Chapter 20
20
Ethan always enjoyed getting together with his friends and having a spirited game of darts in the Black Swan Inn. But, that evening, he found his mind kept wandering back to the Halloween train and the long to-do list to get everything done on time.
‘Hey,’ said his brother, taking the remaining darts out of his hands. ‘Do you want to play properly or do you want to try and hit as many of us as you can?’
Ethan looked at him. ‘What?’ he asked, in a daze.
Ryan rolled his eyes. ‘My point exactly. So put down the lethal objects and go get us all another round.’
Ethan wandered away to the bar but found his dad had been cornered by Dodgy Del.
‘Just let me have a little drive of the choo-choo train and we’ll call it even,’ Del was saying.
Ethan and Bob immediately started to shake their heads. Del didn’t have the best track record on driving any vehicle, let alone anything as big as a massive steam engine.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ began Bob.
‘There’s absolutely no way you can drive the train,’ added Ethan in a firm tone.
‘Aww, come on, Uncle Bob,’ said Del. ‘After all, I’m family. Kith and kin and all that.’
Bob looked at Ethan. ‘I guess he could stand in the driver’s cab for a while,’ said Bob eventually.
‘Whilst doing absolutely nothing and touching no levers whatsoever,’ insisted Ethan.
‘Great!’ said Del, seemingly oblivious to their warnings. ‘How about tomorrow morning?’
‘Well, the train is all set for another run with the carriages,’ said Bob. ‘I guess you could come along then if you’re free.’
‘I’ll make sure of it,’ said Del, smiling. ‘This is going to be amazing!’
‘Maybe if we go early then it’ll be too late,’ murmured Ethan.
‘In any case, I’d better not have anything else to drink tonight,’ replied his dad.
‘Yeah, you wouldn’t want to be drunk in charge of a steam engine,’ laughed Del.
Ethan also settled for a Coke Zero at the bar instead of another pint of beer.
When the evening was over and they had all wandered back along the path to Cranfield, he saw his dad safely home but almost bumped into Libby, Katy and Flora as he began to walk along the platform to the old school.
‘Good evening,’ he said to them all.
‘For some of us,’ said Katy, with a roll of her eyes.
She and Flora were holding up Libby in between them. She was swaying from side to side and looking quite drunk.
‘Had a good evening, have we?’ asked Ethan, with a grin.
‘Too good,’ replied Flora. ‘She finished off most of the gin bottle, I reckon.’
Libby broke free of her friends’ arms and staggered away to twirl and dance to some imaginary song.
When she nearly twirled over and onto the railway track, Ethan leapt forward to steady her.
‘Hello,’ she said, looking up at him with a wide smile. But her eyes were glassy with alcohol, he realised.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her that drunk.
‘Hello yourself,’ he told her. ‘I think it’s time we got you home.’
Luckily, her cottage was only a few short steps away.
But Libby went off in the other direction, running down the platform towards the station.
Ethan, Katy and Flora caught up with her as she crashed to a halt to stare up at the steam engine. It was all ready for its test run with the carriages, and apparently Dodgy Del too, the following morning.
‘Show me your train!’ said Libby imperiously to Ethan, as she spun back around again. ‘I’ve not had time to see it yet.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he replied.
Ethan exchanged a look with Katy and Flora, who merely smiled at him and said their goodnights before walking away.
Once they were alone on the platform, Libby took off her coat and flung her handbag onto a nearby bench before giving another little twirl. Then she walked over to stand in front of Ethan.
‘Show me the driving seat,’ said Libby, almost tripping over her feet.
‘You’ll lose your licence in this state,’ he replied, ushering her towards the driver’s cab.
She struggled on the steps and almost fell backwards onto him. ‘Whoops,’ she said, laughing.
Finally they made it inside, where she stood very close and his senses reeled from the soft aroma of the cocoa that she spent all her time around. She tried to take in what he was saying about the various levers, but in the end, Ethan gave up as he could see that she really wasn’t paying attention.
‘Can I blow the whistle?’ she said, reaching up to the cord.
‘Not if you want to wake up the whole of Cranfield,’ he said, grabbing her hand just in time. ‘Come on. It’s time for you to head home.’
But she began to shake her head. ‘I don’t want to,’ she replied. ‘I’ve let him down again.’
‘Him?’ Ethan wondered if she was talking about her dad.
He was so worried about her falling down the steps that he went first and lifted her down.
‘So you don’t want to go home? What do you want to do?’ he asked. ‘Make more chocolate?’
She groaned and shook her head. ‘No more chocolate,’ she sighed. ‘It’ll never be enough.’ Instead she pushed him away slightly and staggered along to look up at the first railway carriage. ‘What about the inside?’ she asked.
‘That at least is finished,’ he told her, opening up a door and showing her inside. He was pleased with the result. The seats were clean and the woodwork as polished as it could ever be. It seemed to be holding up, with the odd spot of patching up here and there still needed.
Libby clambered up the steps and looked along the corridor. ‘Wow,’ she murmured, before staggering into the first compartment. ‘This is amazing.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he told her, with a yawn. He had been working long days and was really quite tired now. ‘Come on then. It really is time to get you home, ready for your hangover tomorrow.’
But, to his surprise, she sank down on the seat instead, with a miserable expression. ‘But when I wake up there won’t be enough chocolate again,’ she told him, her words slurred.
He went to sit next to her. ‘What’s going on, Libs?’ he asked. He couldn’t make sense of what she was trying to say.
‘It’s all too much,’ she said. ‘I need a hundred more Libbys.’
‘A hundred more Libbys?’ he repeated, with a grin. ‘What a terrible thought.’
But Libby wasn’t smiling back at him. ‘You didn’t even want one of them,’ she muttered.
‘It was never about not wanting you,’ he told her. ‘It was about my own mess, not you. You were as perfect as you’ve always been.’
She shrugged her shoulders, her long blonde hair spilling all around him. Then she pulled her knees up to her chest, shivering in the cold air.
She seemed very sad, very low and he couldn’t stop himself from hesitantly putting his arm around her and drawing her near. Just for a moment, he promised himself.
She leant her head on his shoulder and he was taken back to a time when he had held her just like that, after one of the many arguments with her dad in her teenage years. Back when he was still pretending to be her friend and yet wishing it was so much more.
He felt her move her head and look up at him in the almost darkness.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she whispered.
His heart lurched at her words before he reached out to remove a stray lock of her pale hair that had got caught on her long eyelashes.
Her face was so close, her lips so near to his. It wouldn’t take much for him to lean forward and kiss her.
Ever since the prom, she had kept pushing him away, apart from that one memorable night in Las Vegas. Finally he thought that they had been true to each other, that they both felt the same way. But when he had woken up, she had left and they had never spoken of it since then.
He had missed her too. Missed her so much that he ached inside for her. So just to hold her at that moment felt like bliss. A dream.
They locked eyes in the darkness before she moved once more, snuggling her head into his neck. He pulled her closer and wrapped his coat around them both. For a long while, they remained like that. Then, feeling her breath steady and slow, his eyes grew heavy and they both fell asleep in the darkness of the railway carriage.