The Railway Station Man (23 page)

He held her still. She moved her head and looked at him.

‘What'll we have next?' he asked.

The warm hand moved from her back.

‘I'll wind, you choose,' she said.

‘Slow, slow or quick, quick?' he asked.

‘Anything except a tango. I never mastered the tango. I always used to start laughing when you had to do those little rushes. This is fun.' The handle creaked as she turned it. ‘Isn't it?'

He nodded.

‘Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Spike Jones and his City Slickers.' He handed her a record. She looked at the title before putting it on the turntable.
This is a Lovely Way to Spend an Evening
. She smiled.

‘Sinatra, Crosby. I hated Crosby. The nurses used to play Crosby until I wanted to scream. Maybe I did scream. Maybe that's why they thought I was mad. Do you know I still think about those poor lunatics in the woods at Arnhem. Imagine being shut up for years and then suddenly finding that the walls had fallen down and that you were free. Free to wander in such a nightmare wood. If I could have painted, those would have been my pictures. I'm glad you don't have such pictures in your head.'

She pushed the switch and the record whirled. She put the needle gently down on the edge of the record. After a moment the music began.

‘Shall we dance?' he asked.

She turned towards him.

‘Yes.'

‘We weren't going to play the remembering game.'

‘No.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘If it helps …'

‘It doesn't.'

They danced in silence. After a while she raised the hand that had been holding his empty shoulder and touched the destroyed face.

She thought it was going to alarm her, the feel of the dry cobbled skin, but to her fingers' surprise it was almost like running them over a canvas, grainy stretched parts and then densely textured paint, but warm like flesh should be, not canvas-cool.

The music stopped. The needle whirled and no sound came any longer to them as they stood close together in the middle of the room, her fingers gently touching his face.

‘Please,' he said suddenly to her. ‘Please, oh Helen, please.' His head drooped down onto her shoulder and he spoke the words into the angle of her neck.

‘Helen. Please. Please. Helen.'

She moved her fingers to cover his smooth lips.

‘Sssh. Yes,' she whispered.

He kissed her. Held her tight with his hand on her back so that she could feel his hardness. The stubble scratched, oh God, she thought again, where are You now? Why didn't You do something before it was too late?

It was half past eleven. Ten minutes later neither of them upstairs in his bedroom heard the lorry stop above the bend in the road, nor the steps of the two men from Ballybofey as they walked down the hill to the old level-crossing gates. Quietly they opened the door of the goods shed. They shone the torch around the inside, into the corners, up to the roof and down again, round through the cobwebs and the dead flies the beams ranged. They didn't speak. They stepped out into the wind again and bolted the door behind them. They walked back up the hill and got into the lorry and drove away.

The sky was streaked with blue when she woke up the next morning. After a moment of puzzlement she remembered where she was and why she was there. His warm body was quite still beside her. She turned her head. His eye, a deeper, more constant blue than the sky, was looking at her.

‘I must go.' She whispered the words as if the house were full of listening ears.

She scrambled out of the bed and began to pick up her clothes from the floor. He just lay there.

‘Are you angry with me?' he asked at last, as she fumbled with the buttons on her skirt.

‘No.'

He sighed.

‘Why are you running away?'

‘I'm not. I have to go. I mean, there's the cat, and I have to work, and the Aga needs filling and … and … oh no I'm not a bit angry.'

She moved round to his side of the bed and bent and kissed him gently on the cheek.

‘I just have to hurry home.'

She went over to the door.

‘You are a funny woman,' he said after her. ‘I love you.'

She turned back and smiled at him.

‘Thank you,' she said.

She hurried home.

The wind had almost calmed itself and the morning was silent. She could smell the sea tang and the drift of turf smoke from the village. She ran along the road, not running away, but running to her work.

The cat walked angrily past her when she opened the door.

‘Silly cat,' she shouted after him.

She rattled out the Aga and filled it with anthracite, put the kettle on and went upstairs to change into her jeans. She looked at herself in the glass as she undressed.

‘I must diet,' she said.

It was a passing thought rather than a decision.

She worked until the light began to drain away. She got up and turned on the light, rolled her head round and round, dislodging stiffness, stretched her arms. Hunger moved inside her. Carefully she lifted the canvas from the floor and propped it up beside the first one.

‘Yes.'

She cleaned her brushes and stood them into the white enamel jug. She threw the dirty pieces of cloth into a box under the table. She emptied ash from the saucers and butts and broken matchsticks. Finally she laid a new canvas on the floor. Then she turned out the light and went across the yard to the house.

The kettle was sighing on the Aga.

The sound penetrated her mind after a few moments.

The cat was curled in the middle of the table.

That fact too became, after a moment, a puzzle.

The cat jumped onto the floor and rubbed its body round and round her ankles. ‘Cat,' she said. She bent down and scratched his head. ‘How on earth did you get in?' She listened to the kettle.

‘Hello,' she called out. ‘Who's here?'

Steps in the hall and Roger appeared in the doorway.

‘I didn't want to disturb you,' he said.

She stared at him.

‘I'm sorry,' she said after quite a long silence. ‘I don't want to see anyone at the moment. My head is full of work … full of other things, not …' she gestured round the room. ‘Not…'

‘My head is full of you.'

‘Please, Roger, go away.'

‘I'll make you a cup of tea. I'll put the kettle on. You're tired.'

‘Yes, I'm tired. I don't want a cup of tea.'

That was a lie.

‘A drink?'

She shook her head.

‘Just… I don't want to see anyone. Anyone. I don't want to talk, explain, argue.'

‘Helen …'

‘I want you to understand.'

He turned and went out into the hall. One of his shoes creaked.

‘I'm sorry,' she shouted after him, rather half-heartedly.

He walked out into the porch and opened the hall door. A little wind rustled along the hall floor.

‘No umbrage, Roger. No …'

He closed the door.

She didn't move until she heard his car starting. Behind her the lid of the kettle tapped and water spat out onto the stove.

Why can't I be the right person at the right time? The bubble is broken.

She heard the shattering glass in her head.

She poured some water into the teapot and swirled it round as she walked over to the sink. The warmth penetrated through the earthenware to her hands.

His hand's warmth on her back.

He stirred my sleeping guts.

She tipped the water into the sink.

Yes.

She walked back to the Aga and took the tea caddy down from the shelf. Two spoonfuls, make it three. Make it strong enough to stand a spoon in. Was what happened last night love? Desperation? Alcohol?

Yes, really. Yes to all three.

Such pleasure … rich uncomplicated pleasure. Unsearched for, that was one of the good things.

Why the hell did he have to come round and burst my bubble?

She tipped the kettle forward and a stream of water flowed into the teapot.

I don't want to love anybody. I don't want the burden of other people's pain. My own is enough.

Dear God, why did you give us eyes to see so much pain?

She put the lid on the teapot and closed down the Aga.

Forget I ever said that, God, I'm just feeling neurotic. She smiled. As if the Old Bugger didn't know.

She took down a mug from the dresser and put it on the table.

Why do you whisper green grass?

We didn't dance to that tune.

Why tell the trees what ain't so?

Whispering grass.

The trees don't need to know.

I am a bitch. That's really all there is to tell the trees.

OhOhOh.

Whispering grass …

The tea was dark brown. She knew before she even tasted it that it was going to be quite, quite disgusting.

It is possible to enjoy loving.

Tannic acid, she had always been told, stripped the lining from your stomach.

‘Hello,' said Roger, from the doorway. ‘I came back.'

In silence she got another mug from the dresser.

‘Have some unbelievably disgusting tea.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I came back to say that. That's all.'

‘Is it possible to enjoy loving?' she asked, as if he'd been in the room with her all the time.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I think it is.' He moved silently back out through the door again. She heard no sound of steps, no door close, no car. She wondered after a few minutes if he had been there at all.

The man was moving out into the centre of the sea. His arms, like bird's wings poised now for swimming. Above in the sky, a gull, his echo, coasted. She worked quickly, hardly taking daylight time off for air or cups of tea. She didn't even smoke much, lit the odd cigarette, puffed, left it on a plate to burn itself out. Expensive, she thought once as she caught sight of the cylinders of ash lying side by side on the white china. A terror drove her on, the thought always in the back of her mind that she might not get the pictures finished. It was almost as if she herself might disintegrate, in half an hour, tomorrow, leaving nothing behind but an unfinished thought.

She slept restlessly, just waiting really for the light to come again, thinking or dreaming, she never knew which, of the mad people at Arnhem, lost among the trees and the young men falling from the sky. The sun and moon together watched as the young men fell. The cat, unperturbed by dreams, slept comfortably in the angle between her neck and shoulder. She tried to keep out of the dream, to keep her eyes open, to be aware of the cat's warm reality against her. But the trees, burdened yet with their dusty summer leaves crowded the room, their scarred limbs split, echoed men, limbs also split, silent, disturbing images. The demented moved with care through the trees, their ironic freedom full of danger.

‘I actually don't have to put up with this,' she said. She sat up, pushing away the cat and the warm bedclothes, feeling on the floor with her feet for her slippers. To her surprise there was daylight coming through the window. The sun before seven touching the chairs and dressing table, the snap of Dan smiling in a silver frame. She wondered each time she caught sight of it why she didn't get rid of it. She didn't have to have him keeping an eye on her like this. It was probably the thought of having to explain his disappearance to Mrs O'Sullivan, who cleaned the silver frame once a week, that prevented her from disposing of the picture. Mrs O'Sullivan might consider any act of that kind to be akin to murder.

The cat yawned. One day I must get the elegant structure of that yawn onto paper. She tied her dressing gown around her and went downstairs.

That evening she went over to the house to find Damian re-hanging the kitchen door.

‘Good heavens,' she said. ‘What are you doing? Life is full of surprises.'

‘I took about a quarter of an inch off the bottom of that for you. You'll find it works easier now. Don't mind the mess. I'll clear it up in a tick. Here, could you just steady this a minute till I get the pins into the hinges.'

‘This is really very kind of you. I'm sure you have other things you should be doing.'

‘We have the first gate finished and hung. It looks great. I just have to give it a couple of coats of paint. We've been really hard at it the last couple of days. Otherwise I'd have been over to do this before. That's okay. You can let go now. See.'

He opened and shut the door a couple of times.

‘I've given the hinges a taste of oil too.'

‘Thank you, Damian. I… Can I get you a drink?'

‘Aye. That'd be great. Let you tell me where is the dustpan and I'll clear this mess and you go up and get dressed.'

She suddenly realised that she was still in her dressing gown.

‘Oh God,' she said.

‘He might come round. He said to ask you if that would be all right.'

‘Yes. I've finished. I think I've finished the paintings. You'll have to come and see them. Yes. I'm glad he's coming. We can have a party. We can celebrate.'

‘Why don't you go up and get dressed?

‘Yes.' She moved towards the stairs. ‘Will you go and tell him?'

‘No. He'll arrive.'

‘I was so cross with him the other evening …'

‘Where's the dustpan?'

‘Oh … in the cupboard … are you sure …?'

‘Will you go and get dressed, woman. You look terrible. He'll be here otherwise.'

She rushed upstairs.

When she came down about half an hour later he was sitting at the table, looking at the paper. He grinned as she came into the room.

‘That's better. You're a sight for sore eyes now.'

‘I have sore eyes. I feel they're going to fall out of my head. A week in the Bahamas is what I'd like now. Just a long empty beach and warm sea. No bothers on me.'

‘The beach would be packed. I've seen the crowds on the telly. Sharks would be waiting to bite your feet off. You're better off where you are.'