There was nothing wonderful or strange in what they saw. For any of these people, night ended once a night and was only remembered by some of them for a person the moon that certain night had shone on in their arms, those loving arms. And when fog was joined to night who was there to dream of that cruel oblivion of sight it made when they had in mind chintz curtains waiting to be drawn across shut windows.
Again, being in it, how was it possible for them to view themselves as part of that vast assembly for even when they had tried singing they had only heard those next them; it was impossible to tell if all had joined except when, perhaps at the end of a verse, one section made themselves heard as they were late and had not yet finished. Then everyone knew everyone was singing but this feeling did not last and soon they did not agree about songs, that section would be going on while another sang one of their own. Then no one sang at all.
So crowded together they were beginning to be pressed against each other, so close that every breath had been inside another past that lipstick or those cracked lips, those even teeth, loose dentures, down into other lungs, so weary, so desolate and cold it silenced them.
Then one section had begun to chant ‘we want our train’ over and over again and at first everyone had laughed and joined in and then had failed, there were no trains. And so, having tried everything, desolation overtook them.
They were like ruins in the wet, places that is where life has been, palaces, abbeys, cathedrals, throne rooms, pantries, cast aside and tumbled down with no immediate life and with what used to be in them lost rather than hidden now the roof has fallen in. Ruins that is not of their suburban homes for they had hearts, and feelings to dream, and hearts to make up what they did not like into other things. But ruins, for life in such circumstances was only possible because it would not last, only endurable because it had broken down and as it lasted and became more desolate and wet so, as it seemed more likely to be permanent, at least for an evening, they grew restive.
Where ruins lie, masses of stone grown over with ivy unidentifiable with the mortar fallen away so that stone lies on stone loose and propped up or crumbling down in mass then as a wind starts up at dusk and stirs the ivy leaves and rain follows slanting down, so deserted no living thing seeks what little shelter there may be, it is all brought so low, then movements of impatience began to flow across all these people and as ivy leaves turn one way in the wind they themselves surged a little here and there in their blind search behind bowler hats and hats for trains.
But at one point no movement showed where, like any churchyard, gravestone luggage waited with mourners, its servants and owners, squatted in between. Here Thomson, still without his tea, had not forgotten yet that kiss she had blessed him with and went rambling on, both aloud and in his mind, how he could not bear that she had been called away. Every now and again he would get up to look over the monuments about, but she was no longer with those other mourners who glared back at him for intruding on their lives in the little rooms their luggage made them. Indeed one old lady had gone so far as to get her ‘Primus’ out and was making tea as though playing at Indians in second childhood and Thomson was telling Edwards he was sure this was his girl’s party and how if that old creature had not been there he might have had his tea and kisses too. Edwards asked him to beware, saying so much imagination must be bad for anyone, let alone somebody as crazy as he seemed to be.
‘Only crazy for what I haven’t got,’ he said, ‘like any drowning, starving man.’
‘Drowning are you now? I’d have sworn you was like any little schoolboy with his first sweetheart, his pretty honeypot’
‘All right, but it’s natural, isn’t it, same as it is to want a cup of tea.’ He went on that if someone were to come now and offer him half a dollar for this luggage he would accept if it did mean his job, or he would for a cup of tea even. Edwards said now he was back harping on it, ‘your Jew’s harp,’ he went on, straining his fancy, ‘always wanting more than what you have.’
But Thomson’s trouble was sex. He could not hold that kiss she had given him as it might be an apple in his hand to turn over while he made up his mind to bite, he was like any starving creature who wanted one more apple and this made him restless. And this was why, though he did not know it, he went on about his tea. He always had a cup Of tea if his mind ran for too long on girls, that is when he had no girl ready to his hand.
‘It’s not my tea so much,’ he said, expressing this.
‘You want the moon,’ said Edwards.
Meantime Robert Hignam’s man, who had so frightened Julia, was making his way from one grieving mourner to another or, as they sat abandoned, cast away each by his headstone, they were like the dead resurrected in their clothes under this cold veiled light and in an antiseptic air. He dodged about asking any man he saw if he was Miss Julia Wray’s, so much as to say, ‘I be the grave-digger, would I bury you again?’
When he found Thomson he tried to persuade him to hand the luggage over so that he could get it into the hotel because he wanted to be clever and do more than Robert had required. Thomson asked who had sent him and when he heard it was Hignam he said he could not take orders from any but Miss Wray. Edwards said who was he anyway, he might be Arsene Lupin easy, and what did he take them for?
‘Well, as you might say, the orders did come from that young lady.’
‘Tell us,’ said Thomson and Edwards could not understand how he could go on talking with this man who might be anybody, ‘what’s going on in there?’ he said, nodding over to where they were sitting quarrelling up above behind lace curtains,
‘She’s a goner.’
‘Who’s a goner?’
‘Why that young lady’s aunt.’
‘Don’t talk so silly,’ Edwards said.
‘As sure as I’m here,’ he answered.
‘Have you seen her?’
‘Of course I’ve seen her,’ he said, speaking in educated tones again. ‘She was taken bad in the buffet and they had to carry her upstairs.’
‘And what about a doctor?’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘they’ve had the doctor to her, but he’s no doctor, I’ve not been around all these years without I know about that hotel doctor. He’s killed any number of them,’ he said, ‘when they’ve been carried in,’ and as he talked of death his speech relapsed into some dialect of his own, ‘any bloody number of ‘em,’ he went on, ‘as’ve been took bad on the bloody Continent and ‘ave said well if they were going to be sick they’d be sick in their own native land and so left it too late, appendicitis and all,’ he said.
‘Not bloody likely,’ said Edwards, any talk of death making him swear.
‘It’s the bloody truth.’
‘Well then,’ said Edwards, ‘if anything was to come to her, it’s unpack for you and me, my lad,’ he said to Thomson.
At this a huge wild roar broke from the crowd. They, were beginning to adjust that board indicating times of trains which had stood, all of two hours behind where it had reached when first the fog came down.