Hawthorne, smiled again.

‘Is that interesting?'

‘I thought it was going to be … but … I'm not quite sure what I'm doing there.'

‘It's breathing space.'

‘Or a waste of time.'

‘I presume you're quite intelligent.'

Jack laughed. ‘Quite.'

‘Then the time probably isn't being wasted. I have spent almost half my life in hospital. One sort of hospital or another. From the age of nineteen. That is wasting time. They sew you together, mind as well as body and try to make you acceptable to society. Be thoughtful of the feelings of others. Don't show people your scars. Be a good brave boy.'

Oh hell, Jack thought.

‘It's all right. You don't have to worry. I'm not going to show you my

scars. Any of them.'

He took a long drink. ‘For how long are you here?'

‘Just a couple of days. I come down from time to time to see my mother. She's alone.'

‘Oh.'

‘My father's dead.'

‘Oh.'

‘He was killed in the North. Derry. We used to live there. 1975.' He always felt that it was best to get that over.

‘Oh, I see,' was all he said.

After quite a long time he spoke again. ‘You must come up and look at my box.'

‘Box? … oh, yes.'

Damian.

‘Yes. I'd like to do that.'

‘Come tomorrow. He's working seven days a week at the moment. He should have finished the steps tomorrow. Damian that is. If you feel like it come tomorrow.'

He stood up abruptly. ‘I have imposed myself upon you for too long. Forgive me.'

‘Please don't … I …'He indicated my glass of beer.

The man moved his mouth in a slight grimace. He nodded towards Jack and picked up his glass. He turned away and walked across the room to the far end of the bar. Jack noticed as he walked that his head was pulled slightly to the left as if the left-hand side of his body was slightly shorter than the right.

It was all music now and a happy ending.

What should I do if you leave me?

He pulled himself up on one of the black plastic stools and indicated silently to Mr Hasson that he would like another drink.

Do not forsake me oh my darling on this our wedding day. Do not forsake me oh my darling …

Jack swallowed down his beer as quickly as he could.

‘Goodnight,' he said as he left the bar.

‘Night, Jack,' said Mr Hasson cheerfully. He gave a final wink as he spoke. Roger Hawthorne didn't say a word.

She was sitting apparently staring at the reflection of herself in the dark window of the sitting room. The reflection of the warm room was like a blind keeping out the darkness and yet at the same time meshed with the darkness.

‘You missed
High Noon'
, she said, standing up as Jack came in.

‘No. I got
High Noon
. I'm thinking of starting a campaign for the suppression of
High Noon
in public places and
Casablanca
, come to think of it.'

‘I thought you were well reared.'

‘Stagecoach
and
Maltese Falcon
.'

‘You're quite disgusting.'

‘And Cornflakes.'

She went into the kitchen.

‘Such foolishness …' she said as she passed him. ‘Come and eat. No Cornflakes tonight.'

He followed her in and sat down at the table.

‘I met your friend.'

‘Who?' she asked, taking things out of the oven. ‘Open that wine, like an angel. I have no friends.'

‘The station man. Mr Hawthorne.'

‘Oh, him. Hardly a friend.'

‘Damn, the cork's broken.'

‘Well, don't mess about with it, push it in. Push it in, Jack. Where did you come across him?'

‘In the hotel. He also was rather bored by
High Noon
. He sort of apologised for being rude to you.'

‘Fancy that.'

She put a plate of food in front of him. She had always had the idea that a good mother's function was to feed her young.

‘I think he's probably a bit mad. He wants me to go up and look at his signal box. Mother, I'll never wade through all that.'

‘Try,' was all she said.

She took the wine bottle out of his hand and pushed her fingers down the neck moving the remains of the cork to one side so that she could splash out a first glass without too much trouble.

‘Your father always mucked up the corks in wine bottles too.'

‘Cheap wine has cheap corks.'

‘Rubbish. He just had a somewhat insular attitude towards wine, so he didn't take care. All you need is a little care. Put the corkscrew in straight for starters. Look at that.'

She picked up the corkscrew and waved it under his nose.

‘Okay. Okay. I get the message.'

She sat down and looked at the food in front of her. She had given herself almost as much as she had given Jack. No wonder she was getting fat, he thought. Fat and crabbed. She grinned at him suddenly.

‘Tell me more about your man above. The Long John Silver type.'

‘I don't know much more. He just seems to have this thing … fantasy … madness … I don't know which, about signal boxes. He said he had a station in England somewhere before he came here. A bloody Capitalist with more money than sense, if you ask me.'

She usually went a little red in the face when he said that sort of thing. Blushed for what she considered to be his crassness. He always resented that. She didn't necessarily say anything, just blushed. They both ate in silence for a moment.

‘He said Damian Sweeney is an artist,' Jack said at last.

‘Is he the one you had the fight with?'

‘Yes.'

She laughed.

‘I remember that. Blood is so bright. I don't remember why or anything like that, just the bright blood on your shirt when you came to the door. Someone told me he was mixed up in something.'

She pulled a cigarette out of a box on the table and tapped the end of it with her thumb, then for some reason or other she put it back in the box again.

‘Oh,' was all he said.

‘He's a Socialist or something.'

‘Fairly harmless, mother. I'm a Socialist.'

‘There are Socialists and Socialists.'

‘A profound remark.'

She looked across the table at him and smiled slightly.

‘I don't pretend to understand.'

‘Everyone should try. It's a duty to try.'

She shook her head.

‘I feel no sense of duty.'

He wondered what she did feel, but of course he didn't ask her. There had always been some barrier between them that inhibited that sort of question.

‘A member of some violent and utterly illegal organisation,' she said after a long time. ‘I think that's what I was told.'

‘You mean a freedom fighter?'

‘We have freedom.'

This time she took the cigarette out of the box and put it in her mouth.

‘You don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Probably not, but then I don't think you do either. Truth gets lost so easily.'

‘What on earth do you know about the truth of things? The actuality. You sit on the side of this hill and stare at the sea. Your house is warm, you have enough to eat, nobody bothers you. What have you ever known about anything –' She just smoked her cigarette.

‘It's one of the great enemies we have to fight against. Bourgeois complacency.'

‘There's not much point in yelling slogans at me.'

‘I'm not yelling slogans.'

‘Maybe not but you're getting all worked up to it.'

‘You have to yell at people who don't … won't listen.'

‘I don't have to listen if I don't want to. That's one of the things freedom is about. Anyway, when you've something new to say … oh God, when anyone has something new to say I will listen … even here on the side of the hill. One of the few privileges of growing older is that you can choose.'

Jack laughed at that luxurious notion.

She squinted her eyes together and looked at him through the cloud of her own smoke.

‘You should never hold anyone in contempt,' she said quietly. ‘No one ever in contempt. You can hate them … whatever … hate me if you want, but the other, no.' She moved the hand with the cigarette suddenly in an arc through the air and ash fell onto the table.

‘I don't hold you in contempt,' he said rather indignantly.

She stubbed the cigarette out and continued with her food in silence.

Why do we find it so hard to speak?

He didn't want to speak to her. That is the gut of it. He didn't want her to know his secrets. He had learnt that from her. She had protected her secrets from them, Dan and himself. Quite a ruthless protector of secrets she had always been.

‘He must have been very handsome when he was whole,' she said at last. ‘I wonder what happened to him?'

‘Who?' He was lost.

‘That railway station man.'

‘The war, I think.'

‘Ah, yes. The war.'

‘Have some more?'

‘I couldn't eat another thing.'

‘An orange? Have an orange.'

‘I hate oranges, mother. I've always hated oranges. You ought to know that by now.'

‘Yes. I always forget. I can't ever understand how anyone could hate oranges. Perhaps one day a miracle will happen. Pow, bam, you'll eat an orange.'

‘Why do you never come up and visit Gran?'

‘I don't visit anyone.'

‘She'd like you to.'

‘Mmmm.'

‘Just a couple of days from time to time.'

‘We were never the best of friends'

‘That's not what she says. She's terribly fond of you. She misses seeing you.'

‘Your grandmother has lots of people to see. She has the three girls fussing round her like slaves … as well as all her friends. Not having me around doesn't make any hole in her life.'

‘Dad …'

‘Listen Jack … I was a dutiful wife, a dutiful daughter-in-law … that's all over now.'

She poured herself another glass of wine. ‘There's so little time left.'

‘For her.'

‘For me. I don't want to be sucked back into anything again. I don't want to be mauled about.'

‘You're nuts.'

‘Yup.'

‘What'll I say to her?'

‘Nothing. Don't carry messages. Don't you remember the Greek tragedies … it was always the messengers had their eyes gouged, their tongues cut out. Believe you me, if your grandmother wants to see me, she'll let me know herself?

She stretched her hand out across the table towards him.

‘It's okay, pet. You and she get on. That's fine. As it should be. Your father never quite shook her off his back … he never wanted to. She treated him as if he were some sort of superior being. He found that irresistible. I see no reason why you shouldn't find it irresistible also, only I don't have to be involved this time.'

He stood up.

‘I'm going to bed.'

She nodded.

‘I'll just have another cigarette and then I'll go.'

‘How many do you smoke a day?'

‘Too many.'

He left her to it.

It must have been the day after that that she found the old wind-up gramophone. Jack had gone out some time in the middle of the morning. Rain had been pecking at the glass roof of the shed and she heard him crash the gears of the car as he turned out of the gate and drove up the road away from the village. Her head was filled with jaded thoughts. There are those times when lethargy seems to embrace you so closely you feel the weight of it physically with each step, each gesture of the hand. Even to pick up a cigarette becomes a major operation. Nothing fresh pushes its way into your mind. Such days, weeks, sometimes even months, she found it hard to move out of bed in the morning. A day without hope is better spent in bed. She was convalescing after such a bout and had just started to look somewhat gingerly at her work. The excuse to leave the small shed for an hour or two of burrowing through Jack's rubbish was too good to miss.