by Wells, J
“What’s she doing here?” she whispered.
“What do you think? Keeping Frank company, of course. Beth and me go back a long way, best mates, see her and her kids all the time. Dad usually invites ’em round at Christmas. Sure she’ll find many ways to occupy our Frank with her womanly charms.” He winked.
“Hi, Heather, heard lots about you,” Beth said as she approached, throwing her arms around Heather’s neck.
Her hair, thick and resting neatly on her shoulders, smelt of stale smoke. She had quite a ruddy complexion, with intermittent freckles, and deep-brown eyes. Although Heather didn’t like admitting it to herself, she was actually quite attractive, although she looked a lot older close up.
“We’ve been here for about an hour. I took Frank shopping; someone needed to dress him, so thought it may as well be me,” Beth said, walking towards her car. “Got some food in as well.” She opened the boot. “If you’ve got a hand free, grab a bag.”
With suitcases and bags in hand, they all headed up the spiral staircase and onto the decked veranda.
“We haven’t got long,” Ruben said, looking at his watch. “Got sumat planned in about forty minutes. It’s going to be a case of dropping the bags off and going straight out.”
The glass patio door stood open invitingly.
“This really is amazing,” Heather said, stepping inside to a warm woody essence.
The open-plan interior was spacious, with two doors leading off into separate rooms. The furnishings were all carved from wood, and she noticed a small dining table and chairs at the far end nearest the kitchen area. Her eyes were drawn back to a bench-style settee, which sat comfortably between three large windows, through which she could see they were surrounded by panoramic views like on a picture postcard. With the exception of Frank, who was lying fast asleep, with his mouth wide open.
“You’ve done a bloody good job on him, Beth!” Ruben laughed.
They could see that Beth had made a real effort to bring their peculiar friend into the twenty-first century.
“You’re joking, aren’t you? He wouldn’t try on any of the clothes I picked out for him.”
Heather looked Beth up and down. Not surprising, she thought. She didn’t look as though she had a particular eye for fashion herself, in a pair of loose-fitting jeans, creased from the journey, and an insipid pink off-the-shoulder top that did her no favours.
“Well, it’s an improvement anyway,” Heather sniggered.
Frank certainly looked very comfortable lying in his new ensemble, a cream V-neck cardigan, and casual trousers in a shade or two darker.
“All he’s done is sleep,” Beth said, emptying one of the shopping bags onto a wooden counter next to the sink.
“Ha! Perfect chaperone, eh, Heather?” Ruben gloated, tapping her perky rear. “Anyway, got to make tracks...”
“What about Frank?” Beth moved forward, intending to wake him.
“No, no, leave him,” Ruben interrupted, grabbing her arm. “He looks so comfortable, and must be shattered from the journey. Come on,” he whispered, taking Heather’s hand.
Beth offered to drive, and without being told where they were going, she just seemed to know. Funny that, Heather thought. Within half an hour they were boarding a steam train, heading for Snowdon’s summit in their own private carriage.
“You’ll love this, Heather,” Beth said, taking a seat.
The carriage felt cold. Its interior was of dark wood, with two padded bench-like seats facing each other, covered in red and gold patterned upholstery.
“Have you been here before?” a puzzled Heather questioned as she sat down.
“Used to come here all the time, didn’t we, Red?” Ruben said, smiling at Beth.
It even seemed that he’d given her a nickname. Heather started to feel quite uneasy as Beth and Ruben chatted and laughed about past experiences they had shared. Instead of feeling like Ruben’s girlfriend, she ended up feeling more like she was playing gooseberry. Losing interest in their conversation, she looked out of the window as the train began its incline up the mountain. She blanked them out, listening instead to an informative historical commentary through the in-carriage speakers. As they set off, the sun shone and the sky was a perfect blue. She could see for miles. The train’s speed never really picked up, and she thought she could have walked as fast, but on the plus side, it gave her ample time to take in the mountainous terrain and surreal views, absorbing, albeit out of boredom, the commentary as it continued to inform her of the myths and legends surrounding Snowdon.
Pulled back into the conversation, she felt Ruben place his arm around her shoulder.
“Don’t mind, do you, girl?” he asked.
Startled, Heather answered, “No, no, of course not.”
“Aw, fab. What’s the dress code?” Beth enquired.
Before she could answer, and saving her from embarrassment, Ruben butted in. “Got Heather a special dress for the evening from Caroline’s. It’s going to be a big do from what Walter said.”
In an instant, it all became so clear, too clear in fact. Heather had just unknowingly invited Beth to her eighteenth. Great, she thought. She would have to be blind not to see their touchy feely body language, and the looks that passed between them. And although Ruben looked at her, he’d never seemed to look at her in quite that way before.
“So, how did you two meet?” Heather enquired.
Beth looked awkwardly at Ruben.
“I take care of Angela,” she said.
“Who?”
Ruben’s expression changed and his face hardened.
“Beth’s a family friend, Heather, that’s all you need to know,” he snapped.
“Oi!” Beth said as she leant forward, slapping Ruben on the leg. “Enough of that!” she scolded, jumping to Heather’s defence. “She’ll find out sooner or later anyway.”
“Yeah, I know that Beth, but not this weekend.”
Crossing his arms and shuffling in his seat, Ruben looked out of the window, avoiding their gaze. Heather couldn’t help but notice his good looks, his profile enhanced by the natural light streaming in through the windows, which picked up the brilliance of his green eyes and long spidery lashes. The small amount of blonde stubble on his chin was only just visible, but she thought it looked kind of sexy. As their journey continued, the high altitude brought with it thickening clouds, masking the glorious scenery now lost somewhere in a misty drizzle.
This gave Heather and Beth a chance to become better acquainted.
“So, Beth, how many kids ya got?” Heather asked, looking closely at Beth’s oval face and scrutinising for any flaws.
Her skin looked quite dry and flaky, dehydrated almost, especially her cheeks, with pinkish veins running between her freckles. She hasn’t aged well, Heather thought. But she really was difficult to age, especially when Heather noticed more than a few lines around her eyes and surprisingly her mouth as well, but then she was a smoker. She wasn’t unattractive, but definitely looked better from a distance.
“Three, and they’re bloody hard work. Ben, he’s five, not too bad to be honest, well, not at the moment anyway. Chloe’s ten and a terror, and Lilly’s my eldest, fifteen going on twenty-five. Trying to set boundaries now so she doesn’t make the same stupid mistakes I did at her age.”
Surprised, Heather said, “You’ve never got a fifteen year old? She’s only a couple of years younger than me ... you don’t look old enough.” Feeling relieved that Beth was obviously in her thirties, Heather believed this made her less of a threat and more of a motherly figure. She’d obviously misconstrued their body language earlier and had absolutely nothing to worry about.
The conversation flowed, and by the time the train pulled into their checkpoint at the summit, Heather knew all there was to know about Beth’s children, from birth onwards.
A man’s voice came over the speaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be starting our descent in approximately half an hour,
so make sure to be back on-board in good time. In the meantime, feel free to stretch your legs and visit our gift shop or café for light refreshments.”
Anything but happy with Ruben’s attitude and having quite her fill of kids, in fact enough to last her a lifetime, Heather decided not to venture out, and just to sit in peace and quiet, and gather her thoughts. She watched the departing passengers leaving the train, joined by Ruben and Beth, who walked off in separate directions. She wondered if Ruben had managed to get under Beth’s skin also. Heather was quite disappointed as she looked out of the large windows and saw that the panoramic views from earlier were now cloaked in murky rainclouds.
By now, all the passengers had vacated the train. She couldn’t really see where they had headed, but within moments of their departure, it was as if they’d evaporated, sucked into the mountain’s hanging mists. She sat in a strange sort of silence after the melodious sound of the steam engine and the continuous conversation on the way up. It was actually quite unnerving, and she felt very much alone. She reached for a magazine directly under the window from a built-in rack, which depicted all the best sights and attractions around Snowdonia. She read the odd snippet, but soon got bored and so ended up skimming the pages, paying more attention to the pictures. She was suddenly interrupted, she assumed by either Beth or Ruben’s return. Instead, it was a young boy of around seven, quite scruffily dressed and not overly clean. His face looked incredibly pale, with dirt ingrained into his pores, giving him an almost two-tone appearance. He didn’t speak, and just sat down, almost squashed against the door.
“Excuse me, have you lost your parents?” Heather asked.
The boy never answered, and didn’t even acknowledge Heather’s words. He just sat in silence.
“I think you’re in the wrong carriage,” she said, trying to prompt some kind of response.
The boy lifted his head slightly, and she saw that his eyes were dark and held no emotion. Yet as he studied Heather, his gaze became a stare, his eyes set, and he never blinked, not once. Then a humming sound broke the silence, a raspy vibration coming from between his closed lips. Although not exactly in tune, Heather could tell it was a nursery rhyme, one that she knew she’d heard before. His voice grew in volume until it emulated around the carriage, and madness lingered in his deadpan eyes.
Heather stood and walked towards the boy, grasping his hands. They were icy-cold.
“Right, I think it’s time we found your mother.”
She tried to pull him up, but he was like a dead weight, unmovable. She noticed deepening black tinges to his skin and raised circular markings on his wrists that were making their way up his inner arms.
“My God, are you okay?” she said, leaning forward, inches from his face.
She noticed his lips had an unhealthy blue tinge, and his breath held a strong odour. She sniffed, trying to place it. Roses came to mind, but how was that possible?
The boy stopped humming immediately and began to wail.
“I’m going to get help. You stay there.” Heather panicked, and feeling distressed, she ran from the carriage, returning only moments later with a staff member.
Gasping, she insisted, “He was right there, sitting there.” She pointed, fearing for the boy’s safety.
The tall man in a navy-blue uniform tutted at her suggestion.
“Kids probably messing around, get it all the time. Parents just can’t control them and they run amok.” Shaking his head, he continued, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
Heather sat down, watching as he opened the door of the carriage to leave.
“Thanks, mate,” Ruben said, taking advantage of the man’s hospitality and barging through the doorway, with Beth close behind.
“Cheers,” she said, smiling.
“Enjoy the rest of your trip with us. I’ll make sure you have no more trouble for the remainder of the journey,” he said, leaving them to it.
“Trouble?” Ruben enquired, sitting down and handing Heather a steaming hot cup of soup.
“Just kids messing around, I guess,” she said, taking a sip.
“Tomato’s okay, isn’t it?” Ruben asked.
Heather smiled. He’d obviously remembered the tomato and basil the evening before and thought it would be a safe bet.
“Have bread rolls in the bag if ya like?”
Heather reached for the Snowdon-themed plastic bag, on which was a picture of the train and a website address printed cleverly on the front. They don’t miss a trick, she thought. Business-minded herself, she thought of Freesdon Manor’s little gift shop, and wondered if they could do something similar with their souvenir bags.
“And you’ve got eclairs! Ruben, you shouldn’t have,” Heather joked, her mouth watering as she took the plastic casing from the bag and placed it beside her for later.
“What have you got, Beth?”
Brown baguette in hand, Beth opened her bag and pulled out an identical miniature of the little stream train they were in, its green outer casing shining up at her. “For the bab,” she said with her mouth full. Swallowing, she continued. “T-shirts for the others...”
“That’s nice,” Heather replied, though she knew she wouldn’t have been happy at fifteen in a bright pink T-shirt with a beaming train caricature on the front.
Heather could feel the vibrations from the seat as the train began to move again, screeching and chuffing as steam billowed high into the air. Turning for one last look out of the window, since it wasn’t an everyday occurrence for her to be sitting on a mountainside, she saw the mist thickening and masking the glorious views, but the memories would stay with her forever.
Without anything much to hold her attention now, she was about to turn away when she caught sight of something, or someone. The boy, she gasped inwardly. His insipid form stood looking lost in the white mist, his face covered in tears and his arms outstretched.
“They need to stop the train!” Heather shouted, jumping up and nearly spilling her soup in the process.
“Stop the train? Why?” Ruben asked.
“The boy, the boy, they’re going to leave him behind.” Her voice was erratic, and she could feel her heart racing.
“There’s no one there, Heather,” Beth piped up, looking out of the window. It was an atmospheric maze out there, with little to no visibility. “And anyway, we couldn’t leave, not until everyone had boarded and been checked in, so you must have been mistaken. We saw a couple of trains come in not long after ours, so my guess is, whoever he is, he must be off one of those.”
Calming herself slightly, Heather sat back down. Makes sense, she thought. That must be why he had rushed off so quickly. Feeling a little happier about the situation, she tucked into her chocolate eclair.
~•••~
The day had flown by. It’s never six o’clock already, Heather thought. What had been hours felt like only a matter of minutes. She was now sitting comfortably on the settee next to Frank. The tree house was everything she could have possibly hoped for, and more.
“I would have liked very much to have been included this afternoon,” Frank complained, his face drawn, his eyes dull and unhappy.
“Nah, mate, you were spark out,” said Ruben, “Thought it’d be a shame to wake ya.” Though Ruben’s eyes and words spoke a very different language.
“Best unpack I suppose, or it’ll never get done,” Beth said to Heather, getting up. “And you two can make yourself useful putting the rest of the shopping away.”
“Frank, have you moved our cases?” Heather asked, looking around. She was sure she had left them by the door.
“But of course,” Frank said. He didn’t elaborate further, and simply got up and went to do as he’d been asked.
Heather and Beth entered the nearest door, leading to the first of two bedrooms, the larger of which had a double bed and was fitted with built-in wardrobes, the beauty being an open glass skylight directly above the bed. How romantic, Heather thought. Or maybe not,
she wondered when she noticed hers and Beth’s case either side.
“Looks like we’re roommates then!” Beth laughed, lifting her small weekend case onto the right-hand side of the bed.
“Yeah, certainly looks that way.” Heather smirked. “I think I’ll leave mine for later,” she said, pushing her case under the bed, remembering the ‘something sexy’ Ruben had asked her to bring. Not something for Beth’s eyes, she thought.
“What are you pair wittering on about?” Ruben said as he entered with two ceramic mugs filled to the brim with tea. “Are you serious?” His face dropped. “You’re telling me I’ve come all this way to share a bedroom with bloody Frank? They’re bunks too!”
“Looks a bit that way, don’t it?” Beth replied, hanging a pair of jeans on a wire coat hanger, and opening another door with a couple of towels draped over her arm.
“That’s nice; least we’ve got our own en suite.”
“Not exactly, Heather,” Ruben added, resting his arms on her shoulders. “If you look, there’s a door the other side, and that’s to our room,” he said, half smiling.
“Better known as a Jack and Jill en suite,” Beth informed them.
It was quite a good size, with its own corner bath and two ceramic sinks with cupboards beneath, providing plenty of storage space.
“Yeah, sumat like that,” he answered nonchalantly, gazing over at Beth, who was sipping her tea. Lowering his voice, he said, “Is there anywhere you could think of to take Frank for a couple of hours?”
“Say no more, just leave it to me,” she said, walking back into the main living area and picking up her car keys. “Frank, I’m taking you out,” she insisted, slipping on her boots.
“But I’m quite comfortable,” he replied, slouched on the settee.
“Now!” she demanded, her voice authoritative.
Frank looked up, almost in horror, obviously taken aback by the crisp edge to her voice.
“Will Ruben and Heather be accompanying us on this venture?”
“Frank, I’m not asking, I’m telling you. And no, they won’t,” was her reply.