“All right, but you have to convince us that it might really be true,” warned Masters. “Let’s hear what today’s youth have to offer in the way of narrative ability. The floor of the carriage is yours.”
Ben cleared his throat.
“You could have warned me it was set in the future,” complained Harold Masters after he had finished. “That counts as science fiction and I don’t like science fiction.” The student sheepishly returned the clippings to his bag.
“So you didn’t like the story, Harold?” asked Summerfield, surprising himself with his decision to defend the boy.
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that it can’t be true because it hasn’t happened yet.”
“But it’s a possible future, one of many. Who knows what will happen to us? And who’s to say it isn’t happening right now in a parallel universe?”
“Well, I liked it,” said Jane, refilling her glass. “Although I think the wine has gone to my head a little. Maybe that’s making me more susceptible.”
“Perhaps.” Summerfield checked his watch. “It’s getting late. We should all be growing susceptible. The floodgates to the supernatural world are open tonight, remember. What time do we get to the coast?”
“A little after eleven,” Jane replied. “I informed the hotel of our arrival time. They weren’t terribly happy about it.” She turned to the students. “Where are you three off to?”
“Hallowe’en party. We have friends who rent a house on the edge of Dartmoor.”
“I bet your pals have some interesting tales to tell about mysterious goings-on on the moors, eh?” said Summerfield.
“No.” Claire grimaced as though the idea was the stupidest she had ever heard. “They just smoke dope all day and play video games.”
“Couldn’t you revive the tradition of oral history and get them to make up some stories?” asked Masters.
“Oh for God’s sake, Harold,” Jane exploded, “that’s not what young people want to do with their time.”
“As the father of two children, Jane, I think I can safely say that I know how the juvenile mind operates.”
“Do you? I find that hard to believe. Our offspring are certainly not children, they’re not even teenagers any more, and not only do I not know who Lara has been seeing lately or where Tyler is, I’m not entirely sure I would recognise either of them if they sent me recent photographs.” She was referring to the snapshot their son had mailed from Nepal earlier in the year. The emaciated young man with the shaved head and the wispy beard seemed to bear no resemblance to the thoughtful child who used to sit beside her at night writing endless fantastic stories in his school exercise book.
“I’m working on a story at the moment,” said Kallie.
“It’s not set in the future, is it?” asked Masters cautiously.
“No, London Docklands, in the present day. I read about electromagnetic pollution somewhere. Microwaves can create hot spots, areas rippling with forcefields stronger than the most powerful ocean cross-currents. The story’s about a corporation that accidentally creates them in its offices.”
“Sounds a bit far-fetched.” Summerfield wrestled another wine bottle away from the concerned waiter and overfilled everyone’s glasses as the train hammered over a set of points.
“Big business as the evil bogeyman, it’s an ever-popular target for student paranoia,” complained Masters, unimpressed. “There’s no human dimension in the stories of the young. Too many issue-led morality tales, the sort they have on American television shows, nothing from direct experience.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” snapped Jane, “people can only reflect the times in which they live. There are no traditional heroes left, no explorers, no captains, no warriors. I don’t know why you expect so much from others. One thing that years of listening to you has taught me is that you’re incapable of telling a decent story. It’s a talent you singularly lack, because you have no perception. You’re best off leaving it to other people.”
Shocked by her own honesty, she stopped herself from saying any more. An uncomfortable atmosphere settled on the table. Stung, Masters stared out into the rainswept darkness, avoiding his wife’s angry gaze.
“Come on, chaps, let’s not get personal.” Summerfield clapped his hands together and startled Jane, who was gazing glumly into her wine, hypnotised by the steady movement of the train. Most of the carriage was deserted now. Even the guard was dozing in an end seat, his head lolling on his shoulder. It was as though they had been freed from the shackles of time and place, the coordinates that underpinned their lives slipping quietly away into the night.
Claire shifted across the aisle to the opposite seat and faced them. “I’ve got a story,” she said mischievously. “About some friends of mine who got locked in a pub.” And she told it, although it didn’t sound true.
“Well.” Jane cleared her throat at the end, slightly flummoxed. “That was certainly frank. Although I’m not sure it’s really a fit subject to turn into a dramatic piece.”
“Some people are uncomfortable around the subject of sexuality,” mumbled Claire, meaning older people, meaning her. The senior members of the group were a little embarrassed by the girl’s intensity, although it obviously did not bother Kallie or Ben. Jane drained her glass and pushed back into her seat, unsettled by what she had heard. Masters cleared a spot on the window and peered out. “My watch has stopped. I thought we’d be able to see the sea by now. Doesn’t the train run along the coast for the last hour?”
“There’s not much of a moon.”
“Even so, you should be able to see something.”
The carriage shifted across a set of uneven points, and the overhead lights flickered. Electricity crackled somewhere beneath their feet.
“Maybe we’re on the Hallowe’en train to hell.” Summerfield looked around. Jane was half asleep. Suddenly the train lurched hard and shuddered to a hard halt, its brakes squealing. Wine bottles and glasses toppled on tables, and several pieces of luggage bounced down from the overhead racks.
“What on earth. ”
Jane blearily pulled herself upright. “Are we there?”
“God knows where we are.” The doctor pressed his forehead against the window. “It’s pitch black out there. I can’t see a thing.”
Ben retrieved his backpack from beneath his seat. “I’m going to ask someone.”
“You needn’t bother asking the guard,” said Masters, pointing. “He seems to have wandered off.”
“Maybe he’s dead,” Summerfield stage-whispered, “drugged, shot with a poison dart, a minor character in an Agatha Christie play, someone whose Rosencrantz-like role exists simply to fulfil a duty to the plot.”
“Now who’s muddling fact and fiction?” Masters asked uncomfortably. He turned to his wife. “Are you warm enough?”
“You’ve noticed it too, then.” The heating had gone off. They could hear the steady tick of the radiators cooling all along the carriage. Jane sensed that there was something wrong, as if the world had slipped a notch deeper into darkness. Panic was descending on her like a cold veil of rain. She dug into her purse for the tablets Dr Colson had prescribed, but could not find them. She had taken two earlier. What had she done with the rest of the packet? When she turned to her husband, she found that he was making his way along the aisle toward the exit.