She bit her lip. ‘I knew you were… going to say that as well. But… no, Jesse. It isn’t any use thinking about it, I’ve tried to and it wouldn’t work. I don’t want to… have to go through this again and hurt you all over another time. Please don’t ask me again. Ever.’ He thought dully, he couldn’t buy her. Couldn’t win her, and couldn’t buy. Because he wasn’t man enough, and that was the simple truth. Just not quite what she wanted. That was what he’d known all along, deep down, but he’d never faced it; he’d kissed his pillows nights, and whispered love for Margaret, because he hadn’t dared bring the truth into the light. And now he’d got the rest of time to try and forget… this. She was still watching him. She said, ‘Please understand…’
And he felt better. God preserve him, some weight seemed to shift suddenly and let him talk. ‘Margaret,’ he said, ‘this sounds damn stupid, don’t know how to say it…’ ‘Try’ He said, ‘I don’t want to… hold you down. It’s… selfish, like somehow having a… bird in a cage, owning it… Only I didn’t think on it that way before. Reckon I… really love you because I don’t want that to happen to you. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt. Don’t you worry, Margaret, it’ll be all right. It’ll be all right now. Reckon I’ll just… well, get out o’ your way like…’
She put a hand to her head. ‘God this is awful, I knew it would happen.. . Jesse
don’t just… well, vanish. You know, go off an’… never come back. You see I… like you so
very much, as a friend, I should feel terrible if you did that. Can’t things be like they…
were before, I mean can’t you just sort of… come in and see me, like you used to? Don’t go right away, please…’
Even that, he thought. God, I’ll do even that.
She stood up. ‘And now go. Please…’
He nodded dumbly. ‘It’ll be all right…’
‘Jesse,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to… get in any deeper. But -’ she kissed him, quickly. There was no feeling there this time. No fire. He stood until she let him go; then he walked quickly to the door.
He heard, dimly, his boots ringing on the street. Somewhere a long way off from him was a vague sighing, a susurration; could have been the blood in his ears, could have been the sea. The house doorways and the dark-socketed windows seemed to lurch towards him of their own accord, fall away behind. He felt as a ghost might feel grappling with the concept of death, trying to assimilate an idea too big for its consciousness. There was no Margaret now, not any more. No Margaret. Now he must leave the grown-up world where people married and loved and mated and mattered to each other, go back for all time to his child’s universe of oil and steel. And the days would come, and the days would go, till on one of them he would die.
He crossed the road outside the George; then he was walking under the yard entrance, climbing the stairs, opening again the door of his room. Putting out the light, smelling Goody Thompson’s fresh-sour sheets.
The bed felt cold as a tomb.
The fishwives woke him, hawking their wares through the streets. Somewhere there was a clanking of milk churns; voices crisped in the cold air of the yard. He lay still, face down, and there was an empty time before the cold new fall of grief. He remembered he was dead; he got up and dressed, not feeling the icy air on his body. He washed, shaved the blue-chinned face of a stranger, went out to the Burrell. Her livery glowed in weak sunlight, topped by a thin bright icing of snow. He opened her firebox, raked the embers of the fire and fed it. He felt no desire to eat; he went down to the quay instead, haggled absentmindedly for the fish he was going to buy, arranged for its delivery to the George. He saw the boxes stowed in time for late service at the church, stayed on for confession. He didn’t go near the Mermaid; he wanted nothing now but to leave, get back on the road. He checked the Lady Margaret again, polished her nameplates, hubs, flywheel boss. Then he remembered seeing something in a shop window, something he’d intended to buy; a little tableau, the Virgin, Joseph, the Shepherds kneeling, the Christchild in the manger. He knocked up the storekeeper, bought it and had it packed; his mother set great store by such things, and it would look well on the sideboard over Christmas.
By then it was lunchtime. He made himself eat, swallowing food that tasted like string. He nearly paid his bill before he remembered. Now, it went on account; the account of Strange and Sons of Dorset. After the meal he went to one of the bars of the George, drank to try and wash the sour taste from his mouth. Subconsciously, he found himself waiting; for footsteps, a remembered voice, some message from Margaret to tell him not to go, she’d changed her mind. It was a bad state of mind to get into but he couldn’t help himself. No message came.
It was nearly three of the clock before he walked out to the Burrell and built steam. He uncoupled the Margaret and turned her, shackled the load to the push pole lug and backed it into the road. A difficult feat but he did it without thinking. He disconnected the loco, brought her round again, hooked on, shoved the reversing lever forward and inched open on the regulator. The rumbling of the wheels started at last. He knew once clear of Purbeck he wouldn’t come back. Couldn’t, despite his promise. He’d send Tim or one of the others: the thing he had inside him wouldn’t stay dead, if he saw her again it would have to be killed all over. Arid once was more than enough.
He had to pass the pub. The chimney smoked but there was no other sign of life. The train crashed behind him, thunderously obedient. Fifty yards on he used the whistle, over and again, waking Margaret’s huge iron voice, filling the street with steam. Childish, but he couldn’t stop himself. Then he was clear. Swanage dropping away behind as he climbed towards the heath. He built up speed. He was late; in that other world he seemed to have left so long ago, a man called Dickon would be worrying.
Way off on the left a semaphore stood stark against the sky. He hooted to it, the two pips followed by the long call that all the hauliers used. For a moment the thing stayed dead; then he saw the arms flip an acknowledgement. Out there he knew Zeiss glasses would be trained on the Burrell. The Guildsmen had answered; soon a message would be streaking north along the little local towers. The Lady Margaret, locomotive, Strange and Sons, Durnovaria; out of Swanage routed for Corvesgeat, fifteen thirty hours. All well…
Night came quickly; night, and the burning frost. Jesse swung west well before Wareham, cutting straight across the heath. The Burrell thundered steadily, gripping the road with her seven-foot drive wheels, leaving thin wraiths of steam behind her in the dark. He stopped once, to fill his tanks and light the lamps, then pushed on again into the heathland. A light mist or frost smoke was forming now; it clung to the hollows of the rough ground, glowing oddly in the light from the side lamps. The wind soughed and threatened. North of the Purbecks, off the narrow coastal strip, the winter could strike quick and hard; come morning the heath could be impassable, the trackways lost under two feet or more of snow.
An hour out from Swanage, and the Margaret still singing her tireless song of power. Jesse thought, blearily, that she at least kept faith. The semaphores had lost her now in the dark; there would be no more messages till she made her base. He could imagine old Dickon standing at the yard gate under the flaring cressets, worried, cocking his head to catch the beating of an exhaust miles away. The loco passed through Wool. Soon be home, now; home, to whatever comfort remained…
The boarder took him nearly by surprise. The train had slowed near the crest of a rise when the man ran alongside, lunged for the footplate step. Jesse heard the scrape of a shoe on the road; some sixth sense warned him of movement in the darkness. The shovel was up, swinging for the stranger’s head, before it was checked by an agonised yelp. ‘Hey ol’ boy, don’ you know your friends?’