Not that there's anything special about the refreshment room; it's quite common, really, with pale walls, dark woodwork, arched doors and windows, the glazing opaqued with REFRESHMENT ROOM stamped out in reverse, plain wooden tables and bentwood chairs scattered about, an old iron coal stove in the middle of the room, and a small bar and tea counter to one side, the sort of room where the tea is served with too much milk in it, the sandwiches and buns, in spite of all the claims to the contrary, are usually stale, where there's a constant draft, no place even to powder your nose, and the staff is addicted to Three Star brandy. Yet it is possible to be quite ordinarily contented in here, to be at peace, which is no small thing and perhaps all one can really hope for if one wants to be able to go home again and all for the price of a mere cup of tea. Of course, one can well imagine a room such as this, perched out here on a railway platform, a kind of island upon an island, as a likely place for chance encounters, new friendships, even high romance, together with all the desperate happiness and misery that might be expected to follow upon recklessness of that sort, but for the most part the people who come and go here are sensible persons, even rather withdrawn and shy and difficult (the climate is said to have something to do with this), and they have little interest in meeting strangers or even in running into old acquaintances. They are too tired. They are here to rest, to refresh themselves before the long trip home, that's why it's called a refreshment room. They purchase their cup of tea and perhaps a Bath bun or some chocolate, and toddle wearily to an empty table, there to hover privately over their steaming cup and smoke a cigarette, perhaps read a book or a newspaper, poke through their purse, do their face a bit, glancing up only to observe, idly, as though daydreaming, the exits and entrances of others, or to watch the woman at the counter going on as usual, the one with the refined voice. Now and then, mind you, there are irresponsible people who don't behave themselves, people who suddenly start showing high spirits and acting quite dotty, coming back into the refreshment room, having missed their trains, pretending they've forgotten something, behaving rather too vehemently like romantic schoolgirls or excited schoolboys, grasping at each other, crying out, utterly dazed and bewildered, complaining of grit in their eyes, or whatever, becoming a trifle ill actually, even occasionally doing violence to themselves, to their hearts and minds and the rest as well, throwing themselves under the speeding boat train, or more likely right under the tables, engaging in rather undignified scuffling, as one might call it, too overwhelmed by their feelings even to remove their macs and fur-lined topcoats, their wet socks and shoes and dreadfully humiliating garter belts ("There's still time!" one of them may be gasping, as though in pain, or rapture, or perhaps mere surprise, the other replying: "We're only middle-aged once, there's no time at all!"), their hats falling over their eyes as the tables and teacups tumble down around their ears ("Beryl," the woman at the counter is accustomed to call out over these annoying disturbances, her handkerchief to her nose, just as the stovepipe perhaps comes crashing down, as it is all too inclined to do, coal dust billowing about everywhere, spoiling the buns and tea, and capable, as is well known, of getting in one's lungs and causing anthracosis, "ask Mr. Godby to come here for a moment, would you?"), all in all a most appalling exhibition of mad violent energy and blind frustration and a deep-rooted, unsentimental, but very naughty desire to reveal hidden depths, and as soon as possible — "Oh, look out! We can't get through!" "Pull on your left!" "Oh dear, I never could tell left from — !" "Darling!" "No! Please, not quite yet!" "I must!" And then, almost immediately, time and tide waiting for no man, as the counter lady would say with characteristic disdain, looking down her nose at the both of them, their otherwise quite insignificant lives suddenly experience the most agonizing inflation together with frightful crosseyed spasms that send the coal scuttle flying and creating an awful uproar, and then, as quickly as it has begun, it is over (it's hardly credible that it should be so short a time!), they are falling apart and into a kind of trance, as one might describe it (is the room tilting?), having a sort of idiotic fainting spell, and unable to think of anything at all to say in the strange hollow silence afterwards, except maybe, "It's been so very nice, I've enjoyed my afternoon enormously," or "How kind it was of you to take so much trouble." "Nothing at all. There's my train, I must go — goodbye."
Well, by the time Mr. Godby has come in, of course, with his cheery "Hullo, hullo, hullo! What's goin' on in here?", his lips pursed and his thumbs thrust solemnly in his vest pockets, the 5:40 to Churley is already pulling out of the number 4 platform across the way and the Ketchworth train, due to depart at 5:43, is arriving on platform number 3 — the great world keeps turning, after all, and no harm done ("Come along now, what are you standin' there gapin' at? And Beryl, put some more coals on the stove while you're at it!"), even the boat train, careening through, has claimed no new victims, it's been just another ordinary evening in the Milford Junction railway station. Out on the platform, carriage doors are slamming, windows are being lowered for last-minute farewells ("Next Thursday, the same time?"), whistles are blowing and the loudspeakers are announcing imminent departures and arrivals. Passengers inside the train compartments are lifting their packages and luggage onto overhead racks or planting them on empty seats, hoping the train is not going to be too packed, getting out books and newspapers for the dreary ride home (yes, one does have one's roots), exchanging greetings with acquaintances, if there are any, or perhaps with perfect strangers, more as a matter of politeness, really, than for any other reason, then settling back for a last glance out at the Milford Junction Station (Mr. Godby can be seen in the refreshment room, where there seems to have been a bit of a dustup, though now he's merely sipping tea, perhaps conversing with the woman behind the counter or slapping her bum, as he's inclined to do whenever he's in high spirits or else miserably in love, overwhelmed by the flames of passion and other dangerous feelings, which in the end, if you're not used to them, are rather too much like being sick on a channel steamer, frankly, even if they do make something of a change), the platforms already beginning to slide away into the night like the last of the rolling titles in a picture show at the Palladium, the shadowy figures on the platforms now little more than some nameless creatures who have no reality at all and who soon vanish altogether, the accelerating landscape, framed by the train window, gradually receding into a kind of distant panoramic backdrop for one's own dreams and memories, projected onto the strange blurry space in between, which is more or less where the window is, but is not the window itself, a rather peculiar space perhaps, somehow there and not there at the same time, but no less real, my dear, for all that and, at the very least, a fascinating place in which to lose oneself for just a little while, just a little while, on the way home to Churley or Ketchworth, until someone, meaning to be kind, gives you a shake and says, quite soberly and cruelly, "Wake up! We're here!" and (it's almost happening already) all those silly dreams disappear