by Dick Francis
I found it difficult to look at Sheridan pleasantly. I could think of nothing but cats. He himself still wore the blank look of the evening before, as if he had opted out of thinking.
‘We’ll pour,’ Mercer said. ‘Come back in half an hour for the tray.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I left them and returned to the dining car. The chill within Bambi, I thought, was because of the cats.
Nell and Xanthe had arrived during my absence.
‘My goodness, you look grim,’ Nell exclaimed, then, remembering, said more formally, ‘Er … what’s for breakfast?’
I got rid of the grimness and handed her the printed menu. Xanthe said she would have everything that was going.
‘Has George told you that we’re running late?’ I asked Nell.
‘No. His door was shut. Are we? How much?’
‘About an hour and a half.’ I forestalled her question. ‘We had to stop in the night at Kamloops to get George’s radio fixed, and then we had to wait there for the Canadian to go ahead of us.’
‘I’d better tell everyone, then. What time do we get to Vancouver?’
‘About eleven-thirty, I think.’
‘Right. Thanks.’
I almost said, ‘Be my guest,’ but not quite. Tommy wouldn’t. Nell’s eyes were smiling, all the same. Cathy chose that exact moment to go past me with a tray of breakfasts: or not exactly past, but rather against me where it seemed to hurt most.
‘Sorry,’ she said contritely, going on her way.
‘It’s OK.’
It was difficult always to pass in the swaying aisle without touching. Couldn’t be helped.
Filmer came into the dining room and sat at the table nearest to the kitchen, normally the least favourite with the passengers. He looked as if he’d spent a bad night. ‘Here, you,’ he said abruptly at my approach, having apparently abandoned the mister-nice-guy image.
‘Yes, sir?’ I said.
‘Coffee,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Now.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I gave Xanthe’s order to Simone who was stiffly laying a baking sheet of sausages in the oven in silent protest at life in general, and I took the coffee pot, on a tray, to Filmer.
‘Why did we stop in the night?’ he demanded.
‘I believe it was to fix the radio, sir.’
‘We stopped twice,’ he said accusingly. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I expect the Conductor could tell you.’
I wondered what he’d do if I said, ‘Your man Johnson nearly succeeded in wrecking the train with you in it.’ It struck me then that perhaps his enquiry was actually anxiety: that he wanted to be told that nothing dangerous had happened. He did seem marginally relieved by my answer and I resisted the temptation of wiping out all that relief by telling him that the radio had been sabotaged, because the people at the next table were listening also. Spreading general gloom and fright was not in my brief. Selective gloom, selective fright … sure.
Others, it seemed, had noticed the long stops-in the night, but no one seriously complained. No one minded letting the Canadian go on in front. The general good humour and the party atmosphere prevailed and excused everything. The train ride might be coming to an end, but meanwhile there was the spectacular gorge outside to be exclaimed over, the city of Vancouver to be looked forward to, the final race to promise a sunburst of a conclusion. The Great Transcontinental Race Train, they were saying, had been just that: Great.
After half an hour or so, I went back to the Lorrimores’ car to fetch the tray of tea cups. I knocked on the door, but as there was no answer I went anyway along to the saloon.
Mercer was standing there looking bewildered.
Looking haggard. Stricken with shock.
‘Sir?’ I said.
His eyes focused on me vaguely.
‘My son,’ he said.
‘Sir?’
Sheridan wasn’t in the saloon. Mercer was alone.
‘Stop the train,’ he said. ‘We must go back.’
Oh God, I thought.
‘He went out … onto the platform … to look at the river …’ Mercer could hardly speak. ‘When I looked up … he wasn’t there.’
The door to the platform was closed. I went past Mercer, opened the door and went out. There was no one on the platform, as he’d said.
There was wind in plenty. The polished brass top of the railings ran round at waist height, with both of the exit gates still firmly bolted.
Over the right-hand side, from time to time, there were places which offered a straight unimpeded hundred-foot drop to the fearsome frothing rocky river below. Death beckoned there. A quick death.
I went into the saloon and closed the door.
Mercer was swaying with more than the movement of the train.
‘Sit down, sir,’ I said, taking his arm. ‘I’ll tell the Conductor. He’ll know what to do.’
‘We must go back.’ He sat down with buckling legs. ‘He went out … and when I looked …’
‘Will you be all right while I go to the Conductor?’
He nodded dully. ‘Yes. Hurry.’
I hurried, myself feeling much of Mercer’s bewildered shock, if not his complicated grief. Half an hour earlier, Sheridan hadn’t looked like someone about to jump off a cliff; but then I supposed that I’d never seen anyone else at that point, so how would I know. Perhaps the blank look, I thought, had been a sign, if anyone could have read it.
I hurried everywhere except through the dining car, so as not to be alarming, and when I reached George’s room I found the door still shut. I knocked. No reply. I knocked again harder and called his name with urgency. ‘George!’
There was a grunt from inside. I opened the door without more ado and found him still lying on the bed in his clothes, waking from a deep sleep.
I closed his door behind me and sat on the edge of his bed, and told him we’d lost a passenger.
‘Into Fraser Canyon,’ he repeated. He shunted himself up into a sitting position and put both hands to his head, wincing. ‘When?’
‘About ten minutes ago, I should think.’
He stretched out a hand to the radio, looking out of the window to get his bearings. ‘It’s no use going back, you know. Not if he went into the water from this height. And the river’s bitter cold, and you can see how fast it is … and there’s a whirlpool.’
‘His father will go, though.’
‘Of course.’
The despatcher he got through to this time was in Vancouver. He explained that Mercer Lorrimore’s son – that was right, the Mercer Lorrimore – his twenty-year-old son had fallen from the rear of the race train into Fraser Canyon somewhere between Hell’s Gate and a mile or two south of Yale. Mercer Lorrimore wanted the train stopped so that he could go back to find his son. He, George Burley, wanted instructions from Montreal. The despatcher, sounding glazed, told him to hang on.
There was no chance now, I thought, of reaching Vancouver without a disaster. Sheridan was a disaster of major proportions, and the Press would be at Vancouver station for all the wrong reasons.
‘I think I’d better go back to Mercer,’ I said.
George nodded gingerly. ‘Tell him I’ll come to talk to him when I get instructions from Montreal, eh?’ He rubbed a hand over his chin. ‘He’ll have to put up with stubble.’
I returned to the dining car and found Nell still sitting beside Xanthe. I said into Nell’s ear, ‘Bring Xanthe into the private car.’
She looked enquiringly into my face and saw nothing comforting, but she got Xanthe to move without alarming her. I led the way through the dome car and through the join into the rear car, knocking again on the unlocked door.
Mercer came out of his and Bambi’s bedroom further up the corridor looking grey and hollow eyed, a face of unmistakable calamity.
‘Daddy!’ Xanthe said, pushing past me. ‘What’s the matter?’
He folded his
arms round her and hugged her, and took her with him towards the saloon. Neither Nell nor I heard the words he murmured to her, but we both heard her say sharply, ‘No! He couldn’t!’
‘Couldn’t what?’ Nell said to me quietly.
‘Sheridan went off the back platform into the canyon.’
‘Do you mean …’ she was horrified ‘… that he’s dead?’
‘I would think so.’
‘Oh shit,’ Nell said.
My feelings exactly, I thought.
We went on into the saloon. Mercer said almost mechanically, ‘Why don’t we stop? We have to go back.’ He no longer sounded, I thought, as if he expected or even hoped to find Sheridan alive.
‘Sir, the Conductor is radioing for instructions,’ I said.
He nodded. He was a reasonable man in most circumstances. He had only to look out of the window to know that going back wouldn’t help. He knew that it was practically impossible for anyone to fall off the platform by accident. He certainly believed, from his demeanour, that Sheridan had jumped.
Mercer sat on the sofa, his arm round Xanthe beside him, her head on his shoulder. Xanthe wasn’t crying. She looked serious, but calm. The tragedy for Xanthe hadn’t happened within that half hour, it had been happening all her life. Her brother had been lost to her even when alive.
Nell said, ‘Shall we go, Mr Lorrimore?’, meaning herself and me. ‘Can I do anything for Mrs Lorrimore?’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Stay.’ He swallowed. ‘You’ll have to know what’s decided … what to tell everyone …’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘We must make some decisions.’
George arrived at that point and sat down in an armchair near Mercer, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees and saying how sorry he was, how very sorry.
‘We have to go back,’ Mercer said.
‘Yes, sir, but not the whole train, sir. Montreal says the train must go on to Vancouver as scheduled.’
Mercer began to protest. George interrupted him. ‘Sir, Montreal say that they are already alerting all the authorities along the canyon to look out for your son. They say they will arrange transport for you to return, you and your family, as soon as we reach Vancouver. You can see …’ he glanced out of the window ‘… that the area is unpopulated, eh?, but there are often people working by the river. There is a road running along quite near the canyon, as well as another railway line on the other side. There’s a small town over there called … er …’ he coughed ‘… Hope. It’s at the south end of the canyon, eh?, where the river broadens out and runs more slowly. We’re almost at that point now, as you’ll see. If you go to Hope, Montreal says, you will be in the area if there is any news.’
‘How do I get there?’ Mercer said. ‘Is there a train back?’
George said, ‘There is, yes, but only one a day. It’s the Super-continental. It leaves Vancouver at four in the afternoon, passes through Hope at seven.’
‘That’s useless,’ Mercer said. ‘How far is it by road?’
‘About a hundred and fifty kilometres.’
He reflected. ‘I’ll get a helicopter,’ he said.
There was absolutely no point in being rich, I thought, if one didn’t know how to use it.
The logistics of the return were making Mercer feel better, one could see. George told him that the train we were on would speed up considerably once we were clear of the canyon, and that we’d be in Vancouver in two hours and a half. They discussed how to engage a helicopter; Mercer already had a car meeting him at the station. Nell said Merry & Co would arrange everything, as they had indeed already arranged the car. No problem, if she could reach her office by telephone. George shook his head. He would relay the message by radio through Montreal. He brought out a notepad to write down Merry & Co’s number and the instruction ‘Arrange helicopter, Nell will phone from Vancouver.’
‘I’ll phone from the train,’ she said.
George stood up. ‘I’ll get moving then, Mr Lorrimore. We’ll do everything possible.’ He looked big, awkward and unshaven, but Mercer had taken strength from him and was grateful. ‘My sympathy,’ George said, ‘to Mrs Lorrimore.’
The tray of empty tea cups still lay where I’d left it on the coffee table. I picked it up and asked if there was anything I could bring them, but Mercer shook his head.
‘I’ll come and find you,’ Xanthe said, ‘if they need anything.’ She sounded competent and grown up, years older than at breakfast. Nell gave her a swift sweet glance of appreciation, and she, George and I made our way back into the dome car, George hurrying off to his radio and Nell sighing heavily over what to say to the other passengers.
‘It’ll spoil the end of their trip,’ she said.
‘Try them.’
‘You’re cynical.’
‘Pretty often.’
She shook her head as if I were a lost cause and went into the dining room with the bad news, which was predictably greeted with shock but no grief.
‘Poor Xanthe,’ Rose Young exclaimed, and Mrs Unwin said, ‘Poor Bambi.’ The sympathy stage lasted ten seconds. The deliciously round-eyed ‘isn’t it dreadful’ stage went on all morning.
Julius Apollo Filmer was no longer in the dining room and I wished he had been as I would like to have seen his reactions. Chance would seem to have robbed him of his lever against Mercer; or would he reckon that Mercer would still sacrifice one horse to preserve the reputation of the dead. Filmer could read it wrong, I thought.
There was a cocktail party scheduled for that evening in the Four Seasons Hotel for Vancouver’s racing big-wigs to meet the owners: would it still be held, several anxiously asked.
‘Certainly,’ Nell answered robustly. ‘The party and the race will go on.’
No one, not even I, was cynical enough to say, ‘Sheridan would have wished it.’
I helped clear away the breakfast and wash the dishes and pack everything into boxes for sending back to the caterers in Toronto, and when we’d finished I found that Nell had collected gratuities from the passengers to give to the waiters, and Emil, Cathy and Oliver had split it four ways. Emil put a bundle of notes into my hand, and he and the others were smiling.
‘I can’t take it,’ I said.
Emil said, ‘We know you aren’t a waiter, and we know you aren’t an actor, but you have worked for it. It’s yours.’
‘And we know you’ve worked all morning although it’s obvious you’ve hurt your arm,’ Cathy said. ‘I made it worse … I’m real sorry.’
‘And it would all have been very much harder work without you,’ Oliver said. ‘So we thought we’d like to give you a present.’
‘And that’s it,’ Cathy added, pointing to the notes.
They waited expectantly, wanting my thanks.
‘I … er, I don’t know …’ I kissed Cathy suddenly; hugged her. ‘All right. I’ll buy something to remember us by. To remember the journey. Thank you all very much.’
They laughed, pleased. ‘It’s been fun,’ Cathy said, and Emil added ironically, ‘But not every week.’
I shook Emil’s hand, and Oliver’s. Kissed Cathy again. Shook hands with Angus. Was offered Simone’s cheek for a peck. I looked round at their faces, wanting to hold on to the memory.
‘See you again,’ I said, and they said, ‘Yes,’ and we all knew it was doubtful. I went away along the swaying corridor, taking Tommy to extinction and, as often in the past, not looking back. Too many regrets in looking back.
In the sleeping cars everyone was packing and holding impromptu parties in each other’s rooms, walking in and out of the open doors. Filmer’s door was shut.
Nell was in her roomette, with the door open, packing.
‘What’s wrong with your arm?’ she said, folding one of the straight skirts.
‘Is it so obvious?’
‘Most obvious when Cathy bumped into you with her tray. The shock went right through you.’
‘Yes, well, it’s not serious.’
‘I’ll get yo
u a doctor.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘Mercer won’t run his horse now on Tuesday. Such a shame. That damned Sheridan.’
The biblical description, I thought, was accurate.
‘Xanthe,’ Nell said, putting the skirt in her suitcase, ‘says you were kind to her at Lake Louise. Did you really say something about the corruption of self-importance? She said she learned a lot.’
‘She grew up this morning,’ I said.
‘Yes, didn’t she?’
‘If we go to Hawaii,’ I said, ‘you can wear a sarong and a hibiscus behind your ear.’
She paused in the packing. ‘They wouldn’t really go,’ she said judiciously, ‘with a clipboard.’
George came out of his office and told her the cellular telephone was now working, if she wanted to make her calls, and I went into my roomette and changed out of uniform into Tommy’s outdoor clothes, and packed everything away. The train journey might be finished, I was thinking, but my real job wasn’t. There was much to be done. Filmer might be sick, but it was sick sharks that attacked swimmers, and there could still be a dorsal fin unseen below the surface.
Nell came out of George’s office and along to my door.
‘No helicopter needed,’ she said. ‘They’ve found Sheridan already.’
‘That was quick.’
‘Apparently he fell onto a fish ladder.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘No, actually.’ She stifled a laugh, as improper to the occasion. ‘George says the ladders are a sort of staircase hundreds of metres long that are built in the river because the salmon can’t swim upstream to spawn against the strength of the water, because the water flows much faster than it used to because a huge rock-fall constricted it.’
‘I’ll believe it,’ I said.
‘Some men were working on the lower ladder,’ she said, ‘and Sheridan was swept down in the water.’
‘Dead?’ I asked.
‘Very.’
‘You’d better tell Mercer.’
She made a reluctant face. ‘You do it.’
‘I can’t. George could.’
George agreed to go with the good bad news and hurried off so as to be back at his post when we reached the station.