“And Danny’s aeroplane—where does he keep it?”
“He keeps it in Sydney when he doesn’t need it. It flies here by itself when he calls it.”
We had a wonderful childhood in that place, so far from everything else. Schooling was by radio—we followed the school of the air and I still remember those hot mornings, sitting around the radio transmitter, the generator thumping away in the background, listening to our teacher call the roll and be answered by children from hundreds of miles away.
Then, when I was ten and my brother was five I was sent off to boarding school in Adelaide. This was a place run by nuns, and I was terrified. I had heard that nuns could be strict and that if you misbehaved they hit you with a ruler on the back of your knees. Not all nuns are like that, of course. I know there are plenty who are kind and gentle but these ones, I’m afraid, were not. One day I shall pluck up the courage to go back to that school and confront the past. There are no nuns left there, I’m told, and the school is run by lay-teachers. But I need to make that journey before I can lay my education to rest.
My brother stayed at the siding. I wrote to him sometimes from the school boardinghouse and told him about some of the nuns. I hate them. I hope that this place burns down one day and I can come back to Hope Springs and see you again. Jessie is here and she hates it too. Frankie is with her and he’s going to get even with the nuns one day. Cats are good at that, you know. Those nuns should look out, the cows. Love from your sister.
One of my letters was intercepted by the nun in charge of the boardinghouse. She called me to her study and said, “You are a wicked child, and you have let Jesus and the Holy Virgin down. You’ve let them down very badly.” She then hit me with her ruler and told me to go to confession and tell the priest about how I had written wicked things in a letter. “And may God forgive you,” she added. “Because I won’t be doing so in a hurry.”
SHORTLY BEFORE MY BROTHER’S SEVENTH BIRTHDAY he was bitten by a king brown snake. He was playing near the water tower—a favourite place of his—and he lifted up an old wooden box that somebody had left at the base of the structure. The snake was underneath the box and it bit him on the wrist. Unfortunately, a fang penetrated the veins that run there and so the venom was very quickly carried through his system.
My father heard his cries and came to the scene very quickly. The snake had moved, but he was able to identify it. He knew how serious it was and he immediately went on the radio to the Flying Doctor service in Port Augusta. They promised that they would come up right away and that the best thing would be for him to get Stewart to the nearest town. There was a nurse there who could administer serum and they would then get him to hospital.
He and my mother started the car, but at that point Stewart was already very badly affected. They contacted the Flying Doctor again, and they revised their advice. They should keep him immobile if possible and not subject him to the car journey. Their plane would be taking off in a matter of minutes.
Stewart died forty minutes after the bite. It was unusual for a bite from that type of snake to be lethal quite so quickly, but they thought that the snake had injected a particularly large amount of venom. They also said that because Stewart was so young the effect of the bite was more dramatic.
He was already buried when I came up from Adelaide on the next train. His grave was by a stand of eucalyptus trees, a small mound on which flowers had been laid. These were flowers from the beds that my mother had tended so carefully. She could not have imagined that the flowers she nursed would be on the grave of her child.
THEY STAYED AT HOPE SPRINGS IN SPITE OF THE tragedy. My father became depressed, I was told later, and had to be sent off to hospital in Adelaide for four months. He was grieving for his son, of course. While he was away in hospital, my mother ran the siding. She continued to cultivate her flowers, she continued to bake the scones that she sold to passengers on their way to Alice, she still kept the house spotless. She did everything, as such women did. They never complained. They did everything.
I had become too old for imaginary friends, but somehow I felt that I should keep Danny going. I made a small place for him on a windowsill where he could land his red aeroplane and I sometimes left a glass of lemonade there for him to drink before he took off in his plane. Ants would discover it and crawl up the side of the glass, delighted at the find of sugary drink.
“Why is there lemonade on the window?” my mother asked. “It’ll just attract those ants.”
“It’s there for Danny.”
She looked away. Children, being naturally optimistic and cheerful, cannot begin to guess at the sadness of the adult heart.
In due course they took me out of the convent school and sent me to a government school, also in Adelaide. I did well there, away from the nuns, and ended up going to the University of Western Australia in Perth. I met my husband there. He’s a geologist. He couldn’t come on this trip to Scotland because he was sent up to a place near Broome for three months and he wanted me to treat myself to something while he was up there.
I think of my parents and Hope Springs. They are both dead now—they retired to Perth so that they could be near me. They had a short retirement—life works out like that for some people. They work hard all their lives and then their health doesn’t hold out for long once they retire. They would never have complained about that, because complaining was not part of their nature.
I went back to Hope Springs a few years ago—I wanted to show my husband what it was like. The railway line was moved and the Ghan now follows a different route to Alice Springs, and Darwin, too, of course. But the siding is still there because things remain in the dry climate of the Outback. Things don’t rot out there—the ants may get them, the red earth may cover them, they may get blown away, but they don’t really rot.
The station-master’s house is there. It still has its roof although there are no doors. I found my room—there it was, and there was the windowsill on which I had left the glass of lemonade for Danny. And outside, near the trees, was the mound of my brother’s grave. The edges of it had softened with the action of the wind, but it was still recognisable as a child’s grave.
My husband held my hand. I wept.
Then, going back to the house, he said, “They must have loved one another a lot, your parents. For your mother to come out here—all the way from Sydney—and live this lonely, lonely life. They must have loved one another very deeply.”
“They did,” I said.
And I thought of the life they had led. I loved them very much, you see, my father and my mother, who didn’t ever get anywhere very much or achieve great things. Other than a well-kept station and some flowers in the desert. Is that enough? I like to think that it is.
OF COURSE IT IS, THOUGHT DAVID. OF COURSE IT IS. And now the London station—King’s Cross; into darkness first and then above them, high and silver-grey, the glass sky that arches over the platforms—a whole scurrying world. He smiled goodbye to Andrew and Hugh and to Kay, these people whom he would never see again. And they smiled back and they shook hands, surprised, touched by the intimacy of the conversation, and by the lives laid bare. Kay thought: Each of us has his or her reasons, for making this journey, for being as we are, for continuing with the lives we lead; ordinary lives, of course, but touched here and there with moments of understanding and insight, and sheer marvel. She reached up for her bag from the shelf above the seats, but Andrew had already done that for her and gave it to her, and she thanked him without saying anything; one can do that, one can thank another with one’s eyes, one’s hands, with any of a thousand gestures.
She moved towards the door. She stopped. Loving others, she thought, is the good thing we do in our lives.
A Pantheon Reading Group Guide for
Alexander McCall Smith’s TRAINS AND LOVERS
About the Guide:
The questions contained in this guide are designed to enhance your reading group’s discussion of Trains and Lover
s. A stand-alone novel from one of the today’s most endearing and prolific authors, this newest gem studies the way strangers thrown together may briefly, unexpectedly, open up their lives.
Questions for Discussion:
1. What is the importance of poetry in this novel, and in life? Which poets are discussed and why does Alexander McCall Smith choose these particular poets? Do you agree with the narrator that trains are poetic? How?
2. “Trains are everyday, prosaic things, but they can be involved in, be the agents of, so much else” (this page). What is the narrator referring to here about trains and life?
3. Do you agree with the statement that our need for love is “that part of our human life that for so many far outweighs any other” (this page)? Is love our most basic need?
4. Describe the four people on the train into whose lives we get a glimpse. Why do you think McCall Smith has chosen this particular assortment of four? Why not two men and two women? Why not all older characters who might have more stories and more experience with love? With which of the characters do you most identify? Whose story did you like the best? Why?
5. What simple message can you distill from each of the four characters’ stories?
6. Do you believe that a life achieving “a well-kept station and some flowers in the desert” (this page) is enough as long as you have love? Why or why not?
7. At the close of the novel, as the train enters King’s Cross station and the four are saying goodbye and going their separate ways, Kay contemplates that “each of us has his or her reasons, for making this journey, for being as we are, for continuing with the lives we lead” (this page) and that we all travel ordinary paths “touched here and there with moments of understanding and insight, and sheer marvel.” What is the epiphany Kay comes to, which summarizes the underlying theme of the novel?
8. The Examined Life by Robert Nozick is referenced in Trains and Lovers. Have you read this philosophical best seller, and, if so, how do you feel about it? One of the characters says that “the unexamined life was not worth leading” (this page), and in order to make sense of life, we need to look at our individual paths, our stories, our decisions, and so on, and ask why. Do you agree or disagree?
9. Why does David not tell his story aloud?
10. How do you feel about each of the stories? Do you sympathize with the characters and their predicaments? Does each of the stories offer universal life lessons?
11. Natural beauty is important in all of McCall Smith’s novels. Kay’s mother created beauty in an unexpected place and brought happiness to her husband, herself, and many travelers. How does natural beauty affect you? Do you surround yourself with it, seek it out, or create it yourself?
12. Andrew doesn’t create beauty but studies it in the history of art and working at an auction house. Against the wishes of his parents, he studied art history instead of accountancy, law, or medicine. This, he said, “led me out of the narrow world of my life in a small Scottish town and into a world of light and intellectual passion” (this page). Were his parents wrong to wish otherwise? Was he? Or must everyone follow his or her own dreams and paths?
13. “Journeys are not only about places, they are also about people, and it may be the people, rather than the places, that we remember” (this page). Discuss this statement and give examples from your own life.
14. Ethical dilemmas always arise in McCall Smith novels and the characters, especially in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and Isabel Dalhousie series, deal with them in gallant and sometimes surprising ways. What are the ethical dilemmas in this novel? How do the characters deal with them and how are they resolved?
15. How does forgiveness play a role in this novel, particularly in the stories of Andrew and Hugh? And what does the narrator imply about judging others too harshly?
16. Why do you think McCall Smith chose the simple plotline of four travelers swapping stories for this novel about love? How does the language and rhythm correspond to the message of Trains and Lovers? What is the author saying about love and about life? If you’ve read McCall Smith’s other novels, do you agree that this is the most romantic of his works?
About the Author
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, the 44 Scotland Street series, and the Corduroy Mansions series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh and has served on many national and international organizations concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland.
Visit: www.AlexanderMcCallSmith.com
Friend: www.facebook.com/alexandermccallsmith
Follow: twitter.com/@mccallsmith
Also available as an ebook by Alexander McCall Smith:
In the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series:
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency • 978-1-4000-7765-6
Tears of the Giraffe • 978-1-4000-7767-0
Morality for Beautiful Girls • 978-1-4000-7766-3
The Kalahari Typing School for Men • 978-1-4000-7941-4
The Full Cupboard of Life • 978-0-375-42324-6
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies • 978-0-375-42357-4
Blue Shoes and Happiness • 978-0-375-42426-7
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive • 978-0-375-42479-3
The Miracle at Speedy Motors • 978-0-307-37719-7
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built • 978-0-307-37810-1
The Double Comfort Safari Club • 978-0-307-37900-9
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party • 978-0-307-37963-4
The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection • 978-0-307-90715-8
In the Isabel Dalhousie Series:
The Sunday Philosophy Club • 978-0-375-42343-7
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate • 978-0-375-42392-5
The Right Attitude to Rain • 978-0-375-42462-5
The Careful Use of Compliments • 978-0-375-42527-1
The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday • 978-0-307-37776-0
The Lost Art of Gratitude • 978-0-307-37857-6
The Charming Quirks of Others • 978-0-307-37945-0
The Forgotten Affairs of Youth • 978-0-307-90679-3
The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds • 978-0-307-90734-9
An Isabel Dalhousie eBook Original Story
The Perils of Morning Coffee • 9780307907516
In the Corduroy Mansions Series:
Corduroy Mansions • 978-0-307-37930-6
The Dog Who Came in From the Cold • 978-0-307-37984-9
A Conspiracy of Friends • 978-0-307-90724-0
In the Professor Dr von Igelfeld Entertainment Series:
Portuguese Irregular Verbs • 978-0-307-42729-8
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs • 978-0-307-42858-5
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances • 978-0-307-42488-4
Unusual Uses for Olive Oil • 978-0-307-94866-3
In the 44 Scotland Street Series:
44 Scotland Street • 978-0-307-27679-7
Espresso Tales • 978-0-307-38639-7
Love Over Scotland • 978-0-307-38759-2
The World According to Bertie • 978-0-307-45522-2
The Unbearable Lightness of Scones • 978-0-307-47674-6
The Importance of Being Seven • 978-0-307-74488-3
In the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Books for Young Readers Series:
The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe’s Very First Case • 978-0-307-74390-9
The Girl Who Married a Lion • 978-0-375-42344-4
La’s Orchestra Saves the World • 978-0-307-37866-8
Trains and Lovers • 9780307908551
For more information on Pantheon Books:
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BOOKS BY ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
IN THE ISABEL DALHOUSIE SERIES
The Sunday Philosophy Club
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
The Right Attitude to Rain
The Careful Use of Compliments
The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday
The Lost Art of Gratitude
The Charming Quirks of Others
The Forgotten Affairs of Youth
The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds
IN THE NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIES
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
Blue Shoes and Happiness
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
The Miracle at Speedy Motors
Trains and Lovers: A Novel Page 15