'Oh please,' Summerfield exploded, 'you might as well ask me to believe in Roswell, Area 51, crop circles, Nessie and all that Fortean stuff. You want to believe in the paranormal because you secretly think there has to be something more to the world than just this.' He pointed out of the window. It had grown dark outside. They had already left the suburbs. A glimmer of buttery light showed above the brow of a passing hill.
'Perhaps I do, but that's not the point. It's important to keep an open mind.'
'Then you'll never make any decisions in your life. You'll be like a child forever.'
'Wait a minute, let's simmer down a little.' Jane Masters held up her hand for peace. The table was becoming rowdy earlier than usual. A pair of diners in black plastic witch-hats were staring at them. 'Where are we?'
'I'm not sure. It's too dark to see.'
'Besides,' Summerfield ploughed on, 'getting someone to believe in something is simply a matter of theatricality and good presentation. If I wanted you to believe a strange story,I could easily make you do it. Especially on a night like tonight, of all nights.' He emptied the wine bottle. At this rate, thought Masters, we'll be crocked before we reach the coast. The air pressure in the carriage altered as they entered a tunnel, sucking out the flame from the little orange pumpkin-candle the waiter had placed on their table.
Summerfield turned to the others, his command of the table absolute, and raised his hands. For the next few minutes he told a tale, the odd affair of a businessman who became imprisoned within an ancient London building. At the conclusion he sat back and drained his glass. He looked from Jane to Harold Masters and permitted himself a satisfied smile.
'Well?' he asked. 'You do believe me, don't you? I hope you do, because Jonathan Laine is an old friend of mine, and the story came from his own lips. He couldn't live with the guilt of his secret, and subsequently killed himself. They found him at the bottom of the Thames, somewhere down at the Dartford estuary. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.'
They broke the conversation as their starters arrived. The train seemed to be travelling at an unusually laborious pace, and was lumbering through the flat open countryside toward the lights of a distant town. Heavy rain began to thrash the sides of the carriage. It was as if they had entered a car wash. Toward the end of the meal, Masters raised his glass. 'I'd like to propose a toast, seeing as it's Hallowe'en and the perfect time for creepy stories. Jane, perhaps you'd like to tell one.'
'Oh no, Harold, I'd rather not,' begged Jane, throwing a desperate glance at Summerfield.
'Don't tell me all these years of hearing my stories hasn't rubbed off on you just a little bit.' Masters gave a pantomime wink.
'I can't help you, Jane,' said Summerfield. 'Go on, join in the spirit of the thing. Show us what being with Harold has taught you.'
Jane shot him a look of betrayal that had the force to knock over a large piece of furniture.
'All right, then,' she conceded, 'I'll tell you a story I first heard many years ago. I was a young girl, impatient to become an adult. It taught me something about the nature of time.'
As the train crept on through the rain she began her story, about a powerful sultan and the winding of a thousand clocks. By the time she had finished, she looked close to tears. 'I always liked exotic stories,' she explained, blowing her nose. 'They let you forget mundane things for a while.' Harold had already lost interest, and was looking over at the next table. She followed his eyeline and saw three students, a pale-faced girl and two boys, staring at them as if they were mad. 'Godby, is that you? And Saunders?' asked Masters.
'Yes, sir.'
'Good God, lad, am I to have no privacy? As if I don't see enough of you during term. How many more of you are there?'
The first of the group spoke up. His accent was American. 'Just me and Kallie, sir. And this is Claire.' A bony, whey-faced girl seated between them gave an awkward smile.
That's all we needed, thought Jane with a sinking heart, to be stuck with Harold's students for the rest of the journey. They were doomed never to have time to themselves. These days it seemed that there were always other people in the room all talking at once, colleagues from the museum, hyperactive pupils, aged academics, never any of her friends, never any special private moments together, no wonder she -
'Are you going to tell any more stories?'
'I can't believe it,' Masters announced to the rest of the group, 'surely we're not in the presence of students displaying an interest? They don't noticeably do so in any of my lectures. Yes, we may well tell more stories,' he replied, 'but you can only join in if you bring a tale of your own to the table.'
'Preferably a true one,' added Summerfield, just being awkward. He did not enjoy the company of the young; they tired him with their fatuous observations, and made him feel fat and old and unattractive. 'And you must present it in the form of a proper story, with voices and acting and everything. And most important of all, you have to bring your own wine.'
Outside, sheet lightning illuminated the fields, like someone momentarily flicking on a light. 'We're drinking cider,' the first student replied, holding out his hand. 'I'm Ben. From Colorado originally, but I'm studying here now.' The introductions continued around the table. 'I've got a story from my creative writing course. It's based on something I read in an old newspaper.' Ben dug into his backpack and pulled out a folder filled with scissored articles. 'Here's the original clipping.' He held it up for everyone to see. '"Human civilisation, it seems, has flourished during a 10,000 year climactic ceasefire. Hostilities may be about to resume. – Independent On Sunday, 18th February 1996." We had to develop a story from a factual starting point, and this is what I came up with.'
'All right, but you have to convince us that it might really be true,' warned Masters. 'Let's hear what today's youth have to offer in the way of narrative ability. The floor of the carriage is yours.'
Ben cleared his throat.
'You could have warned me it was set in the future,' complained Harold Masters after he had finished. 'That counts as science fiction and I don't like science fiction.' The student sheepishly returned the clippings to his bag.
'So you didn't like the story, Harold?' asked Summerfield, surprising himself with his decision to defend the boy.
'I didn't say that. It's just that it can't be true because it hasn't happened yet.'
'But it's a possible future, one of many. Who knows what will happen to us? And who's to say it isn't happening right now in a parallel universe?'
'Well, I liked it,' said Jane, refilling her glass. 'Although I think the wine has gone to my head a little. Maybe that's making me more susceptible.'
'Perhaps.' Summerfield checked his watch. 'It's getting late. We should all be growing susceptible. The floodgates to the supernatural world are open tonight, remember. What time do we get to the coast?'
'A little after eleven,' Jane replied. 'I informed the hotel of our arrival time. They weren't terribly happy about it.' She turned to the students. 'Where are you three off to?'
'Hallowe'en party. We have friends who rent a house on the edge of Dartmoor.'
'I bet your pals have some interesting tales to tell about mysterious goings-on on the moors, eh?' said Summerfield.
'No.' Claire grimaced as though the idea was the stupidest she had ever heard. 'They just smoke dope all day and play video games.'
'Couldn't you revive the tradition of oral history and get them to make up some stories?' asked Masters.
'Oh for God's sake, Harold,' Jane exploded, 'that's not what young people want to do with their time.'
'As the father of two children, Jane, I think I can safely say that I know how the juvenile mind operates.'
'Do you? I find that hard to believe. Our offspring are certainly not children, they're not even teenagers any more, and not only do I not know who Lara has been seeing lately or where Tyler is, I'm not entirely sure I would recognise either of them if they sent me recent photographs.' She was referring to
the snapshot their son had mailed from Nepal earlier in the year. The emaciated young man with the shaved head and the wispy beard seemed to bear no resemblance to the thoughtful child who used to sit beside her at night writing endless fantastic stories in his school exercise book.
'I'm working on a story at the moment,' said Kallie.
'It's not set in the future, is it?' asked Masters cautiously.
'No, London Docklands, in the present day. I read about electromagnetic pollution somewhere. Microwaves can create hot spots, areas rippling with forcefields stronger than the most powerful ocean cross-currents. The story's about a corporation that accidentally creates them in its offices.'
'Sounds a bit far-fetched.' Summerfield wrestled another wine bottle away from the concerned waiter and overfilled everyone's glasses as the train hammered over a set of points.
'Big business as the evil bogeyman, it's an ever-popular target for student paranoia,' complained Masters, unimpressed. 'There's no human dimension in the stories of the young. Too many issue-led morality tales, the sort they have on American television shows, nothing from direct experience.'
'Oh for God's sake,' snapped Jane, 'people can only reflect the times in which they live. There are no traditional heroes left, no explorers, no captains, no warriors. I don't know why you expect so much from others. One thing that years of listening to you has taught me is that you're incapable of telling a decent story. It's a talent you singularly lack, because you have no perception. You're best off leaving it to other people.'
Shocked by her own honesty, she stopped herself from saying any more. An uncomfortable atmosphere settled on the table. Stung, Masters stared out into the rainswept darkness, avoiding his wife's angry gaze.
'Come on, chaps, let's not get personal.' Summerfield clapped his hands together and startled Jane, who was gazing glumly into her wine, hypnotised by the steady movement of the train. Most of the carriage was deserted now. Even the guard was dozing in an end seat, his head lolling on his shoulder. It was as though they had been freed from the shackles of time and place, the co-ordinates that underpinned their lives slipping quietly away into the night.
Claire shifted across the aisle to the opposite seat and faced them. 'I've got a story,' she said mischievously. 'About some friends of mine who got locked in a pub.' And she told it, although it didn't sound true.
'Well.' Jane cleared her throat at the end, slightly flummoxed. 'That was certainly frank. Although I'm not sure it's really a fit subject to turn into a dramatic piece.'
'Some people are uncomfortable around the subject of sexuality,' mumbled Claire, meaning older people, meaning her. The senior members of the group were a little embarrassed by the girl's intensity, although it obviously did not bother Kallie or Ben. Jane drained her glass and pushed back into her seat, unsettled by what she had heard. Masters cleared a spot on the window and peered out. 'My watch has stopped. I thought we'd be able to see the sea by now. Doesn't the train run along the coast for the last hour?'
'There's not much of a moon.'
'Even so, you should be able to see something.'
The carriage shifted across a set of uneven points, and the overhead lights flickered. Electricity crackled somewhere beneath their feet.
'Maybe we're on the Hallowe'en train to hell.' Summerfield looked around. Jane was half asleep. Suddenly the train lurched hard and shuddered to a hard halt, its brakes squealing. Wine bottles and glasses toppled on tables, and several pieces of luggage bounced down from the overhead racks.
'What on earth…'
Jane blearily pulled herself upright. 'Are we there?'
'God knows where we are.' The doctor pressed his forehead against the window. 'It's pitch black out there. I can't see a thing.'
Ben retrieved his backpack from beneath his seat. 'I'm going to ask someone.'
'You needn't bother asking the guard,' said Masters, pointing. 'He seems to have wandered off.'
'Maybe he's dead,' Summerfield stage-whispered, 'drugged, shot with a poison dart, a minor character in an Agatha Christie play, someone whose Rosencrantz-like role exists simply to fulfil a duty to the plot.'
'Now who's muddling fact and fiction?' Masters asked uncomfortably. He turned to his wife. 'Are you warm enough?'
'You've noticed it too, then.' The heating had gone off. They could hear the steady tick of the radiators cooling all along the carriage. Jane sensed that there was something wrong, as if the world had slipped a notch deeper into darkness. Panic was descending on her like a cold veil of rain. She dug into her purse for the tablets Dr Colson had prescribed, but could not find them. She had taken two earlier. What had she done with the rest of the packet? When she turned to her husband, she found that he was making his way along the aisle toward the exit.
There was something wrong. She needed the tablets to stop her from worrying. She dumped the purse out on to the table and began scrabbling through the contents. The foil sheet glittered between her fingers as she popped out two of the yellow capsules. Claire pulled a mobile phone from her bag and checked it. 'No reception,' she said casually. 'Anyone else?'
'Wait.' Jane retrieved a small black square from her coat and flipped it open. 'None here either. The service isn't reliable in heavily wooded areas.'
At the front of the carriage, Masters pushed down the train window and peered out into the darkness, his breath condensing in the invading night air. He looked back along the curving track, but could see nothing until the moon cleared the clouds.
When the lunar light finally unveiled the landscape, he saw that there were no other carriages behind them. Theirs had been uncoupled from the main body of the train, and released into what he could only assume was a siding. It sat by itself on a gravelled incline, with low hills rolling away on either side. The sea was not in sight, not where it should have been.
He tried to see ahead in the other direction, and could make out a vague dark shape beside the track, a large, squat building of some sort. Clearly there had been a mistake, some kind of accident. He decided to head back and give a cautious report to the others.
'Well, we have no power to move by ourselves,' said Summerfield, when the situation had been explained. 'As I see it, we have two choices. We can stay here and freeze our nuts off, hoping that somebody finds us, or we can head for the building you saw and try to find a telephone that works.'
'I don't understand how this could have happened.' Jane looked over at the students, annoyed that they could be so calm and still, and by the way they sat apart, implying some kind of private pact of solidarity that did not exist among their elders. 'Isn't anyone worried at all?'
'There's not really much to worry about,' said Summerfield. 'This sort of thing happens all the time. You always read about trains overshooting their stations and passengers having to walk down the track in the dark.'
'I'm not walking along the track – we could be electrocuted!'
'I'm not saying we all do, but someone should. This looks like an old branch line. Suppose a connection came loose and we got separated when we went over the points back there? It could happen, even with advanced information systems. Perhaps nobody will be aware that there's a carriage missing until the train reaches its destination. Maybe not even then.'
'Harold, I think your imagination is bypassing your common sense,' Summerfield admonished. 'Let's face it, you've never been much good in a crisis. Let's try and be logical about this. The carriage coupling must have made a noise when it disconnected. Doesn't anyone remember hearing it?'
Masters looked around. 'And what happened to the guard?When I last saw him he was asleep in the end seat there.'
They searched the carriage, not that there were any places where someone could be concealed. The toilet was empty. The six of them were the only passengers left on board. Kallie pulled his coat down from the overhead rack. The others began donning their top coats. As they were doing so, the lights began to dim to a misty yellow. Jane released a miserable moan.
'I was going to stay in tonight,' said Claire, checking her hair in the window. 'There was a weepie on TV. But I decided to join these two. Right now I could be snuggled up indoors with a tub of ice cream watching Bette Davis going blind.'
'Was Dark Victory on tonight?' asked Kallie. 'I love that film.'
'Yeah, but I think it was sandwiched between Curse of the Demon and Tarantula.'
'How can you people just chatter on as if nothing is wrong?' Jane snapped.
'Yeah, you're right,' Claire agreed, 'let's all panic instead. What exactly is in those little pills you're taking, by the way?'
'I also suggest we make for the building further along the line,' said Masters. 'Unless anybody wants to stay here.'
'I've got a torch in my bag,' Kallie offered.
'Well, I'm not stepping foot outside of this carriage.' Jane dropped back into her seat just as the overhead lights faded completely. 'Oh, great.'
'Jane, you cannot stay here.'
'Can't I? Watch me.'
'I just don't think we should split up, that's all.'
'Yeah,' Claire cut in, 'look what happens when they do that in movies. Somebody gets a spear through them.'
'Please, Jane, you're making things awkward.'
'Do whatever you want,' snapped Jane. 'I'm staying here. You can make your own decision for once in your damned life.'
'Then I say we go,' said Masters, hurt.
'You can't leave your wife here by herself,' Summerfield protested.
'You're right, Peregrine. Would you mind staying with her? We shouldn't be gone too long.'
'But I was going to come with you.' He looked hopelessly at Jane, who was clearly anxious for him to stay. 'Oh, all right. We'll wait for you to return.'
'Okay, who else is coming?' asked Masters. The students already had their bags on their backs. 'Are you sure you'll be all right, darling?'
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