Coming Home (9 page)

The next few moments were taken up in getting themselves settled. The other occupant of the carriage, the young man, sat by the door, and so they had the window-seats. The heating was on full blast, and it was very warm, so gloves, coats, and hats were removed by the children; Molly kept her hat on. Jess was put by the window, where she knelt on the prickly plush and pressed her nose against the smutty glass. Judith sat opposite her. Her mother, once she had folded coats and stowed them in the rack, and then delved into her travelling bag for Jess's drawing-book and coloured pencils, finally sank down beside Jess and let out a sigh of relief, as though the whole operation had been almost too much for her. She closed her eyes, but after a little they fluttered open again, and she began to fan her face with her hand.

‘Goodness, it's hot,’ she said to nobody in particular.

Judith said, ‘I think it's rather nice.’ Her feet hadn't even started to thaw.

But her mother was adamant. ‘I wonder…’ Now she was addressing the young man, whose privacy and peace they had so rudely disturbed. He looked up from his book, and she smiled disarmingly. ‘I wonder, would you mind if we turned the heating down a little? Or even opened the window a chink?’

‘Of course.’ He was very polite. He laid aside his book and stood up. ‘Which would you rather? Or, perhaps, both?’

‘No, I think a little fresh air would do the trick…’

‘Right.’ He moved to the window. Judith tucked her legs out of the way and watched as he unloosed the heavy leather strap, let the window down an inch, and then fixed the strap again.

‘How's that?’

‘Perfect.’

‘Be careful that your little girl doesn't get a smut in her eye.’

‘I hope she won't.’

He went back to his seat and picked up his book again. Listening in to other people's conversations, watching strangers and trying to guess their lives, were two of Judith's favourite occupations. Mummy called it ‘staring’. ‘Don't stare, Judith.’

But Mummy was reading her magazine, so that was all right.

Covertly, she studied him. His book looked both large and dull, and she wondered why it so absorbed his interest, because he did not strike her as a studious type, being broad-shouldered and solidly built. Quite tough and fit, she decided. He was dressed in corduroys and a tweed jacket and a thick grey polo-necked sweater, and draped around his neck was an extremely long and startlingly striped woollen scarf. He had hair that was no particular colour, neither fair nor brown, and it was rather untidy and looked as though it needed a good cut. She could not see the colour of his eyes because he was reading, but he wore heavy horn-rimmed spectacles and there was a deep cleft, too masculine to be called a dimple, bang in the middle of his chin. She wondered how old he was and decided about twenty-five. But perhaps she was wrong. She hadn't much experience of young men, and it was hard to be sure.

She turned back to the window. In a moment they would be going over the Saltash Bridge, and she didn't want to miss the sight of all the naval men-of-war at anchor in the harbour.

But Jess had other thoughts. She was already bored with looking out of the window, and now searched for some different diversion. She began to jump up and down, and then scrambled down off the seat in order to be able to scramble up again. In doing so her shoe kicked Judith's shin, quite painfully.

‘Oh, sit
still,
Jess.’

Jess responded by flinging Golly at her sister. For two pins, Judith would have posted him out of the open crack at the top of the window and horrible Golly would have gone forever, but instead she picked him up and threw him back. Golly hit Jess in the face. Jess howled.

‘Oh,
Judith.
’ Mother took Jess on her knee. When the howls had subsided, she apologised to the young man.

‘I'm sorry. We've disturbed your peace.’

He looked up from his book and smiled. It was a particularly charming smile, revealing even white teeth as good as a toothpaste advertisement, and it lit up his homely features and completely changed his face, so that quite suddenly he was almost good-looking.

‘Not at all,’ he reassured her.

‘Have you come from London?’

She was obviously in a conversational mood. The young man, as well, seemed to realise this, for he closed his book and set it aside.

‘Yes.’

‘Have you been away for Christmas?’

‘No, I was working over Christmas and the New Year. I'm taking my holiday now.’

‘Goodness, what a shame. Fancy having to work over Christmas. What do you do?’

Judith thought she was being rather nosy, but the young man didn't appear to think so. In fact, he looked quite happy to talk, as though he had had enough of his boring book.

‘I'm a houseman at St Thomas's.’

‘Oh, a
doctor.
’

‘That's right.’

Judith was terrified she was going to say, ‘You look much too young to be a doctor,’ which would have embarrassed everybody, but she didn't. And it explained the reason for his solid, heavy book. He was probably studying the symptoms of some obscure disease.

‘Not a very amusing Christmas for you.’

‘On the contrary. Christmas in hospital is great fun. Decorations in the wards and nurses singing carols.’

‘And now you're going home?’

‘Yes. To Truro. My parents live there.’

‘We're going further than that. Just about to the end of the line. We've been staying with my sister and her husband. He's a captain at the Engineering College.’

It sounded a little as though she were bragging. To divert attention Judith said, ‘Here's the bridge coming now.’

Rather to her surprise, the young man seemed as excited about this as she was. ‘I must have a look,’ he said, and he got to his feet and came to stand beside her, steadying himself with a hand on the window's edge. He smiled down at her, and she saw that his eyes were neither brown nor green, but speckled, like a trout. ‘It's too good to miss, isn't it?’

The wheels were slowing. The iron girders clanked past, and far below gleamed cold winter water, crammed with sleek grey cruisers and destroyers, and pinnaces, and small, busy launches, and ships' boats, all flying the White Ensign.

She said, ‘I think it's a special bridge.’

‘Why? Because it takes you over the river into a foreign land?’

‘Not just that.’

‘Brunel's masterpiece.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Brunel. He designed and built it for the Great Western Railway. The wonder of the day. Still is pretty wonderful, for that matter.’

They fell silent. He stayed there until the train had crossed the bridge and steamed into Saltash on the Cornish side of the Tamar, and then he went back to his seat and picked up his book again.

After a bit, the man from the restaurant car came along to tell them that afternoon tea was being served. Molly asked the young doctor if he would like to join them, but he declined politely, so they left him on his own and made their way down the rackety, lurching corridors of the train until they came to the restaurant car. Here, they were ushered to a table covered in a white linen cloth and set with white china. There were little rose-shaded lights, and these had been turned on, which made it all very luxurious and cosy, because outside the winter afternoon was darkening to twilight. Then the waiter came, with tea in a china teapot, a little jug of milk, and a jug of hot water and a bowl of sugar lumps. Jess had eaten three lumps even before her mother noticed. And then another waiter appeared and served them sandwiches and hot buttered teacakes, and slabs of Dundee cake, and Jacobs chocolate biscuits wrapped up in silver paper.

Molly poured from the teapot and Judith drank the strong hot tea and ate the buttered teacakes. She gazed out into the deepening darkness and decided that, after all, it had not been such a bad day. It had started a bit gloomily, waking up and knowing that the holiday was over, and had become very nearly disastrous over breakfast time, with her mother and Aunt Biddy having that terrible row. But they had patched it up, and gone on being nice to each other, and out of it had come the good knowledge that Aunt Biddy and Uncle Bob actually liked Judith enough to want to have her to stay again, even though it didn't seem that she was going to be allowed to. Aunt Biddy had been particularly kind and understanding, talking to Judith just as though she were a grown-up, and giving advice that she would always remember. Another good thing had been Uncle Bob appearing at the station, come to say goodbye and see them off, and leaving Judith with a ten-shilling note in her hand. The start of saving to buy a gramophone. And finally, talking to the young doctor in their compartment. It would have been nice if he had joined them for tea, but perhaps they would all have run out of things to say to each other. Still, he was pleasant, with his easy manner. As they crossed the Saltash Bridge, he had stood very close to Judith and she had smelt the Harris tweedy smell of his jacket, and the end of his long muffler had lain across her knee. Brunel, he had told her. Brunel built this bridge. It occurred to her that he was the sort of person one would like to have as a brother.

She finished the teacake and took a salmon-paste sandwich, and pretended to herself that Mummy and Jess did not belong to her, and that she was on her own, rattling across Europe in the
Orient Express,
with state secrets in her Chinese wicker basket, and all manner of exciting adventures in the offing.

Soon after they returned to their compartment, the train steamed into Truro, and their fellow passenger stowed his book into his zipper bag, wound his muffler around his neck, and said goodbye. Through the window, Judith watched him make his way down the busy lamp-lit platform. Then he was gone.

After that, it was a bit dull, but there wasn't far to go, and Jess had fallen asleep. At the junction, Judith found a porter, who carried their big suitcases, while Judith carried the smaller bags, and Molly carried Jess. Crossing the bridge which led to the other platform and the Porthkerris train, she felt the wind blowing in from the sea, and although it was cold, it was a different sort of cold from Plymouth, as though their short journey had brought them to another land. No longer intense and frosty, but soft and damp, and the night smelt of salt and earthy furrows and pine trees.

They piled into the small train, and presently, in an unhurried sort of way, they were off.
Clackety-clack.
Quite a different sound from the great London express. Five minutes later they were all piling out again at Penmarron Halt, and Mr Jackson, with his lantern, was on the platform to meet them.

‘Want me to give you a hand with your bags, Mrs Dunbar?’

‘No, I think we'll leave the big stuff here and just take our small bags. Just for the night, we can manage. Perhaps the carrier can bring them up on his cart in the morning.’

‘They'll be safe enough.’

They walked through the waiting-room, across the dark dirt road, through the gate and up the shadowed garden. Jess was heavy, and every now and then Molly had to pause to catch her breath. But finally they reached the top terrace, and the light was on over the porch. As they came to the top of the path, the inner glass door was opened, and Phyllis was there to welcome them.

‘Look who's here, turned up like a lot of bad pennies.’ She hurried down the steps. ‘Here, give me the child, madam, you must be exhausted. What are you thinking of, carrying her all the way up those steps, and her weighing more than she should, by the feel of her.’ Phyllis's shrill voice in her ear had finally woken Jess. She blinked sleepily with no idea where she was. ‘How much Christmas pudding have you eaten, Jess? Now come along, let's get you all in out of the cold. I've got the bath-water scalding, and there's a nice fire in the sitting-room, and a boiled fowl for your supper.’

Phyllis, decided Molly, really was a treasure, and life without her was never going to be quite the same again. Once she had heard a brief run-down of their Christmas and had imparted a few gobbets of village gossip of her own, she bore Jess upstairs to bathe her, feed her warm bread and milk, and put her to bed. Judith, carrying her Chinese wicker basket, followed, still chattering. ‘I got a clock from Uncle Bob, Phyllis, it's in a sort of leather case. I'll show you…’

Molly watched them go. Relieved at last of the responsibility of Jess, and with the journey behind her, she all at once felt totally exhausted. She took off her fur coat and slung it over the end of the banister. Then she gathered up the pile of mail which awaited her on the hall table, and went into the sitting-room. The coal-fire burnt brightly, and she stood in front of it for a moment, warming her hands, and trying to ease the stiffness out of her neck and shoulders. After a bit, she sat in her chair and leafed through her letters. There was one from Bruce, but she would not open it immediately. Just now, all she wanted to do was just sit, quite quietly, be warmed by the fire, and gather her wits.

For it had been something of a shattering day, and the dreadful row with Biddy, following on the heels of a sleepless night, had just about finished her. ‘Don't bother about a thing,’ Biddy had said, and kissed her, as though that were the end of ill feeling, but before lunch, she had started in on Molly again, while they were on their own, sipping a glass of sherry and waiting for Hobbs to ring the gong for luncheon.