The change of seasons announced itself with an icy whisper. It pecked at my weakened chest with each laboured breath. Mist swirled, lacing itself into the heavy boots issued as part of the uniform. My eyes lingered on the cracked and mossy stones at the edge of the platform reserved for local stopping services. A squeak unnerved me, a piercing screech as an ancient clock shifted in its housing. I wonder where they keep the oil. Buildings loomed out of the dense fog, edging in and out of view. An owl reminded me - and anyone else out at this godforsaken hour - that it was a moment for the creatures of the night. I was an interloper, out of time, too early, or too late. Trees guard the approach, muffling the hoot but not the shriek of the hunted as death glides by, sharp talons gathering up an unsuspecting morsel. I had always been nervous as a child. As a young man, I steeled myself for the dark but what I had lived through had strengthened my resolve. The ghosts of my past visit me in the silence of the night, but I am safe - I know - in my waking hours. The light outside the Station Master’s office glowed dimly on the far platform. I should get over there now. Letting the stove die on my first day as his assistant would not do.
The new lad will be fine. Looks like he is made of stern stuff up top, which is where it matters. The poor boy has had a tough time of it and that wheezing speaks of lungs that have taken a battering. Still, he’s no shirker and it is not as if assistants are delivered each morning with the milk train. Talking of which, it’s late today or this damn pocket watch is playing up again. Mind you, that battered brass casing had been tucked in grandfather’s waistcoat pocket when he paced the platforms of this rural branch line so it can be forgiven a couple of minutes here and there. Dad, too, had spoken of it catching a glancing blow from a fare-dodger’s umbrella. That watch had some tales to tell but for now, the story it was telling him was about the late arrival of the 6.43. They’ll be needing that train to get here soon or it will be black tea all round and extra sugar to improve the taste of the cheap leaves the rail company supplies. The kettle on the stovetop is blackened by prolonged exposure to flames and cheap coal. The windows are already steamed up, the outdoor chill of a late-Autumn morning contrasting with the heat issuing forth from the spout. The whistle of the 6.43 pierces the nervy silence of pre-dawn drawing the old man towards the window, fingerless woollen gloves absorbing the condensation, creating a porthole against which he presses bespectacled eyes.
The woman sits on a bench at the far end of the platform, head bowed. My boots echo back at me but she doesn’t look up. As the mist clears momentarily, I see she is reading, a single sheet of paper clutched in fingers whitened by the chill. I remember reading the word ‘ethereal’ in a romantic novel left in our boarding house home. I do not remember who abandoned thoughts of romance between chapters 3 and 4, but I do remember the word. Pale light fought to release itself from the lamps evenly spaced throughout the station but the mist wrapped itself tightly around such attempts. Otherworldly, that’s what it meant. And for this moment, ethereal felt like the correct word. I wanted to tell someone, anyone, but I had learned not to share such thoughts. The proximity of conflict and the hard men I shared it with did not encourage such flights of fancy. But I felt it, I felt the otherworldliness of the moment as the cold seeped into my soul. The light on the front of the approaching steam engine drew my eye away from the platform. The whistle shrieked again, the driver imagining what it might take to stir an old man from the embrace of the brazier. A movement drew my eye. For a moment the Summer dress seems incongruous, a nip of frost sharpening my attention in spite of the heavy wool of an overcoat. I started to unbutton it with thoughts of wrapping her slim frailty in its warmth. Stock still for a moment, she turned her head as if to greet me but there was no recognition. A pause, a look of anguish, and she stepped forward. Silently, her body fell as the locomotive emerged from the gloom. I heard a scream, a roar of despair, in a voice I half-recognised. My voice. I have seen too much death in my young life, too many lives shattered by conflict.
I blame myself. Should I have told him? The window is steaming again - or perhaps my old eyes are filling at the sadness of it all. I see him, rocking, arms wrapped around his knees. He is broken by his fears, his losses, by all that he has witnessed in his young life. I should have told him. It happened on my first day too. They told me about it later, after they had stopped laughing. A rite of passage? Would I have believed them? She had waited for him for years after he marched out of the town. One of the flags waved for the young recruits was the one she held tightly in the hand adorned with the ring that spoke of his love for her. War is cruel but she waited. Summer rolled into Winter, years rolled one into another. The letters stopped until the official notification was delivered on the early morning mail train, the 6.43. “We regret to inform you …”. Day after day, she returned to the platform, waiting, hoping. Every day, they walked her back to the safety of the nursing home where she cursed the futility of war before setting off early the next day. The wartime Summer dress she made to fill the time when he first left fluttered in a soft breeze at 6.43 that fateful morning. Perhaps I should have told him. But she shared her sadness with us all, an ethereal reminder of love and loss. I should have told him.
Super, thanks! I'm a big fan of these seasonal tales, especially when the weather is like this, dark and strange, firelit.
This is a wonderfully atmospheric story full of loss and regret. Perfectly judged for these cold, dark winter evenings. Really enjoyed it 👍🏼