‘They’re losing millions,’ Luke said. ‘So Dr Beeching’s solution is to cut all the branch lines that are turning in a loss. Like this one, presumably.’
‘How’d you know all that?’ Jeff said.
I heard the amusement in Luke’s voice. ‘Modern studies, Jeff. Our history teacher takes the classes. You’ve had him too, I think, Jack.’
‘What? Mr Shed?’
‘Yeah. You should hear him on Beeching. Thinks the guy’s an idiot.’
‘Why?’ Maurie this time.
I saw him lighting his cigarette from the end of Jeff’s, and the smell of cigarette smoke in this cold, empty place was oddly comforting. Like the conversation we were having that failed to address any of the real issues that confronted us.
‘Because he says that Beeching’s ruining the best rail network in the world. Reckons by the time he’s had his way and closed half of it down we’ll probably end up with the worst.’
‘Well, he’s had his way here,’ I said. And for a moment I had the strangest sense of witnessing the end of something. An era, maybe. A turning point in the history of our country. The dreams of a nation described by an abandoned railway station and torn-up rails. A track from the past leading to nowhere in an uncertain future. A track that we would follow ourselves sometime in the next few hours without any idea of where it would take us.
‘I suppose we’ll be in big trouble now,’ Jeff said. A reality check.
I lifted my head from Rachel’s. ‘Because of running the cops off the road?’
‘Well... that, too.’
‘What else?
Silence.
‘What else, Jeff?’ Luke said.
‘Well, I’d always figured we’d get the van back before anyone noticed it was missing. You know, get ourselves sorted in London, then I’d drive it back up to Glasgow.’
The tension in the waiting room positively crackled in the dark.
‘You stole it?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘I borrowed it. It was a trade-in at the garage. I’m responsible for stocktaking, so it wouldn’t have been missed for weeks.’
‘Jesus!’
Another first. I’d never heard Luke blaspheme before.
‘So now we’re car thieves as well. Thanks, Jeff.’
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the scene at the gate of the church. Residents gathered around the wreck of the van. The blue flashing lights of one or more police cars. All our gear abandoned in the back of it. The crackle of a police radio. Perhaps the registration number of the Thames being radioed back to base. How long before they discovered it was stolen? Hours? Days? Weeks? We were in more trouble now than I could ever have imagined.
I laid my cheek again on Rachel’s head and breathed in the scent of her. For some reason it lifted my depression.
Chapter seven
I
I must have dozed off, because when I came to I realized that everyone else was asleep. The one-time waiting room itself seemed to be breathing, filled with the soft sounds of sleep. Someone was snoring, but I couldn’t tell who.
My left arm, extended around Rachel’s waist to draw her closer, had gone to sleep as well. I could feel pins and needles in my hand, but I was reluctant to move in case I disturbed her. The gentle purr of her breathing was muffled by my chest where she had turned her head to rest against me. I reached across to feel the shape of it through soft hair, and stroked her, filled with a strange tenderness. I wondered what it was about her that had this effect on me, but I guess there is no way to ever understand these things.
She stirred, and I felt her head turning up, so that she was looking at me. I could barely see her. My voice was the faintest whisper in the night.
‘Why did you come to Leeds with him?’
I sensed her tension.
‘I made a mistake.’
‘Quite a mistake.’
I felt her nodding.
‘Sometimes you can’t see the real person for the person they want you to see. Andy was... well, he made me laugh. He was funny, and quite charming in his own way. He treated me with respect. I felt wanted.’
Her head lifted again, as if she desperately wanted to meet my eyes. But I couldn’t really see hers.
‘You can’t know how good it is to feel wanted, when you never have been your whole life.’
I finally moved my arm out from behind her and stretched it to get the blood flowing. ‘Who didn’t want you?’
‘My parents for a start.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘Oh, it is. Ask Mo. They wanted a boy. Someone to take on the family business. But there were birth complications and, after me, they couldn’t have any more kids. I always felt kind of resented. All I was good for was marrying and having kids to carry on the Jewish line.’ She pulled herself more upright. ‘You got a fag?’
I lit one, then another from mine, and handed it to her.
‘Not that they ever treated me badly. I got everything I ever wanted. Just to shut me up, really, while they got on with their own lives.’ I heard her ironic little laugh. ‘Poor little rich kid.’ She paused. ‘I was so unhappy, Jack. Andy rode into my life like a knight in shining armour. He was older than me. Had money, a car. Dead corny, I know, but he swept me off my feet.’
‘I remember Maurie telling us about how you ran away with him.’
A tiny laugh shook her. ‘Must have been the talk of the steamie.’
‘So when did you know you’d made a mistake?’
‘Almost immediately. You saw what Quarry Hills is like. And the flat. It was pretty much that way when we got there. From a posh villa in Whitecraigs to a tip of a council flat in Leeds. Could hardly have fallen further. And Andy... well, it was like he just became someone else. The real Andy. The one he’d been hiding behind all that crap.’
‘But he still wanted you.’
‘Oh yes. But he didn’t just want me. He wanted to possess me. I was his trophy bird. He’d fly off in a jealous rage if anyone so much as looked at me. He wouldn’t let me out on my own. I always had to be with him, or left behind at the flat. It was a nightmare. And it was pointless trying to make a difference, clean up the place, build the nest. He would only come and shit in it again.’
All of her tension had returned, and I could feel her body shaking, as if she were shivering from the cold. I tried to draw her closer to me under the coat, but she pulled away and stood up, her face glowing red for a moment as she dragged on her cigarette.
‘There’s got to be a loo in here somewhere.’
‘I doubt if there’ll be running water,’ I said.
But all she said was, ‘I’ll go see if I can find it.’
I watched the faintest shadow she cast soaked up by the dark, and heard the shuffle of her footsteps as she moved away across the waiting room. A door scraped open, and she disappeared off into the station house.
Silence returned, except for the communal breathing of the sleeping runaways. I thought briefly that I heard voices somewhere in the distance, and the revving of an engine. I listened hard. But it’s amazing how invasive and deafening silence can be. Whatever I thought I had heard, I didn’t hear it again.
It was impossible to know how long I waited for Rachel to return. I might even have drifted off again, just for a moment. But in the end I began to worry.
I got stiffly to my feet and stretched aching limbs, listening in the dark to see if I had disturbed any of the others before tiptoeing across the waiting room to find the door that she had opened. I almost bumped into it, and felt my way into what must once have been the original stationmaster’s house. It was pitch in here, as if someone had placed a soft, black blindfold over my eyes. I felt my way around the walls until I found another open door, and as I stepped out into a narrow hallway my eyes immediately detected light. The faintest flickering line of it, coming from under a door at the end of the hall. The air seemed infused with a strange, sweet, vinegary smell, cloying, and it caught in my throat. For just a moment my confusion was disorientating, before sudden realization dawned on me.