A Station In Life

by James Smiley

  “I bin ’ad a word with my mother about yer noises,” she volunteered. “I’ll tell yer all about it later, Mr Jay. But so’s yer got somethin’ to think on, my mother says ’tis all for to do with them standin’ stones up on Splashgate ’ill.”

  Thus apprised that ghoulishness ran in her family, I moved on.

  By now Briggs was gone. The engine had set back to the weighbridge loop making it necessary for me to wend another hazardous path, this time through Ivor Hales’s serried vegetables. With Hiscox stepping off the footplate again I confess that I sped at the expense of some tomatoes. Seeing so many of them squashed before they could ripen I was unsettled by the allegory and slowed my pace, wondering why I should be so concerned about a railway upon which I probably had no future. A moment later I was hurrying again, for railway life was in my blood.

  Driver Hiscox was still at ground level when I finally reached him, nonchalantly sauntering the last few paces, calculating that I had best wheedle my way into his confidence with a little flattery if I wanted to trade information. Indeed I had learned that while flattery is ever transparent to a third party it is always usefully opaque to the recipient. To this end I complimented the fellow on his mastery of the regulator while swiftly entraining so many wagons, and assured him that I was not the only person to think so. Next, with a comradely smile, I revealed my discovery of ticket boxes under the footbridge steps. As expected, flattery did the trick. The normally reserved fellow stowed his oiling can aboard the engine, returned my smile, and invited me to reveal all. This I did, and after listening intently he wiped his streaky hands to fill his tobacco pipe.

  “Well now, there’s a thing, Mr Jay,” he mused. “So you’ve got ticket boxes, eh? That’s very interesting.”

  “Does this mean Mr Crump is on his way out?” I enquired humbly.

  “I’ve not heard,” he replied after a brief reflection. “Mind you, I do hear there’s been a wrangle at the joint board meeting and I think everyone knows this baton rider business can’t go on. But as for resignations, I’ve heard nothing. Nay, I should think there’s been some sort of compromise, Mr Jay. Now that we’ve got all these telegraph circuits rigged up I should think the staff-and-ticket system could be operated even to Benjamin’s satisfaction.”

  Driver Hiscox lit his pipe and went into a trance. I had become invisible.

  Having learned nothing substantive I returned to my office to catch up with incoming paperwork. While thumbing through various documents I came across the first manoeuvrings in the long anticipated cider war between the local dignitaries, squire Lawrence Albury and Brigadier Sir Aubrey Higham KCSI, the two major apple growers in the valley. Three quarters of the rough brew from Albury Hall, which was popular with farm hands and railwaymen, was exported to London and Manchester and it seemed to me that squire Albury made highly profitable use of the railways he so despised.

  Of course, what the squire truly resented about railways was their class neutrality. His often heard mantra was that God gave us the railways to transport educated people and their merchandise, not peasants, chickens and upstarts. Like many wealthy people he feared freedom of movement among the masses, believing that it would undermine civilisation.

  Eating apples and cider apples, like the cider itself, were a bulk export from the district but neither producer owned sufficient wagons to fully clear his orchards during picking time. Consequently, every year, the rival growers would hire extra trucks from the SER to get their produce to market. This year squire Albury had sent my Booking clerk a requisition for an extraordinarily large number of wagons. Indeed, the number he supposedly required matched exactly the number available for hire. This was no coincidence. Somehow the cheat had received intelligence about the SER’s rollingstock disposition and planned to deprive his competitors of transport.

  The squire was overlooking one thing, however. To wit, Upshott’s new stationmaster. My allegiance was to the brigadier and his stronger yet sweeter Xissington cider, and whilst I could not pronounce the word Xissington without first having partaken of a glass, I saw no reason why this agreeable brew should be delayed by a rival’s shenanigans. To this end I ‘accidentally’ mislaid the requisition. Perhaps it fell into the pot containing Mr Mildenhew’s wilting aspidistra. Who knows?

  Alas, by this foolhardy subversion did I become an active agent in the cider apple war. But then, what need of neutrality has a man whose tenure is moribund? Little would neutrality have lasted anyway, given that a stationmaster’s position in the community lies at the intersection of everyone’s business. At least I would join the fray on my own terms and in the knowledge that I would be gone by the time tempers flared. I indulged myself a wild chuckle.

  With my paperwork done and the station quiet I accepted a challenge from Mr Troke to play him at draughts, confident that a cross-eyed Rollingstock superintendent would be easy to beat. The game ended at 5pm, if not in my favour, but I reflected proudly upon how an intelligent opponent can stimulate even a simpleton to think logically.

  A peewit flapped above the station, its reedy call familiar to my ears, and while looking up I was distracted by the spooky spinster waving to me from my upstairs window. About the same time I caught the tang of hog pudding, and verily it invoked fairground music so I set off towards my quarters in high anticipation. Climbing the stairs I passed Miss Blake in hasty descent. Having set out my meal she was in flight as if from something dire, pumping past me with all the wear and tear of the possessed.

  “Tis on the table, Mr Jay,” she gasped. “Now I must be away to the village, for I’ve to collect a pair of button boots from the cobbler and time grows short.”

  I fancy it was really the stirrings of my ghost that propelled her.

  The hog pudding looked promising, but before putting it away I decided to take a peek through my window. A wise stationmaster never misses an opportunity to catch his staff on the dodge. Much to my pride, however, everything appeared to be in order. With the exception of the spinster woman hastening along the platform, Upshott station was a picture of reassuring tranquillity. Incidentally, I make no apology for the tautonym ‘spinster woman’ for it amused me to dub her so at the time and continues to invoke her memory to best effect.

  Mimicked by my reflection in the window I groomed myself in readiness to sit. However, and somewhat disappointingly, one final glance at the platforms taught me that my pride in Upshott station was misplaced. The scene was no longer one of tranquillity. Diggory had reversed into view, stooping as if in search of a mislaid valuable, and Mr Troke was sauntering towards a puncheon cask upon which he eventually parked his posterior with legs dangling uselessly like an abandoned marionette. With his jaw bouncing lethargically upon a wedge of tobacco, the fellow now retreated to that peculiar world between his ears, presumably to recuperate from the daily rigour of doing nothing.

  It is common knowledge that a dullard will recover from a trance quicker than a wiseacre, and in this my Rollingstock superintendent was an exemplum. Uncannily aware that he was being watched he looked up suddenly and stared back at me, the sorrowful bulge of his porcelain eyes compelling me to conclude that he was tormented by the aroma of my dinner. I opened my window to strengthen the whiff of it.

  “Hog pudding, Mr Troke,” I called down. “Stay where you are, I may toss you a scrap.”

  Mr Troke did not see fit to laugh. Nor was he shamed into returning to his duties. He simply continued to stare so I shut the window and sat down to eat. As I took up my knife and fork I realised, for the first time, that the spinster woman’s superstitious vagaries had insinuated my mind. It was merely suggestion, of course, my mind playing tricks upon me, but I thought I heard an unaccountable noise. It sounded like the creak of my door opening. Indeed, my door was now wide open as if someone had entered the room yet, as far as I could see, no one had. With every hair upon my neck upended I closed it and reprimanded myself for being impressionable.

  To reassure myself I recited Grace, prefacing it wit
h a private, satirical quip.

  “So, Miss Blake’s infernal heathen pays me a visit, eh?”

  My nerve broke when I realised that my hog pudding was gone. All that remained of it was a tantalising smell and some pastry crumbs. I tell a lie. Such had been the usurper’s haste that the tablecloth was splashed with gravy and a remnant of pork lay upon the floor. I was paralysed with disbelief. Had my window not been closed I should have thought it the snatch of a gannet.

  Calming myself I studied my empty plate and attempted to understand the meaning of it. While doing so I heard a peculiar cry. Much like a whimper, if not an outright jibber, it came from very nearby, but I knew that it was not the call of an evil spirit lured from limbo by Miss Blake’s cooking because by now I had realised that it was a mortal in terror. To control my jibber I went to the window and took a deep breath. Noticing that Mr Troke was gone, I wondered if he was in some way connected with the incident.

  I went to my office and summoned Mr Troke, but he had absconded so I called Diggory instead. Diggory had also gone to ground so I called Mr Phillips. He too, having vacated his office, was nowhere to be found and so, feeling a trifle queer, I strode the platforms calling for help generally. This I did until my strength failed and I took support against the handle of a platform trolley. With my echo mocking me from Splashgate hill and a low sun cutting through a restless sky, the only response to my distress call was a delegation of tall shadows like Russian chess pieces. Even the signalbox was unoccupied so I fled the dumb busybodies and resumed my search. But so keen were the chess pieces to escort me to their alternative world of disappearing puddings and deserted stations that they sprang up a wall beside me. I fled them again and took to a bench.

  How relieved I was, then, to see Mr Troke amble out of the Parcels office shielding his eyes against the evening’s rubescent glow and gaze to and fro as if puzzled. Having espied the cause of the commotion he sauntered over to me and spat out a quid of tobacco, whereupon I drew breath to explain my alarm. I faltered. It had occurred to me that my credibility was at risk as never before so I loosened my collar instead of my tongue and gazed at him dumbfounded.

  My artless Rollingstock superintendent was bamboozled. He scratched his beard and stared at me helplessly, having no idea how to restart a stunned stationmaster. Regaining my composure I studied him and wondered if he was really as artless as he appeared, for he had behaved most suspiciously at the time of my fright. Also a hog pudding would be of more interest to an employee with no scruples than an evil spirit with no stomach.

  “Do you know of any reason why my dinner should disappear?” I challenged him.

  “No, sir,” came the fellow’s reply with a disarming ring of innocence.

  At this point Mr Phillips joined us, his alabaster cheeks carrying a rare hint of pink in the sunset hues.

  “William has been with me for some while, Mr Jay,” he sprang to his colleague’s defence.

  Thus apprised I was compelled to postpone judgement. Nevertheless I eyed Mr Troke’s uniform for traces of gravy. There being none I had to accept that the fellow could hardly have scoffed the dish anyway, not without Mr Phillips complicity, and Edwin was too much the gentleman to tell a lie even as a prank. The episode, therefore, had no rational explanation.

  “Have you seen anything?” I quizzed the clerk.

  “Anything?” he eructed. “I have seen many things today, Mr Jay. What had you in mind?”

  “Anything at all,” I replied with rising agitation. “Anything unusual?”

  Mr Troke and Mr Phillips blinked at each other as if seeking mutual inspiration.

  “No,” they rendered their answer in unison.

  “It is one’s lot in life to remain perplexed,” I concluded.

  I needed no crystal ball to foretell the future should my vanishing hog pudding become known about. The story would spread like wildfire and invoke neither sympathy nor constructive suggestion, keeping the station house reverberating with laughter at my expense for weeks.

  “The spinster woman is a Jonah and we shall speak no more of the matter,” I closed the subject and strode away to The Shunter for a supper of cheese and stout.

  The tap room in The Shunter was always lively with hands. Lively, that is, until a stationmaster appeared in the doorway. However, the sudden change in atmosphere never unsettled me, for in a public of this kind any figure of authority would dampen the atmosphere. Yet so harmless was my demeanour that the lull in conversation was short-lived and by the time I had taken myself to my corner table the smoke filled room was booming with laughter again. Ay, and the telling of yarns so apocryphal as to cause good humoured jeering, apart from the ones about the beast of Exmoor of course. Had I been disposed to join these men as they puffed their clay pipes and loosened their tongues on cider I could have recounted my own far eerier experience. But a wise stationmaster always remains aloof in such places, lest he be bothered by hearing of illicit activities or set himself up for ridicule. Besides, taking a glass of ale in solitude does no harm to a man with a fertile intellect, for there is much in life to ponder, such as nature’s purpose in creating a woman like Serena Blake.

  While waiting for my cheese to be cut I took a pinch of snuff and beheld myself in an oval mirror hanging lop-sided on the wall. I noticed that my hair was thinning, but I was no fashionable swell and would countenance no hairpiece. I had not the vanity for such an uncomfortable measure even should I become bald and have to live in fear of the rogue jackdaw said to live in Upshott wood. This allegedly attacked shiny heads, although so far only the wigmaker of Blodcaster had seen it, reporting that birds of similar proclivity were at large everywhere.

  With no sign of my cheese I gazed out of the window at the tavern sign. This illustrated an old shire horse marshalling beer trucks in the days when Upshott was a terminus and I reflected how much simpler life must have been then. Drowsy with the thought of it I was served my Cheddar by a young maid and went fully into the trance of the lonely diner.

  Returning to my quarters I detoured to help Diggory place a cumbersome bag of coal aboard the Giddiford train, then found the spinster woman in my kitchen scrubbing earthenware.

  “I see yer enjoyed my ’og pudding’, Mr Jay,” she chirped. “Yer didn’t leave a scrap uneaten.” She stooped to pick up the lump lying on the floor and looked at me disapprovingly. “Apart from this one.” I received another such look when she removed the tablecloth and examined the gravy stains. “Change that, shall I?” she said with narrowed eyes and quivering top lip. “T’wer clean on this mornin’ though.”

  As we gentlemen know, domestics never gossip. We know this because they tell us so, just as they tell each other. ‘Well, Mrs Brown, you know me, I never gossip, but I really must tell you about the new stationmaster. He flicks his food across the room while eating.’ My social standing in the community was about to sink even lower, sneers greeting me at every turn.

  Miss Blake took up my ewer and announced her intention to refill it downstairs. On her way to the door she stopped abruptly and gave me a groggy smile, from which unnerving intermission I sensed that I was about to audience another of her blood-curdling stories.

  “My mother finally told I why this location were chosen to take the heathen under,” said she as if this burial business was a burden upon us all.

  Indeed, by now it was. My heart sank as she abandoned the ewer by my washbowl and set about imparting the gruesome details. Truth to tell, I did not hear a word, for such utterances could not compete with my continuing mental struggle to reconcile the pudding incident with normality.

  “I be tellin’ yer about the dead body, Mr Jay,” she bullied me back to life. “The one I found underneath this station.”

  “Oh, that one,” I replied, wondering how many others there were. “But I thought it was only a skull you unearthed, Miss Blake, not an entire body?”

  I removed myself to a more comfortable chair and Miss Blake followed me there with her unique brand of torm
ent.

  “T’wer the skull of a local charcoal burner,” she continued. “The man came from a family as lived deep in Bessam forest and survived by ’urdle makin’ and charcoal burnin’. They were outcasts one and all, for they dabbled in strange rituals and never attended church. My mother told I they were wicked folk who always buried their dead in the shadow of them standin’ stones up on Splashgate ’ill. Yer see, Mr Jay, when the sun comes up in the mornin’ them stones forms a point right ’ere on yer station. T’is on a lay line, yer see.”

  “A lay line?” I coughed. “My goodness! I thought it was a railway line.”

  The spinster woman laughed wheezily then begged me to take her seriously.

  “Miss Blake,” I cautioned her, “if you allude to devil worship then I shall hear no more of it.”

  “Oh, but yer must, sir,” she urged me gravely, finding it necessary to brush her long, red hair.

  I sighed with resignation and removed my shoes. A dose of Miss Blake’s story telling was painful enough without aching feet. Tugging at her flaming fleece she continued with a downward shift of voice that I found most unsettling.

  “Now, I’ve picked some garlic for to ’ang above yer door, Mr Jay. T’is for yer own salvation, mind. My mother says ’e were nefarious. She says yer be in grave danger.”

  I could see by Miss Blake’s hesitant grimace that she did not know the meaning of the word ‘nefarious’ beyond that it was bad, but was too abashed to ask. Naturally I did not assist. Instead, I told her firmly:

  “Miss Blake, you must understand that I would sooner be haunted by your nefarious heathen than sleep with the beastly smell of garlic in my room.”

  There was a shudder of incomprehension and matter was closed.

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  Chapter Twenty-Two — The terror of a moorland storm