He would have asked questions.
‘Are we going to see action, sarge?’
‘I’m sure we will, son.’
‘How long till we get there?’
‘No idea.’
‘I heard it’s pretty much over!’ he’d have said. ‘We’re going to be stuck here and miss the show – aren’t we?’
They hadn’t missed the show, of course. They had departed, arriving finally at a camp where the waiting started all over again. Then, at last, they moved down to the lines, to replace those who had died, or needed rest. Hideous flares, and the whistling of the shells… he had heard the sound effects in films, and like every schoolboy he’d read the poetry and listened to the slow, sad opening of the ‘Last Post’. As a Boy Scout, he’d stood to attention with James and felt the curious ache of loss.
Bromsgrove station must have seen real tears, though: rivers of tears. Tears as the recruits lined up and left, and tears as their remains came back – if they ever did. They didn’t, because they were blown to pieces: that’s why there were war graves out in France. Again, he realised how little he knew about anything, and so he put his face closer still, and read more text:
The firing died down, and out of the darkness a great moan came. People with their arms and legs off trying to crawl away; others who could not move gasping out their last moments with the cold night wind biting into their broken bodies…
Bodies that could never be reclaimed, though they must have been tagged.
Bodies that would slowly rot, and… Michael remembered a detail from school history about how stretcher-bearers had to kick the dead men hard, in the ribs. That was how you got rid of the rats, which were nesting in their chests.
Had the man with the moustache ended that way? Had young Michael?
The platforms were new, but the lines hadn’t changed.
In 1916 old men and women would have sat on benches here, and the names of the lost would have been known to them. The pain would be raw: an ache that made you hold your breath, for surely loss like that made you sit still in case you simply shattered. There would have been mothers, trying to imagine their sons’ and husbands’ fear. Had they sat here, trying to comprehend the sheer loneliness of faraway death? He’d been told by someone that a bullet is hot when it hits you – and there were pictures of the rifles they’d used. Clunky old things, slung over greatcoats heavy with rain – boots that must have leaked, and a pack that doubled in weight because canvas soaked up the wet. How could the man with the moustache look so full of hope? Michael stared at him, and the man held his gaze.
He had not imagined being confronted like this, but the town was reaching out to the people of the past. Why was it so hard to imagine anything other than melodrama? The station had been rebuilt with brand-new facilities, and the furniture was the kind you saw everywhere: metal chairs, bolted to concrete in the style of a prison cell. There was a protective glass wall, but it had been designed not to reach the floor – that ensured the space you were in could never be snug, so you’d never be tempted to linger and become a nuisance. Michael tried to imagine the young men waiting beside him, smelling of tobacco and damp wool. He tried to see the ghosts, but they just wouldn’t appear. He saw actors only, faking local working-class accents.
‘Stand well away from the edge of platform one,’ said a voice.
‘Why?’ said Michael quietly – and for a moment he knew that his time had come, and he didn’t need whisky. He could do it, and it had to be done. There really was no need to wait for Crewe.
‘Stand well away…’
‘No.’
‘You have been warned – the approaching train is not
scheduled to stop at this station. Stand behind the yellow
line!’
He went quickly out onto the platform and contemplated the distance he would have to walk or run, to get onto the tracks. He could jump, of course – simply step into the path of the locomotive – over the top, as it were, if he had the courage. All he had to do was run, now, and dive, and the rails were throbbing. They were pulsing, in fact singing with excitement, for closer and closer came the train and there was no need to brake. The signal is green, and everyone else is standing back. The driver stares forward, for the hardest thing in a train driver’s day, apparently, is the mesmerising miles of unfurling track.
Had he noticed Michael, getting ready to jump? Presumably not, and what would he do if he had? The great steel snout was hammering through, drilling into its own tornado. It was a freight train again, and Michael willed himself into its path and could not do it – he hit a wall, and he just couldn’t smash his way through – he needed the captain’s whistle, and the sergeant’s command. He needed to be picked up and thrown.
He stood still, and the gale broke over him. He was rocked back onto his heels as the wagons came past – at least thirty seconds’ worth of train, and when the last was gone Michael looked at the rails and wondered what would have happened, and what state his own body would have been in. The severed head had a minute or two of consciousness, so he’d been told: he’d be looking up at the white sky even now, as it faded to black.
What if he’d managed it? The train would be grinding slowly to a halt as the poor driver shouted and cried. The controller in Gloucester or Worcester would have been alerted, and all rail traffic would stop. The Samaritans would scramble a team, for everyone involved in the aftermath needs help – the driver, the passengers, the people on the platform where the incident took place as well as those living close to the line. The dead man’s final gift to the world is the traumatising of those forced to look at what’s left of him.
He found he was sobbing.
The weather had broken in his head completely, and down came the rain again. He was furious with himself and bewildered. He remembered school, and his failure in high-jump. Physical education, and his inability to vault the horse, for most boys seemed to sail over it but he never did – he’d funk it. ‘Funk’ was a word from the distant past, but that’s the word they’d used.
He was still alive, and didn’t want to be. On the other hand, how wonderful not to have been blasted and smeared all over the tracks – not to be smashed to pieces, as if by a shell. He was holding his bag in both hands, and it really was as if the weather had turned – a sudden squall out of a clear sky. He cried and gasped, his lungs snatching at the air, the tears streaming down his face. He cried the way a child cries, and then stopped, and nobody saw him – at least nobody saw him.
And I am crying for myself! he thought, wishing he had something sharp to jab into his own flesh. Not for anyone I have loved, or lost – not for the brave boys of Bromsgrove, or their poor dear families…
He gasped and the fit passed. He stood up straight and put his shoulders back. He mopped his face with a handkerchief, knowing that if anyone saw him now they’d assume he’d been laughing.
He sat down on a bench and waited. A train came by and he didn’t catch it. He thought about crossing the bridge and going back south, back to his terrible flat. He thought of Amy and Elizabeth.
Nobody spoke to him, so he ate two tangerines. He had to go on, but it was now a long wait for the 13.55 which was delayed by eight minutes, so that meant he wouldn’t get to Birmingham now until quarter past two. How had he misjudged it so badly, and wasted so much time? He’d failed again, funking everything – the 14.41 would hurtle through Crewe, and he’d miss that too. Now it would be a push to meet even the 15.41 – but at least there would be no drama. At least he could get properly drunk and at thirty-five minutes past three he could stagger down platform seven and get himself atomised. Even he could manage that.
Morris was still in Cheltenham.
It was 15.31 and all he wanted now was to go home again. Keenan had messaged him at last, and he was fixing up something totally different, which would mean going on to Birmingham. That might mean spending the night there, but he’d earn something reasonable. He’d get something to smoke and so
mething to eat – it was worth doing, and he had no choice. Maria, meanwhile, was standing on a similar platform up in Carlisle. She was realising she’d done something so stupid she couldn’t quite take it in: she had actually frozen.
Ayesha was on the train bound for Preston, with Maria’s bag. Maria watched the carriages slide by and she had the insane impulse to chase after them, screaming. She might have tried it, if her legs would only move. She managed to turn at last, but there was nobody to help her: everyone was pushing past. As for the Reverend Paul, he had left the train back at Oxenholme, and was on his way to Windermere, feeling sad.
10
The Herne School is an academy in Crewe looking after more than a thousand boys and girls.
Aaron was twelve years old, and as term had started in the first week of September he was seventeen days into his second year. He was on his way home, having changed into training shoes, which was against the rules. His coat was in his bag, and he had pulled his shirt out of his trousers. That was forbidden too, and three uniform strikes meant you received a detention – but the walk to the railway station was unlikely to take him past anyone on duty. He was with Ollie Jamner, whom he thought of as a friend – and another boy called Khari Aboudi. They were all in the same year, but whilst Ollie was in Aaron’s tutor group, Khari was more of an unknown, and most of their encounters had been in the playground or lunch hall. Aaron found Khari exciting and dangerous. He found that he wanted to impress him, and he felt lucky to be in the boy’s company because he seemed so fearless. Right now, he was ‘on report’, which meant he had to carry a folded card with him all day and present it to every teacher who taught him. The teacher would grade his behaviour.
He’d shown Aaron the card. It was meant to be kept neat and clean, but Khari was scrunching it up on purpose, so it was already creased and torn. He’d intimated that he was going to do something unmentionable over it, every night, and the three boys had found themselves howling with laughter.
‘Will you tell them?’ said Ollie. ‘When they open it? “Why’s this card so sticky, Khari?”’
‘I couldn’t help myself, miss.’
They crashed in through the doors of the ticket office, calming themselves only when they came to the barriers, where an inspector was on duty. They showed their passes one by one, moving through in sober single file. School started at eight-thirty, so the children were released at three-fifteen. Aaron shouldn’t have left, in fact, because he was supposed to be at a play rehearsal until four. He was feeling guilty already, because forgetting was one thing, but deliberately cutting a commitment was forbidden – his parents would be furious. Once you made a commitment, you stuck to it – but he’d got into conversation with Ollie, and suddenly all he wanted was to be out of the building and off the site. He could say that he’d felt ill, or had remembered a dentist’s appointment, and there was nothing the teacher could do. If she threw him out of the group it wouldn’t be the end of the world. It was worth it, to be with Khari.
Khari had found an empty bench and was climbing onto it. This was bold, since the platform was busy and the benches were quite close to station staff. He’d dropped his bag, and was standing with his hands behind his head. Like Aaron, he wore his shirt untucked, but his shirts were way too big and they were loose and long. The collar was done up, and his neck looked slender. The tie was tied so the knot was extra fat, and whilst some teachers fought against this Khari had got away with it all day, and stood there looking sleek and handsome. Aaron felt a thrill of excitement, and he wished he had the same build. The boy’s trousers were fashionably tight, and his trainers were unlaced. His legs were wide apart, and he looked at Aaron and said, ‘What?’
‘What?’ replied Aaron.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘Nothing. Are you going straight home?’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing.’
Aaron was on the bench, next to Khari’s right foot. Ollie was checking the train times, though they all knew they had a while to wait. The train they caught came in at 15.55, so he checked it was on time and sat down. Khari put a hand on his shoulder and slid down next to him. Then he snaked his other arm round Aaron and drew him close. He put his mouth close to his ear.
‘Hey,’ he said quietly. ‘Aaron.’
‘What?’
‘We’re mates, aren’t we?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there’s a toilet over there, mate. Any chance of a blow-job?’
That was the moment a voice said, ‘Boys?’ – and Aaron was trapped. That was the moment they all looked up, expecting to be reprimanded for the foulness of Khari’s imagination – instead, they found themselves staring into the eyes of a nervous, agitated man they definitely didn’t know. He wasn’t a railway official: he was a member of the public, and they would never forget him.
‘Boys,’ said Michael quietly. ‘Listen carefully, please. Don’t speak.’
He had caught the delayed 13.55 from Bromsgrove, leaving the dead behind him. It had made up some time, zipping along the tracks to arrive in Birmingham just twenty minutes later. The Liverpool service was waiting, so Michael took a seat in the very last carriage and drank a little more whisky. He disembarked at the tail end of the long, long platform, and he stood for some time looking at the great tangle of rails.
This was Crewe, at last – and he had fifteen minutes to wait. Platform seven was the next one along, so did he want to use the footbridge or the lift? For a moment he had an urge to simply jump down and cross the rails, as quickly as possible. Then he could start walking, towards the warehouses where a curtain of bramble would conceal him. Nobody would see him hurrying up the line unless there were cameras. If he was spotted, they’d close the whole network and that would be that.
The Samaritans sign told him yet again that there was someone to talk to, and that someone was there to help him. He had tried them, and he couldn’t call again – for what could they say? A woman called Ella had helped him most, but to sit there whispering to her would be too intrusive and demanding. Ella had done her very best, and he didn’t want to addict himself to her or any of her measured, calm, lovely colleagues – whatever he had done. Whatever life had done to him. He stood still, mesmerised by the beauty of the glinting silver metal and the wonder of the engineering. A hundred and fifty years ago there might have been just one lonely line. There might have been just one train a day, rolling slowly in from Manchester, perhaps? Because that was the old days when railways were a nervous experiment. He smiled at the thought, and took another mouthful from his juice carton.
He was warm and he was ready. He had to set off now and keep moving, for it was so straightforward: one foot followed the other, over the bridge and back along the platform. If he kept moving, people would think he had business on the tracks, checking some complicated bit of signalling. How did his fifty-pound ticket pay for the legions of men and women who kept the industry going? There were experts, no doubt, who understood these things: they spoke the language, and he stood swaying slightly, wondering how he had spent so long on the planet knowing so little. How had he not known that the Somme was a river? For a moment he had a desire to stay alive, and read a book about the war. He could trace the whole of that sad and terrible century – not just in homage to those who had sacrificed themselves, but as a way of understanding how everyone had ended up in this place, right now. On the other hand, why be so ambitious? Why not simply learn how one particular railway line came to be, and why it connected this particular string of towns? He put the juice carton in his bag, and removed his spectacles for a final clean.
‘You’ve missed her,’ said a voice.
Michael swung round, the duster limp between his fingers.
‘What?’ he said.
‘She’s gone, I’m afraid. She doesn’t hang about.’
‘Who?’
An old man had appeared behind him – a pensioner – and Michael suddenly wondered if he was referrin
g to some shady liaison with a prostitute. He blinked, hating himself for the absurdity of such a thought. The man blinked back at him, smelling the whisky perhaps.
‘The Proud Isabella,’ he said. ‘She came through ten or fifteen minutes ago.’
‘Through here?’
‘Yes. She didn’t stop this time, but she slowed right down. I assumed you’d come to see her. There was quite a crowd, in fact. A couple of hundred.’
The man was carrying a tablet. He flipped the cover and held it out towards Michael. Swiping from the left, he pulled up a folder which opened into a cluster of photo-files, and when he touched one in the centre it turned into the profile of a long green steam engine, with gold trimmings and a black funnel. Michael had just digested that when it was replaced by the same machine crossing a viaduct, and that changed almost at once to a close-up of its nose.
‘Beautiful,’ said Michael dutifully.
It was half past three, and he had to move.
‘You can’t account for it,’ said the man, stepping close to his side. ‘I must have seen her a dozen times, but it’s always a new experience – look at this one. I don’t know what it is – the noise, or the smell, or the… just the wonder of it. Look.’
He adjusted the angle, and Michael saw that the train was actually moving. It was pulling into a village station, where it was immediately surrounded by children. There was no sound, and he found himself peering into a little world of joyful waving – the children were in fancy dress, wearing Victorian-style bonnets and waistcoats.
‘Where is that?’ he said.
‘That’s the Dales, that is – just outside Settle. Look at the pistons, though.’
The camera was closing in on the wheels.
‘Four thousand horsepower, near enough – and there’s two of them.’
‘Are you an engineer?’ said Michael.
‘More of a mechanic, really, but it’s become quite a hobby—’
Train Man Page 11