by Gwyneth Rees
If Louise had been with me, I’d have told her what I was thinking, but since she wasn’t, I kept quiet. I thought Ben might not understand and, in any case, I got the feeling that he wasn’t in a mood for talking.
When we arrived at the station, my brother swore when he saw the queue at the ticket office.
I’d always hated our local train station. There was graffiti on everything – even worse than on the outside of our flats – and if someone had been sick on the platform, it stayed there for ages because no one ever bothered to clean it up. You only had to go one short stop on the train to get to the town centre where all the shops were, but I still always preferred to get the bus.
We stood waiting impatiently as the person at the front of the queue started asking lots of questions.
‘We’re not going to make it,’ I said when we heard the announcement that our train was arriving. Everyone else in the queue was starting to complain loudly too – but the person at the front still wasn’t hurrying.
Ben frowned. ‘It’s a whole hour to wait if we miss this one,’ he said. And he left the queue and beckoned me to follow him up the steps to the platform.
‘What about our tickets?’ I asked, when I’d caught up with him at the top of the stairs.
‘They don’t deserve our money if that’s their idea of providing a service,’ he grunted. ‘Don’t worry – they hardly ever check your ticket on the train. I’ve done this before. It’s easy.’
That’s when I remembered something Lou had said once when she and Ben were having an argument. He had been criticizing her about something and she had yelled back, ‘Well, it’s not like you’re so perfect either. At least I haven’t been fined for fare-dodging!’ When I’d asked her about it afterwards she’d told me that Ben had been caught fare-dodging on the train when he was fourteen. He’d been doing it a lot with a mate in the year after their father left.
‘Lou said you got caught when you did it before,’ I said, staying close to him as we got to the platform where quite a lot of people were boarding the train.
‘Yeah – one time I was unlucky,’ he admitted, sounding bitter as he added, ‘that was back in the carefree days of my youth – before I transformed into Mr No-Life-of-His-Own-But-Totally-Ultra-Responsible.’ He was heading along the platform away from the main crowd of people, holding me tightly by the arm. Ben always likes to keep hold of me when we’re in busy places, even though I keep telling him I’m not going to get lost.
I just stared at him. He was acting really weird and I was starting to feel scared. ‘Ben, what if we get caught?’
‘We won’t!’ Ben said. ‘Come on.’ He had stopped at a carriage towards the end of the train and now he was pressing the button that opened the door.
Reluctantly I followed him inside. The carriage we had chosen wasn’t very full. We stopped at the first set of four empty seats with a table that we came to. Since we both like facing the way the train’s going, Ben waited for me to go in first to get the window seat. But today I didn’t want the window seat. I wanted to sit in the aisle so I could keep a lookout for any ticket inspectors.
‘You sit by the window,’ I told him.
Once we’d settled into our seats and the train had set off, I started to look around at the other passengers. There were a few people seated further down the carriage, but the person I could see best was the man sitting on his own just across the aisle from me. Since he was concentrating on reading his newspaper he was quite easy to stare at. I thought he looked about the same age as Ben and Louise’s father, who’s in his mid-fifties. (Ben hasn’t seen his dad in ages because they don’t get along, but I’d seen him last year when he’d come to the flat to visit Lou.) The man was clean-shaven, with short greying hair, balding at the front, and a stern face. He was dressed in a smart suit and his overcoat was folded up neatly beside the briefcase that was sitting on the empty seat beside him. On the table in front of him was a large white cake box tied with string. It was sliding around a bit with the movement of the train and he kept putting out his hand to steady it. He was obviously worried that it would slide right off the table because, after a particularly bumpy bit of track, he got up, carefully lifted the cake box with both hands and placed it on the empty seat opposite him.
I turned to Ben, meaning to ask him what he thought about Louise going off travelling. So far we hadn’t talked about it at all and I figured that, as he was trapped in the window seat next to me, he wouldn’t be able to get out of answering my questions now. But Ben’s eyes were shut and when I asked him if he was asleep he didn’t reply.
We stopped at the main station in town then and a lot more people got on. I glanced across the aisle at the man with the cake and saw that his eyes were closed now too.
As we started moving again Ben opened his eyes and said he needed to use the toilet, so I had to get up to let him out. He hadn’t been gone long when the doors between our carriage and the next opened and two middle-aged ladies came in, carrying loads of shopping bags. The first lady wasn’t looking where she was going because she was talking to her friend who was behind her. She dumped her bags down on the seat facing mine and that’s when I realized that the seats they were actually going to sit in were the two on the other side of the aisle – opposite the man – and that they hadn’t seen the cake.
I yelled out, ‘DON’T SIT DOWN!’ at the top of my voice.
I was just in time. I pointed at the cake box, and the woman quickly put out a hand to steady herself on the back of the seat instead of sitting on it.
The man woke up with a start. ‘I’m so sorry! Here . . . Let me move that for you!’
But the two ladies had spotted some more empty seats and were already moving on down the train, bashing everyone with their shopping bags as they went.
I watched as the man gently lifted his precious cake box and put it back on to the table.
‘You should put your newspaper underneath it,’ I advised him. ‘Then it won’t slip around as much.’
He smiled at me then, which made him look a lot friendlier. ‘Quite a practical young lady, aren’t you?’ he said lightly, as he unfolded his paper and actually did as I’d suggested. (I was pleasantly surprised since my brother and sister rarely took any notice of me when I suggested solutions to their problems.) ‘Thanks for your timely intervention just then, by the way,’ he added. ‘Otherwise I’m afraid this splendid cake would be somewhat flatter than it is now.’
‘And it would have that lady’s bum marks in it,’ I pointed out.
He smiled but put his finger to his lips to warn me that the lady in question might be sitting near enough to hear us. He had friendly little wrinkles that appeared around his eyes when he smiled – like cats’ whiskers.
‘Is there a really special cake inside your box then?’ I asked.
‘Would you like me to show you?’
I nodded eagerly, getting out of my seat and standing over him as he untied the string around the box. The train was swaying a bit and I had to hold on to the edge of his table to steady myself.
Ben came back then and wanted to know what I was doing. He always gets jumpy if he thinks I’m talking to strangers. He reckons I’m far too trusting of people I don’t know and ever since I was little he’s worried that some stranger is going to try and abduct me by promising to buy me sweets, or show me some really cute kittens, or do whatever it is that strangers do to make you go off with them.
‘It’s OK, Ben,’ I told him. ‘He’s just showing me his special cake.’
The man added quickly, ‘It’s a birthday cake for my son, which the young lady here . . .’ He turned to me apologetically. ‘Sorry . . . I haven’t asked your name . . .’
‘Mary,’ I told him. For some reason I wanted him to know my full name, not the shortened version.
‘. . . which Mary here,’ he continued, ‘has very gallantly just saved from being sat on!’
As I started to explain to Ben exactly what had happened, the man open
ed the white cardboard lid to reveal the most amazing cake I had ever seen. It was shaped like a red aeroplane and looked as if it was completely edible except for the wings – they were red and shiny as if they belonged on a real model plane.
‘Wow!’ I burst out. ‘Your little boy’s going to love this. Is it his birthday today?’
‘Tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘He’ll be twelve.’ He frowned. ‘You said little – you don’t think this cake is too young for him, do you?’
I shook my head. ‘Oh no. If it was me, I’d love it. If I was a boy, I mean . . . I mean, just because it’s red, it doesn’t mean it’s a girl’s cake or anything,’ I added, to clarify things.
‘A girl’s cake?’ The man was frowning at the cake now as if he was suddenly seeing it in a worrying new light.
‘May, come and sit down!’ Ben snapped at me, and that’s when I noticed the man in the navy blue jacket and trousers who was making his way down our carriage, stopping at each passenger in turn.
I immediately jumped back into my seat beside my brother. ‘Ben!’ I hissed. ‘What are we going to do?’
Ben was taking out his wallet.
I stared at the ticket inspector as he got closer and closer. He was smiling at the people who had tickets, acting all friendly.
Finally the ticket inspector was right beside us, checking the ticket of the man with the cake. Then it was our turn.
‘Your tickets, sir?’ He was looking at Ben.
‘We had to run for the train so we didn’t have time to get any,’ Ben grunted. ‘Can we buy them now, please?’
‘You’re meant to get to the station in time to buy them,’ the man replied briskly. ‘Where did you get on?’
Ben told him the name of our station and the man told him how much we owed. Just as I was thinking we’d got off lightly, Ben looked in his wallet and let out a gasp of alarm.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, feeling my stomach lurch.
‘I gave Lou most of my cash to get that shopping this morning,’ Ben mumbled. ‘I forgot.’ His face was redder now as he faced the inspector. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve got enough on me.’ He started to fumble in his wallet again as if he was hoping to find some extra money hidden somewhere in it – but of course he didn’t. ‘No . . . I’m five pounds short.’ His voice was trembling slightly.
‘Credit card?’ the man asked. He wasn’t looking friendly any more, I noticed.
Ben shook his head. We had started owing money on our bank cards recently, so Ben had made a point of putting them away in a drawer at home where he said they were staying until we’d paid them off.
The ticket inspector looked so grave that my tummy started to go crampy.
Suddenly the man across the aisle spoke. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out a ten-pound note. ‘I’d like to contribute this to the cost of their fares.’
The ticket inspector looked at him in surprise. ‘You sure you want to do that, sir?’
‘Quite sure.’
I was so relieved I didn’t know what to say, but I could tell Ben was feeling really humiliated. I dug my fingernails into his arm and whispered, ‘It’s OK, Ben.’
The inspector pushed a few buttons on his machine, handed us two return tickets to the seaside and gave my brother a five-pound note in change. Then, thankfully, he moved on up the train.
Ben immediately leaned over me to give the five pounds back to our neighbour.
But the man didn’t put out his hand to take it. ‘Do you have any money left if you give me that?’ he asked.
‘Not on me, but—’
‘So what are you and your . . .’ He looked at me, then back at Ben, enquiringly. ‘. . . sister, is it . . . ?’
Ben nodded.
‘What are you and your sister going to do all day with no money?’
‘We’ll get on the next train and come straight back again,’ Ben replied promptly.
‘No, Ben!’ I burst out before I could stop myself. I didn’t want to go straight home again. Now that we were on the train, I wanted my day out. Besides, I was getting hungry and five pounds would at least buy us an ice cream and some chips each.
But Ben was still leaning across me, still holding out the money. ‘Look, we really appreciate you helping us, but we don’t need this as well,’ he said stiffly.
The man said quietly, ‘Don’t be silly. Your sister has just saved me far more than ten pounds’ worth of cake and I would like to be allowed to reward her for it.’
I looked at Ben, worried that he would object to being called silly, but for once he didn’t seem to mind being spoken to as if he was less responsible than he really was. He was eyeing the cake box and I knew he was thinking that what the man was saying was true. That cake would have cost far more to replace than the money we were being offered. Slowly Ben drew back his hand.
‘Thank you,’ I said, beaming at the man.
‘That’s quite all right.’
‘Yeah . . . thanks,’ Ben muttered. ‘And I’m sorry for . . . well . . . for . . .’
The man nodded as if he agreed that Ben should be sorry. ‘You could have got yourself into a lot of bother,’ he said, in a stern, slightly headmasterish sort of way.
My brother flushed again and for an awful moment I thought he might get really huffy and start trying to give the money back all over again, but he didn’t. He just turned away quickly to look out the window.
I wished I could tell this man – and everyone else on the train – what a brilliant big brother Ben was and how he’d always looked after me and how he wasn’t the sort of person who would normally get on a train without paying. But I knew Ben would kill me if I said anything at all, so I snuggled up close to him instead, shutting my eyes and pretending we were so rich that this was our own private train which nobody was allowed to ride on except us.
I guess I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, we were pulling into our station. The man who had been sitting opposite us was gone, but he had left his newspaper behind. Even though it was just a local paper rather than one of the big national ones, Ben picked it up and tucked it under his arm to read later. Ben always picked up any reading material that people left lying around.
‘Listen, May,’ Ben said as we walked along the platform towards the station exit, ‘that business with the tickets just now – it must have been horrible for you. I’m sorry. The thing is, I’ve not been thinking straight because of Lou.’
And, finally, Ben started to talk to me about my sister. He told me he couldn’t bear the thought of going on living in our grotty flat without her any more than I could. ‘If Lou’s moving on, then I really want us to as well,’ he said. ‘Then it wouldn’t feel as if we were being left behind. It’d feel like this was a new chapter in all our lives instead. You wouldn’t have to go to that dump of a secondary school round the corner next year and I . . . well . . . maybe I could find something new and more interesting to do too.’ Ben sighed, as if he felt like he hadn’t done anything new or interesting in a very long time.
I nodded. ‘But we haven’t got enough money to go to India with Lou, have we?’ I said.
‘I don’t mean that we should go off travelling too.’ He paused. ‘I just mean . . . I don’t know . . . maybe I could get a proper job or something, so we could afford to live somewhere better.’
That’s when something in the newspaper he was carrying caught my eye. The page facing outwards was the local jobs section and one of the adverts was written in heavy bold print:
FULL-TIME EXPERIENCED GARDENER WANTED. OWN COTTAGE WITH SALARY.
‘Look, Ben!’ I gasped, tugging the newspaper out from under his arm.
He read the advert slowly. ‘I’m rubbish with plants,’ he murmured, ‘and I’ve never done any proper gardening in my life.’
‘Still . . .’ I said.
‘Still . . .’ he agreed.
And we looked at each other.
As soon as we got home from our day at the seaside, we started
to hatch our plan. Ben was a bit uncertain after he’d had time to think about it some more, but Lou and I egged him on and pretty soon he’d agreed to at least phone up and make an initial enquiry about the gardening job.
We listened while he rang the number and spoke to the person at the other end. ‘Yes . . . I have . . . er . . . several years’ experience,’ we heard him lie. ‘Yes . . . I’m twenty-six . . . Single, yes . . . but I have a little sister who lives with me . . . Eleven . . . Yes, we would want to make use of the cottage . . . Right . . . Of course . . . Hang on, I’ll fetch a pen . . .’
He looked despondent when he came off the phone. ‘That was the housekeeper. I have to send a letter describing my previous experience and provide the name and address of at least one referee. I reckon I may as well forget it.’
Lou looked thoughtful. ‘What about Miss Johnson?’
As well as working as a waitress, Lou had another job one day a week, helping an old blind lady called Miss Johnson. She went there every Wednesday when Miss Johnson’s live-in helper took her day off and sometimes I went with her if it was the school holidays. Occasionally Miss Johnson dictated letters for Lou to write sometimes, or else Lou read to her and chatted with her. Lou had got the job through Ben, who had been doing some painting work in Miss Johnson’s house. Ben had done a good job and while he was there he had told Miss Johnson about Lou and me, and that’s how Lou had ended up working there too.
‘I didn’t do any gardening for her,’ Ben said.
‘No, but they don’t need to know that, do they? She’d give you a really good reference for the work you did do there. I could change what she says, just slightly. She always gets me to write her letters for her, remember. I could just add a line about you gardening. If I ask her for a reference for you on Wednesday, I bet she’ll dictate it to me there and then. You could enclose it with your letter.’
