The Late Train

Cedric Gates, wearing his old tweed hat, a threadbare raincoat, and using his umbrella as a walking stick, set off down the hill and through the village to the railway station. He made this journey every evening in the faint hope that Eunice, his wife, would be on the late train from the city. It was now almost twenty years since she left on the Wednesday morning train, intending to spend the day shopping in the city before having tea with her sister Violet and returning home on the late train that evening. Cedric never went with his wife on these weekly trips. He hated the city and couldn't stand Violet, but he always accompanied her to the station in the morning and would be on the platform waiting for her when the late train brought her home again that night.

On that last occasion she did not return or, as Cedric had always maintained, the train never arrived. At Cedric's insistence, Tom Shepherd, the Stationmaster, himself unsure whether the train had actually passed through the station, telephoned Lower Dengate, three stations further on and the end of the line to check. He was assured that the train had arrived and the locomotive and its four carriages were standing at the platform ready for the morning run.

Cedric rang Violet from the phone box outside the station, only to be told that Eunice had been her usual cheerful self and had left in plenty of time to catch the train. When nothing was heard from her the following day, he sought the aid of the police, who added her to their list of missing persons. Over the ensuing weeks, months, and years, nothing was ever heard from or about Eunice Gates. Unable to do anything else, Cedric continued to meet the late train in the hope that one day his wife would return.

It was no longer an old puffing and clanking steam train but three streamlined carriages pulled by a silver diesel-electric locomotive. It arrived earlier than the old train and no longer waited at the end of the line until the morning but turned around and dashed back to the city, making lightning fast stops at the stations along the way. Old Cedric usually remained at the station until after the train made its stop on the return trip before giving up all hope and trudging back up the hill.

As he always did, he sat on the seat just outside the waiting room where he was protected from the weather by the awning. The imminent arrival of the train on its return journey to the city was announced by an androgynous, computer-generated voice, which floated through small, strategically placed speakers. But on this occasion, it was almost drowned out when the ancient speakers, still suspended high above the platform and looking like battered, silver trumpets, crackled into life. A voice which Cedric recognised as that of old Fred, the former porter whose funeral he had attended a decade ago, announced the arrival of the late train from the city. This was followed by the still-remembered whistle of a steam locomotive from the cutting on the outskirts of the village.

The old man stiffened as, with loud blasts on whistle and hooter and the screech of steel wheels on iron rails, the trains approached each other along the single line. They came to a grinding halt at the station in a cloud of steam, smoke and diesel fumes, their buffers barely touching. The driver of the old locomotive wiped the sweat from his brow on a wad of greasy cotton waste, pulled on the worn leather cap, the badge of his office, jumped down from the footplate and advanced menacingly towards the dark-skinned driver of the modern train now standing belligerently in the doorway of his cab.

"Where the Hell do you think you're going in that silly little thing!" the old man shouted. "Back up and keep out of my way. We're going to be late. I've been on this run for thirty years. I've never been late once and I don't intend to start now."

"Whatdaya mean you're going to be late? I'm the one who'll be late, Man. Shift that piece of antique junk."

They continued to argue while several bowler-hatted gents stuck their heads out of the windows of the old train to see what was going on. A lone woman passenger alighted from it and looked down the platform towards the old man. Cedric jumped to his feet and hurried towards her.

"The train is terribly late, I've been waiting such a long time," he complained.

"Never mind, Dear, I'm here now."

Taking his arm, she steered him away from the arguing drivers and out through the unattended station exit.

Young Jim Martin is all that remains of the staff of the village station. He is stationmaster, ticket office attendant, signalman, porter and gardener. Short, slightly built and only sixteen years old, he looks even younger in the uniform which is still too big for him, even though his mother has shortened the sleeves of the jacket and taken up the trousers. He hadn't bothered to go out on to the platform when the late train to the city made its brief stop -- nobody ever got on or off -- and it was not until he was locking up for the night that he noticed the old man slumped in his seat. Jim had never seen a dead body but as he came closer, he felt certain old Mr. Gates had waited for his wife for the last time.