The Railway Station Man Read online

  The red-brick house had been built in 1903, solid, functional, tailor-made to suit the network of lines that stretched out through the hills and along the coast, opening up for the first time access to the world, for the inhabitants of the tortuous and desolate coastland.

  The house stood, squarely, facing out towards the distant sea, behind it the two platforms and the weed-filled track and then the hill, treeless, bleak. The signal box was at the right-hand end of the up platform about fifty yards from the station house. Two or three of the wooden steps had rotted away, and a couple of panes of glass were missing, but the box itself appeared to be in very good order. The white-painted words, Knappogue Road, could still be seen faintly beneath the window. The old goods shed was at the far end of the down platform, beside the unused level crossing.

  The rain had settled into a misty drizzle, but from time to time a slight breeze stirred, which soon might shift the clouds. The hedges were still filled with wet shining blackberries, and she made a note in her mind to come up with a couple of baskets the next dry day. They never tasted good if you picked them in the rain, their sweetness somehow dissipated with the damp. She and Jack could carry a basket each. She laughed at the thought. He wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t seem to have that line in his mind leading back to early days. We can’t seem to find that comfort between us, she thought. I suppose that is what parents and children should have, some form of comfort, if nothing more. It seems quite hard to achieve. She wondered why he had come down to visit her.

  A blackthorn tree marked the end of the hedge. Beyond it the road widened and the station house stood there. The right-hand half of the green door was open and she walked across the road, up one step and into the flagged hallway. The air was musty and damp; over twenty years of dead mice and spiders. Even though it had all been scrubbed out and the walls painted white, the smell remained. The door onto the platform was open, letting a draught run through the hall. She walked over and peered through the window into the ticket office. A cheerful fire was burning in the small fireplace. A gate-legged table and a couple of chairs were piled with books. A duffel coat hung on the door that led out on to the platform. She could hear the sound of someone sawing wood.

  ‘Yes?’

  The voice came from behind her. She jumped.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I didn’t hear you coming.’

  A tall man with a patch over his left eye was standing in the middle of the hall. His empty left sleeve was tucked neatly into the pocket of his tweed jacket. He was altogether very neat, apart from the fact that he was wearing old tennis shoes, in the front of both of which his toes had made small jagged holes. Or perhaps the mice, she thought. Unlikely. He didn’t look the sort of man who would let the mice at his shoes.

  His voice was neat too, when he spoke again.

  ‘If you’re enquiring about trains …’

  She began to laugh.

  ‘It will be a while yet before they will be running.’

  She stopped laughing.

  ‘There’s still a lot of work to be done before we’re operational.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘As you can see.’

  His voice was dour, unwelcoming.

  ‘Where did you want to go?’

  She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I believe there is a reasonable bus service. You can get without too much trouble to Letterkenny and Donegal town. After that …’ He shrugged. ‘There are connections.’

  She laughed again, because she wasn’t sure what else to do. A little nervous laugh.

  ‘Oh no. It wasn’t that. I live here. I just came to see … to … Someone told me your name was Haythorne. I wondered … I used to know Haythornes back in Dublin. Ages ago. I thought perhaps …’

  ‘Hawthorne,’ he said, and left it at that.

  ‘Oh.’

  After a moment she held out her hand towards him.

  ‘Mr Hawthorne. I’m Helen Cuffe.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘I live in the cottage down the road. Just before you get to the village.’

  There was silence except for the sound of the saw somewhere out along the platform.

  ‘I just thought I’d come up and see if there was anything you … It must be difficult to manage here. If you’d like a meal … or something.’

  She felt her face going red.

  ‘I am quite good at managing, thank you.’

  Two puckered scars ran from the eye patch down to his chin, pulling his mouth very slightly to one side.

  ‘I seldom go out in company.’

  Bugger him, she thought. She turned away from him and began to walk back across the hall. I seldom go out in company either. Bugger him.

  ‘Mrs Cuffe,’ he called after her.

  Helen stopped but didn’t turn around.

  ‘You’re wet.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Or is it Miss Cuffe?’

  ‘Mrs.’

  ‘Did you walk all the way up here?’

  ‘Yes. For the good of my health. I want to live a long, long time. Goodbye, Mr Hawthorne.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Cuffe.’

  When she got out into the rain, she said, ‘Bugger him’ again, out loud.

  Towards evening the rain stopped, as happens so often on the west coast. The clouds lifted and the sky became a delicate washed blue. The distant sea, a darker blue, looked turbulent; white foaming waves licked and curled around the islands. The sun softened by mists moved downwards towards the edge.

  Helen sat on the step outside the porch and watched the colours change. The shadows of the trees and hedges below her grew longer and darker. Real excitement always filled her at this moment. All nature’s changes are otherwise so imperceptible, this hiding of the sun by the world’s edge shocked her by its speed and its awful simplicity each time she watched it happen.

  Jack appeared from nowhere and stood in silence beside her. ‘What time’s dinner?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Any time you want it. I hadn’t thought about it yet.’

  ‘I thought I’d go down and have a drink in the village.’

  ‘You can have a drink here and save yourself the trip.’

  ‘See some action.’

  Helen laughed.

  ‘There hasn’t been action in Knappogue since 1798. I doubt if there was any then either.’

  ‘If that’s all right with you?’

  ‘Sure. Go ahead. We’ll eat about half past nine. Unless the action is too exciting, then you send me a message by carrier pigeon.’

  ‘Right. See you.’

  Surprisingly, he bent down and kissed her on the top of her head.

  Eight high plastic stools along the bar. All empty. Two jugs of warm water and some pickled onions in a jar. The smell of beer, cigarettes and turf dust. The turf dust must be my imagination, he thought, as nowadays no one uses the real thing any longer, neat stacks of clean briquettes beside each fireplace. No dust, no smell, no fleas. Rather tired flames flickered round the structure in the grate and across the room, high on the wall, the TV set flickered in reply.

  Do not leave me oh my darling–

  Mr Hasson must have seen it before. He stooped, arms outstretched along the bar, over the Democrat, his bi-focals slipping slowly down his nose, unable to sustain their normal position owing to the tilt of his head.

  – on this our wedding day … ay.

  Mother will be watching it, a half-smile on her face. As she cooks the dinner she will speak the lines with the actors.

  Jack thought how irritated he would be if he were there.

  Across the hall Mrs Hasson was supervising the laying up of the tables for breakfast. The white cloths hung in stiff points. Each side plate had its folded napkin. This evening one dahlia stood on each table in a silver cornet-shaped vase.

  Mr Hasson looked up from the paper as Jack reached the bar. In the background Mrs Hasson adjusted a silver cornet a fraction of an inch and the men leaned agains
t the pillars of the station, blue morning sky waited, they waited, the long silver tracks waited.

  ‘How’s Jack?’ asked Mr Hasson, as if they were used to meeting every day. He pushed his glasses back into place again and began to fold up the paper.

  ‘Great, thanks. Everything okay with you?’

  ‘Mustn’t complain. The Mammy keeping well? Just down for the weekend? She’ll be glad of the company. Give her a lift.’

  Want to bet?

  Jack thought of her face as he had walked in the door the evening before, quite unexpectedly, like someone being pulled sharply from the safe web of sleep. Pleased, yes, finally pleased, but her mind taking quite some time to reach that pleasure.

  And dear old dirty Dublin? Same as ever?’

  ‘Much the same.’

  ‘Dangerous. Maire McMenamin from Gortahork had her car broken into and all her clothes taken. In broad daylight. Not a stitch or stim left to her. You want to mind yourself up there. Drugs and drink and kids stealing money.’ He laughed suddenly and reached for a pint glass. ‘That’s what they say on the wireless. Guinness?’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘They say nowadays it’s safer in Belfast. Troubles and all. What would you say to that?’ He held the glass carefully angled under the tap.

  ‘It’s not as bad as the papers make out.’

  He paid no attention.

  ‘I wouldn’t go near the place at all now. There was Mrs Hasson only last week wanted up to Dublin to look at the shops. Not at all, I says to her. What can you get in Dublin you can’t get just as well in Donegal town? And the price of petrol. And you could lose your life. Have the car smashed up. Lose your life in the night walking down O’Connell Street. That’s what I said to her. Wasn’t I right?’

  ‘Did she go?’

  ‘Of course she didn’t go. Why would she go whenever I told her not to? Save your money I said to her and away on to Lourdes next year with your sister Kathleen. The two parishes is getting together and forming a group.’

  He slowly let go of the handle and looked at the glass. ‘Wasn’t I right?’

  ‘If she wants to go to Lourdes …’

  ‘Of course she wants to go to Lourdes. Hasn’t she been on at me for years about it, and the group has always gone at the wrong time. Right in the middle of the tourist season. Caravans full. The hotel full. People in and out for meals at every hour of the night and day. How could she go then? I mean to say. Answer me that?’

  ‘How indeed.’

  He pushed the glass over to me.

  ‘There’s a new priest here, Father Mulcahy, and I said to him, Listen here, Father Mulcahy, I said to him if that Lourdes trip was at a more expedient time … see what I mean? A nod is as good as a wink. Father Collins, not that I’d a word against him, was never very amenable to suggestion. July suited him, so July it had to be. Let’s start with this new young fellow the way we mean to go on. Let’s have a bit of flexible thinking. That’s what I said. Wasn’t I right? After all, if you look at it another way, Mrs Hasson works for this parish like no one else. The backbone you might say she is and I wouldn’t mind who heard me say it and it’s only fair she’d get a chance of a trip like that. Wouldn’t you say so? And her the backbone.’

  ‘Definitely.’

  He looked pleased.

  ‘That’ll be one pound and five pence. God be with the days Guinness was one and six a pint. I don’t know how the young fellows can afford to drink at all these days. The politicians have the country ruined. Ruined into dire straits. Wouldn’t you say? One and six. And that was real money. Silver was silver. They stole the money out of our pockets when they changed all that. Daylight robbery.’

  Jack handed him the money.

  ‘I took the pledge at the age of sixteen and never broke it. Forty-seven years. Think of that now. Think of all the money would have flowed out of my trouser pocket in all those years. Mrs Hasson will take a drop from time to time. A wedding or such like. A glass of port or a nice brown sherry, but never a drop has passed my lips. My old mother, God rest her, always used to say … Good evening sir.’

  Jack snatched his glass from the bar and fled to a small table by the fireplace. A tall man in a tweed suit walked across the room. He wore a black patch over one eye and his left sleeve was empty. Mr Hasson folded away the paper.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Hasson. A better evening.’

  His voice was English. An Oxford and Cambridge sort of a voice, quite low, quite pleasant.

  ‘Just what we were saying, sir, before you walked in the door. A Scotch, sir? What a fine country we’d have, sir, if only we had the weather. Paradise I’d say it’d be.’

  ‘Full of happy tourists?’

  ‘That’d be the way, sir.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  He turned away and looked at the screen.

  A lonely man walked down the street. People waited behind the windows. Watched.

  ‘Ah, yes …’ he said, nothing more.

  Mr Hasson poured a large Scotch in silence. When he had finished he put it on the bar and pushed the water jug along beside it.

  ‘Good man. That’s the ticket. No water thanks. I like it just as it is. I hate your dream of tourists. So here’s to the rain.’

  He took a drink, then he walked across the room to the fireplace. He stood looking down at Jack for a moment.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘No … I … of course not.’ Jack gestured at the chair across the table.

  ‘Thanks’

  He put his drink down on the table and pulled the chair round so that it was no longer facing towards the television set. He sat down.

  ‘Seen the damn film seven times,’ he said. ‘But maybe I’m disturbing you?’

  ‘No. I’ve seen it twice.’

  ‘I’ve always thought it was a bit over-rated. Mind you,’ he laughed abruptly, ‘I’ve never seen it with two eyes. Maybe it’s better with two eyes.’

  Jack shut one eye and looked at the screen for a moment.

  ‘It seems much the same.’

  The man held his hand out across the table towards Jack.

  ‘Roger Hawthorne.’

  Jack took it. His fingers were cold. He wore a gold signet ring on his little finger.

  ‘Jack Cuffe.’

  He withdrew his hand quite abruptly and they sat in silence.

  ‘I suddenly felt the need for company,’ he said at last. ‘A sickness from which I seldom suffer. I am not the most … Just occasionally … a great urge to see a face, hear a voice. I haven’t seen your face before around here, have I?’ He paused and looked at Jack carefully. ‘Perhaps I was rude to your mother earlier in the day. Your mother? Your aunt, perhaps.’

  ‘My mother. She said she might go and visit you. I don’t suppose she minded. She’s sometimes quite rude to people herself.’

  ‘Gregarious was the word I was looking for. It’s strange isn’t it the way words elude you from time to time. Play hide and seek with you. I am not the most gregarious of people. Your mother walked through the rain.’

  ‘She doesn’t mind the rain. She hates driving.’

  ‘I walked down here myself this evening. It’s quick coming down. Healthy. I sometimes regret my foolishness when I’m walking home. I have a specially converted car.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The gun battle flickered behind his head. Beyond the door Mrs Hasson was calling to someone in the kitchen. Mr Hasson unfolded the paper again and spread it once more on the bar.

  This is intolerable, Jack thought. I will have to go.

  ‘Are you interested in the railway signal system?’

  ‘I … not really. I don’t know very much about it.’

  ‘What a pity. You could have come up and looked at my box. It’s really in amazing working order after all these years’

  Mr Hasson looked up from the paper and winked at Jack over the man’s head.

  ‘It’s criminal the way they’ve neglected boxes all over the country. Engla
nd too. If they’d even kept up minimum running repairs it would have saved them so much money in the long run.’

  ‘I can’t see …’

  ‘They’ll have to open the branch lines again, you know. The day is coming very soon. I just thought you might be interested.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I have been very lucky really. The box itself has taken a bit of a beating … some steps gone, a bit of rot. Nothing though that I can’t cope with. I have this chap giving me a hand.’ He laughed. ‘No. More, much more than that. We’ll have it in first-class order very soon now. Everything in working order. Damian Sweeney. A really very interesting young man. In other times he would have made a most superior cabinet maker. Marvellous hands … imagination. A craftsman. It’s good to meet a real craftsman.’

  His eye looked sadly at the smouldering briquettes.

  ‘So few people,’ he said. ‘So few people.’

  His eye moved from the fire to Jack’s face. He protected himself by taking a gulp of beer.

  ‘Perhaps you know him?’

  ‘Not really. I came across him when my mother moved here first. We had a bit of a barney.’

  ‘I take it that means a fight? Fisticuffs.’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘He called me a West British bastard.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Yes.’

  ‘So a bit of blood was drawn. Nothing serious. I don’t really live here. I just appear for a few days now and then.’

  ‘He holds a piece of wood in his hand as if it were alive. We don’t talk much. We just work together. It is a very good feeling.’

  Jack wondered what Damian was up to, working for such an oddball.

  ‘Perhaps you would allow me to buy you another drink?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Seeing as how I have imposed my company upon you.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  He nodded and called over his shoulder to Mr Hasson.