Sands of Time (17 page)

She laughed. ‘Perhaps you will. And maybe you’ll still be coming here in the flesh!’ She clinked her glass against his. ‘Who knows?’

The Last Train to Yesterday

Chloë awoke with a start and stared up at the ceiling, her heart thumping. Dusky pink curtains across the window intercepted the harsh red glow from the eastern sky and filled the room with a warm eerie half-light. With a groan she rolled over and groped for the alarm clock, peering at it myopically as her sleepy brain tried to work out the time. Five minutes before the alarm. Pressing down the knob to pre-empt the angry buzz she put it back on the bedside table and swung her feet to the floor.

Drawing back the curtains, she sighed.

Red sky in the morning

Shepherd’s warning

Already threatening bars of cloud were hovering above the fields beyond the garden. By the time she left for the station it would be raining. She was peering into the mirror, trying to put on her eye liner before inserting her contact lenses when she heard the first rain pattering down on the leaves outside the window.

‘Damn!’ London was never fun at the best of times for a rushed business day. The smart sandals she had planned to wear would have cheered her up. In the soupy dirt of wet pavements they would never work.

She tucked in the lenses and carried out a quick survey of the face that zoomed suddenly into focus. Short reddish-brown curls, artfully casual. Eyes – not bad – a deep hazel green. Skin good. Still fairly unmarked by time. Nose, small and ordinary – not what romantic books would call tip-tilted – more of a small conk really. Mouth, definitely a bit big, but Edmund used to say that was attractive. The expression in front of her degenerated into a fearsome scowl. Edmund and his opinions were no longer to be considered. Off the scene. Out of the plot. Finito.

She claimed one of the last spaces in the car park – the regular commuters long gone, before dawn – and hauled her briefcase out of the car. Behind her: cottage, garden, and two tolerantly patient cats who would welcome her home, if not with the gin and tonic she might have liked, then at least with expectant glances towards the tin opener! It was better than no one. In front of her lay noise, bustle, meetings, rush. She loved the contrast.

A spatter of September leaves whirled into a puddle near her. She grimaced. Mud on her boots already and she had twenty yards to go to the footbridge which led up and over the line to the ticket office which was on platform two, the only platform still in use.

Behind her, hidden by a skimpy hedge liberally threaded with old rusty wire, lay the old railway hotel, derelict behind its boarded windows. On fine days the pigeons cooed and strutted on the roof and basked on the broken tiles. Today they sat disconsolately, their feathers puffed, while a loose hoarding banged in the wind. She shivered suddenly and pulled up the collar of her coat.

‘Good morning, Mrs Denver.’ The figure beside her raised a hand. She had barely noticed him park next to her and climb out beside her. ‘One of your days in town?’

Chloë smiled at him. The new man who had bought the Beeches on Thorney Road. She groped for a name and came up with a blank.

He grinned. ‘Miles. Miles Rowton.’

‘Of course.’ She smiled. He had a nice face. Square, almost ugly, deeply lined between nose and mouth and at the corners of his eyes, but nice. Probably in his forties. Once she might have been interested. Not now. What she wanted now was the peace and stability of her own company.

They reached the footbridge in silence and he paused with old-fashioned courtesy to allow her to go up ahead of him. The wind and the sweeping rain precluded conversation. She climbed, trying not to be aware that he was close behind her, concentrating on the steep metal treads, her hand on the cold wet rail, its black paint dimpled with rust.

Afterwards she supposed she had stumbled. The world seemed to do a strange somersault and for a moment she thought she could hear music carried in the wind. Then it was gone and she was standing near the top of the long flight, panting, clutching the handrail with both hands.

‘Are you all right?’ He didn’t touch her. He merely stood there, two steps below her, so his face was level with hers, registering surprise and mild concern. Apparently he could not see how her heart was pounding or the sheen of sweat on her face.

She took a deep breath and shook her head slightly. ‘Sorry. I must have tripped.’

Mary! Mary wait!

Where had the voice come from? Her head was swimming. She glanced down the flight of steps and clutched more tightly at the rail, knuckles white.

‘It’s a bit slippery in this rain.’ Miles Rowton was beside her now. Then in front. ‘Shall I lead the way?’

Hadn’t he heard it? She shook her head a little, trying to clear the sound from her brain. There was no one near them. No one else anywhere in sight. He glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled encouragingly. She must look perfectly normal then, or surely he would have stayed at her side.

Stop! Mary, wait!

The words must have come from somewhere in her head.

Help me, someone. Mary!

She didn’t know what was wrong. She was still clinging to the rail, shaking.

Please, don’t leave me!

This couldn’t be happening. Miles had walked on. He paused to glance back. ‘Coming? The train has been signalled,’ he called. She could see his hair lifting boyishly on his forehead in the wind. The words were being whipped from his mouth.

Somehow she forced herself to take a step forward. Then another. Then suddenly it was easy. She was hurrying after him, the wind tugging at her hair. Behind her, on the roof of the old hotel, the pigeons lifted as one, whirled high above the station and settled back onto the old broken slates.

On the train, still shaken by her experience, she ordered a coffee from the trolley. Miles Rowton had seated himself opposite her, across the aisle. Too far away for easy conversation, but close enough not to appear rude. Once their eyes met as she sipped the scalding liquid and they smiled. Then both looked away back to their respective laps, his covered in papers, hers the newspaper she had grabbed at the village shop as she drove past.

London was all Chloë had feared. Crowded, wet, taxis impossible to find and when she did, gridlocked in the traffic. She was late for her first meeting, then the knock-on effect came into play and the whole sequence of the day slipped back first twenty minutes, then forty, and by the time she reached the end of lunch she was running an hour and a half late. Moving her design consultancy to the country at Edmund’s behest still worked best for her most of the time. It was on days like this when she wondered briefly whether the hassle of commuting and serving many masters was worth it all. Thankfully they did not happen that often.

In the end she caught a very late train home. The cats would be livid, showing their displeasure by sulkily shunning their food and refusing to climb into bed for a goodnight cuddle. She smiled at the thought. Was she so devoid of human relationships these days, that she was worried that her cats would be cross with her? Settling back in her seat, exhausted, she unbuttoned her jacket and kicked off her shoes. There was barely anyone else left in the carriage.

With a sigh she fought back a longing for a huge baguette, the kind it is impossible to eat without doing an impression of Quasimodo, and which, when bitten, empty their contents down one’s front. She had had to run to catch this train and at this hour, when she needed it most, there would almost certainly be no trolley on the train. She hadn’t even had time to buy an evening paper. Closing her eyes Chloë dozed.

It was dark when she stepped onto the deserted platform and took a deep lungful of the cool fresh air. It had stopped raining at last and she could see the stars. There was no one else on the station. Even the ticket office was closed. There would be only one more train that night.

With an exhausted sigh she gripped the handle of her briefcase more tightly and set off for the footbridge. Halfway over she realised she could hear, above the ringing echo of her own footsteps, the sound of music drifting on the wind across the car park. She stopped and listened. Below in the dark the car park was deserted. Only three cars remained from the huge crowd this morning, their bodywork gleaming gently in the darkness. She could barely see over the tall parapet, but standing on tiptoes she gazed into the dark with sudden misgivings. The station was down a quiet lane some half-mile from the village. There were no houses near by. Yet she could see lights. They seemed to be coming from the direction of the derelict hotel. And again, faintly, in the distance, the music drifted up towards her.

Nervously she began to move forward, trying to silence the sharp echo of her heels. At the top of the downward flight she stopped again, reaching out for the handrail.

Mary, please come back!

The man’s voice sounded so close to her that she recoiled.

She peered down, expecting to hear the echo of footsteps running up the metal steps. There was nothing. Far away, on the main road she heard a car engine rev away into the distance.

Straining her eyes into the darkness ahead of her she gripped the handrail and put her foot on the first step.

Mary, for pity’s sake, my darling, listen
.

The words were caught by the wind and whisked away over the tracks and into the darkness.

She gripped the handrail more tightly and moved down another step.

The door to the Station Hotel banged in the wind and the sound of music escaped into the night. Mary had stood there for only a second, staring into the smoky bar, looking round, but she had seen him at once, his arm around the red-haired girl. For a moment she stared. Very few bothered to turn to look, fewer had noticed the expressions which crossed her face in quick succession. Shock. Disbelief. Anger. Misery. And then that final despair as her husband raised his hand to a titian ringlet and, laughing, wound it around his finger. Mary made no sound. In that split second when her world spun and came apart she was silent. And he heard the silence. His hand fell from the girl’s cheek and he turned slowly towards the door.

For a long seemingly endless second husband and wife stared at one another and he read in her eyes what he had done.

Mary! Sweetheart! Wait!

He slid from his bar stool and began to move towards the door. But his limbs wouldn’t move fast enough. He felt as though he were swimming through the smoky air, the noise, the laughter.

Mary, wait!

The girl with the red hair tossed her curls and turned back to the bar. The married ones were the most fun. Their reluctance before, their guilt afterwards, made them more exciting. But what matter. There were plenty more fish in the sea …

Mary!

He had seen it in her eyes. Her love for him had been total. Complete. With a careless, meaningless flirtation, he had destroyed everything.

Mary!

He stood outside in the wind, staring round as the swinging door closed and cut off the smoky lamplight leaving him in the dark. And then he saw her running towards the bridge and in a flash he knew what she was going to do.

Mary, no!
His voice broke as he started to run.
Mary,
my darling, please, you must wait!

He saw the swirling white of her petticoats below her coat as she ran towards the bridge, even as he heard faintly the hollow rumble of the train as it started across the viaduct in the distance, puffing purposefully towards the station.

Chloë stopped halfway down the steps, clutching the rail with both hands. Her briefcase fell, teetered beside her for a moment on the step, began to rock and slowly slid out of sight. She did not notice it had gone. She too now, could hear the train wheels rattling hollowly in the distance.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No.’

Suddenly the footsteps were behind her, running. Clenching her teeth against a rising scream Chloë forced herself to take another step down. She could hear the train getting closer, the clackety-clack of the wheels on solid ground now, the sound of the steam coming in powerful rapid gusts.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs she stood for a moment staring round into the dark. The platform was lit by one faint lamp near the small entrance, beyond which lay the car park. She felt the ground beneath her feet shake as the train drew in with screaming brakes.