‘Don’t you find it boring to have an explanation for everything?’
‘On the contrary, I have never felt bored in my life. Boredom is quite a disease of the middle classes you know. I know what I’m doing and why and I get on and do it.’
‘May we ask?’ Roger pulled at his eye-patch for a moment as he spoke.
‘Ask what you like. I don’t have to answer any questions that I don’t want to. This isn’t Castlereagh.’
Helen balanced her cigarette on its end on her plate and watched the smoke rise thin and straight into the darkness above them.
‘I hate cross-examinations,’ she said. ‘I think there are so many things inside each of us that we don’t want to say, and that other people don’t want to hear. We could become quite unfriendly…’ Her voice trailed away like the smoke.
‘How do you mean, mother?’
‘Well… political perhaps … I’d rather not… be forced to make judgments.’
Jack laughed sharply.
‘One day, mother, your ivory tower will fall down. Then where will you be? Then you’ll have to ask questions … answer questions … draw conclusions’
‘If my ivory tower, as you call it, falls down, I’ll build another one.’ She got up and began to move the plates from the table. ‘And I’ll always prefer my mysteries to your conclusions. There’s chocolate mousse. Who wants some chocolate mousse?’
They all wanted chocolate mousse.
She took it out of the fridge and put it in the middle of the table. That was for Jack anyway, she thought, as she handed each of them a plate. Chocolate mousse for Jack.
‘And miracles.’ She sat down again. ‘Help yourselves.’ She picked up the smoking cigarette and crushed it out onto the plate. ‘I believe in miracles. Not the bleeding heart kind.’
‘What would you consider to be a miracle, Mrs Cuffe?’ Manus’s voice was curious.
‘Well… I suppose the intervention of something quite outside your own experience into your… Something perhaps that permits a revelation of yourself. I think the intervention permits the miracle rather than is the miracle itself. I seem to gather thoughts, ideas in my head that I can’t express in coherent words. Perhaps that’s why I paint. I have to expose some truth.’
She muttered the last words to herself.
‘Give us an example,’ said Jack. ‘Tell us about one of your own private and personal miracles.’
She shook her head.
‘One thing is clear to me …’ Roger broke into the silence … ‘this chocolate mousse is a miracle. That’s for certain sure.’
She laughed.
‘No, no, no. It’s the only thing I can cook with complete conviction that it is going to turn out all right. Correct, Jack?’
‘Pretty well correct. Even Gran …’
‘Your grandmother couldn’t make a chocolate mousse like mine if she lit a million candles to the patron saint of cooks or crawled seven times round the Black Church on her hands and knees. It was my single personal triumph over your grandmother.’
‘Helen tells me that you are interested in trains.’
‘That’s right. My granda was a fireman in the old GNR. He has never done telling us stories. He made you believe that nothing in the world was ever like the Dublin–Belfast run.’
Jack looked towards him with admiration.
‘Steam. Of course I don’t remember the steam myself… only his stories.’
‘No,’ said Roger. ‘You wouldn’t remember the steam. That would have been before your time.’
‘Every Sunday afternoon until just before he died he’d step off to the marshalling yards beyond Amiens Street… that’s what he always called it… Amiens Street. He and several other old guys, have a bit of a rabbit about the way things used to be. It’s funny the way old people always think that things are worse now instead of better. He used to rave about things when he got home, carelessness, dirt, incompetence.’
Perhaps he’s talking the truth, thought Jack. I know so little about him.
‘I used to go with him sometimes. There was a lot of old stock in the sheds there never saw the light of day. I enjoyed it when I was a kid. But then … well you’ve heard all the old stories a thousand times, and you find you’ve better things to do than listening to old footplatemen trying to pretend they haven’t one foot in the grave.’
‘I’d be delighted to show you the station. Delighted. When can you come over?’
‘Tomorrow. We’ll be free all day until the evening. We have to set off back then. That’s right isn’t it, Jack … we could manage tomorrow morning?’
‘Splendid. I’ll expect you then … about ten-thirty. Helen, will you come with them?’. She shook her head.
‘I think not, thank you. Have some more chocolate mousse.’
‘I must say, you’ve done a great job. I’d like the granda to have seen that box. He wasn’t into this narrow-gauge stuff being a city man, but he’d have really appreciated that box.’
‘Thank you,’ said Roger. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. His eye was fretful, his face pale and without much life.
‘What are you working on at the moment?’
‘The crossing gates. Damian is replacing a lot of the timbers. They were badly rotted. That shouldn’t take too long. They’ll have to remain manual for a while, but we hope to automate them before too long. It’s a nuisance that, in bad weather, but it can’t be helped.’
‘How about the track?’
Manus walked along the edge of the platform and looked down at the weeds.
‘We’ll clear that. All that mess will die back when the winter comes. Until I see the state of the track I can’t say how long that will take. I may have to call in some outside help if we need to re-lay any sleepers.’
‘What’s that shed over there?’
‘I think this was mainly a goods stop. Stuff must have been stored there for local farmers to come and collect. I have been surprised myself at its size. I don’t use it. It’s quite a decent piece of railway architecture though, I’d hate to pull it down. No doubt we’ll find a use for it some day.’
‘No doubt. Mind if I go and have a look?’
‘By all means. Excuse me if I don’t come with you. Sometimes I feel quite unwell.’
‘Is there anything we can do?’ asked Jack. ‘I could run over to the doctor for you.’
‘No. I just like to be left alone. There isn’t anything anyone can do …’ He turned away from them and walked towards the house slowly. At the door he stopped. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘It’s not locked … just the bolt.’
Without even saying goodbye he went into the house.
They walked in silence to the end of the platform and then across the tracks. The shed had a wooden door in surprisingly good condition, held closed by a large iron bolt. It had been oiled at some stage and slid back without fuss. Inside, dust, cobwebs and dead flies veiling the small windows and a large empty space.
‘It’s one of your mother’s miracles,’ said Manus.
Jack pushed the door shut behind them and looked around.
‘I think it’s a crazy idea.’
‘Why?’ Manus’s voice was shrill. ‘What’s crazy about it? They don’t use it… don’t touch it. There’s no one else for miles around. No nosey kids even.’
‘You wouldn’t know what he’d do, for God’s sake … or Damian. How will you get the stuff in and out of here without him finding out?’
‘Leave it to me, why don’t you? You just do what you’re told. Have I ever let anyone down? Answer me that. Have I bungled? Hey? Have I?’
‘No. But…’
‘But fucking nothing.’
‘I think you’re as mad as he is.’
Manus ignored that. He stared around the shed, his eyes glittering with excitement. He put his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a bar of chocolate. He unwrapped it and shoved the paper back into his pocket.
‘The trouble is,’ he began to mu
nch at the bar, ‘with people like yourself, you’ve no imagination.’
‘As far as the set-up is concerned, I’ve too much imagination.’
‘Always picking. I don’t know why I’m lumbered with you.’
‘You know well why you’re lumbered with me … you sent me down to talk to Damian. You needed to use my car. That’s why. You have a marginal, menial use for me.’
‘That’s right. Now that you have it clear in your mind can we drop the subject?’
He finished the chocolate in silence.
‘I simply feel,’ said Jack, ‘that I could be used in some more constructive way. I am, after all…’
‘You’re not an active-service guy.’
‘I…’
‘You’re not. You can take it from me. You are most usefully employed in helping to produce a back-up service.’
‘I…’
‘People like you faint at the sight of blood.’
‘You haven’t the faintest idea whether I faint at the sight of blood or not. You’ve never given me the chance to find out.’
‘I know what I’m talking about. If you want to stay with us … be useful… very useful. For God’s sake what do you want… the whole organisation to fall apart without you? Be your age. If you want to be useful then do what you’re told. Okay.’
Jack nodded.
‘We’ll win you know. Then you’ll probably be quite glad I didn’t allow you to get up to anything… You can never tell when the bourgeois conscience will begin to prick. There aren’t really too many of us who have the clear eye.’ He laughed. And a steady hand.’
He took out his handkerchief and wiped the chocolate from round his mouth.
‘I need you.’
He folded the handkerchief so that the chocolate stains were inside and then put it back in his pocket.
‘You need the clear eye. Only the vision counts. Some people find that hard to take.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘That’s the ticket. Come on … we’ve seen all there is to see here. We’ll get back to Dublin as soon as possible after lunch.’
He opened the door and they went out into the sunshine.
‘I presume your mother’ll be giving us lunch?’
‘I imagine so, yes.’
They crossed the line and went out into the road through a little wicket gate by the level crossing and walked round to the front of the station where the car was waiting.
‘I’d say she had a clear eye,’ said Manus.
‘Who?’
‘Your old lady.’
Jack laughed.
‘Tell me,’ he asked as they got into the car. ‘Was your grandfather really a railwayman?’
‘Sure thing. He’d have loved that station. A really great job that Englishman has done.’
‘And Damian.’
Jack started the engine.
‘Bugger Damian.’
On Wednesday at about half past eleven Damian opened the door without knocking and walked into the kitchen. Mrs O’Sullivan was washing cloths at the sink.
‘Look what the cat brought in.’
She wrung black water out of a duster.
‘That floor is clean.’
He shuffled his feet on the mat.
‘Have you lost your tongue?’
She pulled out the plug and the dirty foamy water circled out through the hole.
‘I’m just surprised to find you here, that’s all.’
‘It just shows how little you know about what goes on. I’ve been keeping this place in order for the past five year. If you’re coming in, come in and close that door behind you.’
He pushed the door shut, remembering as he did so that he’d said he would take a piece off the bottom of it.
She turned on the hot tap.
‘Well?’
‘Is she about?’
‘Who’s she? The cat’s granny.’
‘Mrs Cuffe.’
She threw the cloths into the basin again and agitated them around.
‘What do you want with her? She’s working.’
‘I have a message.’
‘She doesn’t like to be disturbed when she’s working.’
She wrung the duster out again and then cracked it in the air above the basin. His mother went through the same rigmarole, he thought.
‘It’s a private message.’
She walked across the kitchen to the Aga and hung the cloth on the metal rail above the ovens.
‘Is your mother keeping well?’
‘She’s grand, thanks.’
‘I’ve tea made.’ She picked the teapot from the top of the Aga. ‘You can take her over a cup and save me the walk across the yard. That’s a wind would kill you.’
She took down three mugs from the dresser and carefully filled them with tea, and a few drops of milk, pursing her lips as she poured, disapproving of Damian’s presence.
‘And yourself.’ She nodded towards the mugs. ‘Sugar?’
He shook his head.
‘Away on. You and your message.’
Helen was startled and pleased by Damian’s appearance. She got up from the floor and took the mug of tea from his hand.
‘Thanks. What a nice surprise. Sit down. When did you get back?’
There was only one chair and that had a canvas standing on it.
‘Or rather I should ask… where have you been?’ She lifted the picture from the chair and stood it against the wall. ‘You did a disappearing act.’
‘Is that me?’
He put his mug on the table and moved over the floor towards the painting of the man on the beach.
‘Well… yes and no.’
He peered closely at the picture, straining his eyes to recognise himself.
‘I’m not that thin. Am I?’
‘If it looked like you it would be a portrait. It’s just a man on a beach. Any man on any beach.’
‘I was happy that morning.’
She smiled.
‘It was funny being naked in the daytime.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘You haven’t made it a very happy picture.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘Why?’ he asked after a long silence.
‘I just do what I’m told.’
He looked at her.
‘I paint. My hands mix and paint and scrub and scrape and squeeze the tubes empty. Light the cigarettes. I move. Down there on the floor.’ She pointed to the canvas on the floor. He moved over towards it and stared down at it. A man ran through the unfolding water, light exploded above and behind him in the sky and his huge shadow filled the foreground of the canvas.
‘Is that me too?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘What do you mean you do what you’re told?’
He crouched down beside the picture in the position she used for painting.
‘There is a voice … quite a clear voice. It’s always been there, but when I was young it frightened me, so I didn’t listen and it went away. If I kept quite still, moved with extreme caution it didn’t bother me. I just have to thank God I didn’t kill it with my inattention.’
‘He hears voices too. I hear him sometimes quarrelling, raging against them.’
‘Ghosts,’ she said. ‘He lives with ghosts.’
Damian stood up. Helen noticed with a certain satisfaction that his knees also cracked.
‘Will someone buy them?’
‘I hope so.’
‘How… I mean … how?’
‘I’m not really too sure what I’ll do. But, I think … when I’ve finished this series … I have four in my mind … then I’ll pack them up somehow and a selection of the others and take them up to Dublin. See if I can find a gallery to exhibit them. It probably isn’t just as easy as that. I haven’t worked that end of things out yet. I will. When this is finished then I’ll have time to think about that sort of thing.’
‘They’re big for packing.’
‘Umm.’
‘I could maybe make you a box … a sort of case out of timber. We’ve lots of timber above … If only his trains were running, we’d have no transport problem. We can work something out between us.’
‘You’re very kind.’
‘You wouldn’t want them damaged. It might have to be padded inside. I’ll start thinking up something for you.’ He looked at the two canvases, measuring, judging with his eyes. ‘Easy as winking,’ he said.
She handed him his mug of tea.
‘Drink this up before it gets cold. It’ll be some time yet before I’m ready to pack them.’
‘I can be sorting out the wood I need … and the others, the smaller ones, if I can get to measure them up, I can make another box for them too.’
‘Where were you?’ she asked.
He took a drink from the mug.
‘Why did you go away like that without telling anyone?’
‘I just felt like a trip to Galway. I take a run down there from time to time.’
He took another drink.
About once every couple of months or so. I have cousins, uncles, aunts. My mother’s people are from down there. Don’t tell me you were worrying after me?’
She looked around for her cigarettes. He saw the box before she did and bent to pick it off the floor.
‘Thank you.’
She didn’t open the box, just held it in her hand.
‘I just wondered if it was anything to do with Jack, that’s all. I know it’s none of my business.’
‘Jack’s your business.’
‘Not really. Not any longer.’
He drank again, looking straight into her face over the edge of the mug.
‘What gives you that idea anyway?’
‘Oh … I don’t know… you were angry last week …’
‘Oh, that.’ He remembered.
She took a cigarette from the box and put it in her mouth. She dropped the box onto the floor.
‘I don’t like Manus.’ He put his hand into his pocket and miraculously took out a box of matches.
‘I wasn’t mad about him either,’ she said.
He put the mug on the table and struck a match. He held it out towards her. She leaned forward and lit the cigarette.
‘Thanks. Where did you meet him?’
‘Around.’ He smiled slightly. ‘I’m twenty-four you know, I’ve been around. Next question?’
‘People say things about you.’
The Railway Station Man Page 16