Chapter 9 #2
They fell silent to listen. There was a man’s voice, faint, in the distance.
Then a chuckle. Tim got up and walked down the carriage, hunting the source of the sound.
It was getting louder, closer. He traced it to the corner.
A vintage box radio was sitting on a shelf full of leather-bound books, looking like a tatty interloper.
He wasn’t one for interior design but maybe this was a feature; something so shabby it became chic.
‘It’s a radio that’s been left on,’ said Tim, picking it up, tweaking up the volume.
‘Bring it over,’ said Frank. ‘There might be some travel news.’
Tim set it down in the middle of the table.
‘That of course was Nat King Cole. I imagine we are all putting some coal on our fires tonight, aren’t we?
’ said the disembodied voice coming from the radio speaker, with a chuckle at the end for his pun.
‘Goodness me, what weather.’ A gentle voice, older, someone missing most of – if not all – his teeth.
‘You’re listening to BBC Radio Brian. The real BBC. That’s Brian Bernard Cosgrove, not the British Broadcasting Corporation. Coming to you from the very snowy moors of Yorkshire. I hope you’re all safe and sound in your houses. Blimey, it’s wild out there, isn’t it?’
‘BBC Radio Brian,’ repeated Tim with a humph. ‘I wonder how many listeners he’s got.’
‘Well, seven at least,’ said Jane.
‘I think we need one of the main news stations,’ said Tim, twiddling the knob first one way, then the other, but apart from white noise and a very very faint unstable connection to a foreign station, he found nothing. So back to Brian he headed.
‘Considering that we seem to be cut off from the rest of mankind, he might be the only way we have of finding out any information. I vote we keep him playing until his battery runs out,’ he said.
‘They’ll have spare batteries somewhere, I expect,’ said Roo. When you were rich to train-buying standard, surely you had people who thought of all the details, all the things you would be in danger of running out of.
‘Very pretty, isn’t it, though? I’m sitting here in my studio and my wife, Mrs BBC – Cath – has just brought me a lovely cup of hot chocolate laced with a little medicinal brandy because it’s a bit parky in my attic…
’ Radio Brian continued. All seven of them had roughly the same idea of what Radio Brian must look like sitting in his chilly top-of-the-house enclave, looking out at the snow, sipping from a huge mug.
A man much older than his years by the sound of him, imagining himself as the Shipping Forecast providing an essential service to a million listeners.
‘The snow is over the whole country now: Galashiels to Godolphin Cross. Apparently it’s come from Siberia.
They always blame Siberia, don’t they? About that broken-down lorry I told you about earlier on the B1234 – that sounds like a made-up road, doesn’t it?
– anyway, I’m happy to announce that the driver walked to the Dog and Duck where he is going to stay for the night, so he’s snug as a bug…
So to celebrate that, let me play you a little festive-themed tune – “Let it Snow” sung by Vaughn Monroe.
Do you know, this song was written on one of the hottest days of the year. Isn’t that amusing?’
Jane preferred the Dean Martin version. ‘Dino’ recorded it on a sweltering August day in 1959.
But it was in the winter of that year when she’d first heard it playing on the radio at the exact time when Wilfred Maltravers turned up for the first time at the door with a sack of coal over his shoulder.
He was seventeen, from Italian stock so he had thick black hair like Dean Martin and the face of a god and it was love at first sight – at least it was for her.
His obvious disdain for the gooey-eyed little soon-to-be sixteen-year-old girl didn’t put her off.
But then no one took that much interest in the young Jane and so that was par for the course.
Until she met David Carteret the year after, of course, then she didn’t know what to do with all the attention.
And that was why she fell so quickly, hook, line and sinker.
He was a glass of water to a permanently parched throat.
‘You must have some good memories attached to this song,’ said Frank, watching the smile spread on Jane’s face.
Jane clicked back into the present world, embarrassed slightly that her innermost thoughts might have manifested themselves.
‘Mixed,’ she answered him without elaborating.
It was strange how life turned out really.
She’d been secretly in love with Wilfred for twelve whole tortured months when she overheard him telling Mrs Blenkinsop from next door that he was going to the Christmas ball in the village hall.
She’d begged her best friend, Susan, to go to it with her.
But it snowed and Susan fell and hurt her leg and rather than let Jane down, she’d sent her older sister along with her ticket.
Blonde, beautiful Kitty, who had more curves than a country road.
Was it any wonder that when the cool, iceman coalman Wilfred clocked Kitty, he defrosted on the spot.
Jane left them jiving on the dance floor and went outside to cry and there she met David Carteret having a cigarette.
She knew him by sight, but he was older – a man, as opposed to a boy, and he really wasn’t her type at all, but she was hurt and her feelings were all over the place and they got talking and she said yes when he asked her out to the pictures.
I’ll show that Wilfred Maltravers that I’m someone to be desired. And the rest was history.
‘Where were we all supposed to be going then?’ asked Frank after taking a sip of his whiskey.
My, it was a good one, coating his mouth with an immediate grain hit, though his nose caught a light honey when he lifted the glass.
Just what a discerning doctor would have ordered for such a night.
He remembered then that Jane said she was going to Lancaster and Vincent was heading to Durham to drop off his passenger.
‘Grace and I have a cottage booked near the next station. We were staying there for Christmas and then coming home on the twenty-ninth.’
‘Sounds nice,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I’m going to just outside Durham, to my future in-laws’ house. It’s my official engagement party tonight. Vincent was driving me there.’
Roo had also presumed that Vincent and Elizabeth were a couple: her posh and him a bit of rough with his unruly brown hair, stubble and cheeky face, perfect opposite attraction. Ridiculously, considering she didn’t know them at all, she found herself a little disappointed that they weren’t.
‘Diamond Service Taxis, that’s me,’ said Vincent, fluttering a pair of jazz hands. ‘Guaranteed to get you to your destination on time, though I might need to alter that tag line.’
‘I don’t think anyone would sue you under the Trade Descriptions Act, given the extreme circumstances,’ said Jane with a smile. ‘I’m supposed to be going to Lancaster, to spend Christmas with my stepson and his wife.’
Elizabeth wasn’t the only one who picked up on Jane’s tone as she delivered the line, which was akin to saying she was off to the dentist for a root canal procedure.
‘And I’m off to an Airbnb in Whitby for Christmas with friends,’ said Roo. She turned quickly to her side. ‘What about you, Tim?’
‘Newcastle. I’m Santa at a corporate party for families.’
That surprised no one, because he looked exactly like a Father Christmas with his big build and thick white hair and beard. Although it had to be said, his manner was more Grinch.
‘Do you play Santa a lot?’ asked Roo.
‘Only at Christmas,’ came the clipped reply, as if Roo had asked him the world’s most stupid question.
It put her off him immediately because there was no need for that smartarse answer.
She’d live happily without knowing who made his costume or if he looked naturally like that or had to have his hair bleached, questions she might have asked him in the course of conversation to pass some time.
Or if he changed up his miserable face when he was in front of a load of kids.
‘I think they’ll have cancelled the party if that makes you feel any better,’ said Vincent. ‘Sounds like the snow’s not limited to around here, if the radio man is telling the truth.’
Tim gave a shrug by way of an answer, as if he wasn’t committing to believing it or not.
‘I suppose your party will have had to be cancelled as well, Elizabeth.’ Jane gave her a sorry smile.
‘Yes, I expect so.’ It was easier to agree than explaining that the Pennington family wouldn’t have cancelled the party even if there had been a nuclear war.
Elizabeth’s name would be mud for not moving heaven and earth to accommodate their laid-in-cement arrangements, for not circumventing any possible disturbance to them.
Most of the key people would have arrived that morning because they would be staying over Christmas: Gregory’s aunt and cousins, plus friends of the family who considered themselves relations.
The best man lived in Durham and would have got there early.
Elizabeth’s father arrived the previous night and would be furious that she hadn’t accepted the lift he offered her but instead stayed home to snatch a meet with an old university friend who was in the area for a few hours only.
The staff doing the catering and serving were a mix of live-in and locals.
The only people really missing were the non-essentials – and the newly affianced woman, of course.
She looked down at the diamond on her ring; it was huge, heavy, showy.
It kept swinging around and digging into the next finger.
It wasn’t the one she’d picked. She didn’t know why he’d even asked what sort of ring she’d like if his plan was always to override her choice.
‘I’m getting a report of a train stuck near Derringbury,’ said Brian.
‘That’s us. Shh, everyone,’ said Grace.
‘Let’s hope the passengers are listening, shall we,’ Radio Brian went on, ‘… because there will be no rescue tonight. So the message to them is if you are by some miracle hearing this, you hunker down and stay as warm and comfortable as you can. Let’s hope there’s some provisions on that train for those folks.
Some sandwiches in the dining car, maybe.
I’m always partial to an egg and tomato on a train personally.
And I’m also told there’s no electricity in Eskford at the moment so I hope everyone who lives there has candles in copious supply… ’
‘Oh great,’ said Grace. ‘So even if we did get there, we’d have nothing to see with or cook on. Not that we have any food anyway.’
No point in us taking anything like that, we’ll just buy it when we get there, Frank had said. He’d envisaged a trip out to the local farm shop and buying everything they needed there, lovely indulgences to make up for the second-best living arrangements.
He sighed. He didn’t think things could have gotten any worse, but his old mum used to say that just when you’d hit rock bottom, someone was sure to come along with a pick so you could keep digging down.
‘So the guard and driver must have made it to wherever they were going, then, if the guy on the radio has had a message about us,’ said Elizabeth, patting her chest where her heart lay. ‘That’s something we can stop worrying about, at least.’
‘What if we hadn’t just heard what we’ve heard?
’ said Roo. Her ‘what if’ nerve was cranked to the max.
What if there had been no way of getting into the front of the train and they’d had to stay in that frozen back carriage?
What if they’d felt duty-bound to go looking for the missing guard? What if…
Elizabeth cut off her torturous thoughts. ‘Well, we did hear, and we have enough to worry about without extra things, so put them out of your mind.’
‘Are you all right, Jane?’ Grace noticed that Jane looked a little… ‘wilted’ was the word that came to mind.
‘I think I might need a biscuit or something,’ came the answer.
Roo unzipped her cavernous cloth shoulder bag and hunted around in it, pulling out a mini Mars bar.
‘Here you go, I’ve always got choc stocks in my bag for emergencies.’
Jane’s hands were visibly trembling as she reached over for it.
‘If you’re sure, thank you, dear.’
‘Here, let me,’ said Roo, opening it for her. ‘When I have one of those low blood sugar moments, I’m no use to anyone either.’
‘Thank you.’
Frank polished off the last of his glass because that little scene had galvanised him into action. His own stomach had just done quite the grumble.
‘If we’re in here for the night, then we’d better find out what’s what, as Brian says.’
‘I’ll check out the facilities with you,’ said Vincent.
‘I’ll come along as well.’ Tim stood. And Roo immediately thought that he was going primarily because he didn’t want to stay with the women. He had a bit of a problem with the fairer sex, did old Santa, she’d bet anything on that.