Chapter 16
Roo was up first, dressed and stole out of the cabin with her notebook and pen so as not to wake Elizabeth. She couldn’t believe she’d slept as soundly as she had given all that was going on in her brain.
Christmas Eve. It wasn’t how she expected it to start and she wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. At least she was living with people and not in her own head, which wasn’t a good place to be at the moment.
She headed into ‘Liberty’, the lounge with the fancy fireplace, and sat on one of the sofas, pulling cushions around her because it was cool in there this morning.
There wasn’t much of a view through the windows, in fact there wasn’t any view because the vista had been swallowed whole by a white haze of freezing fog.
More snow was falling. Had it even stopped and given itself a break from yesterday? she wondered.
It was eerily quiet, more silent than silent but just after she clicked on her biro to write something, in the distance she could have sworn she heard the faintest of ringing sounds – rhythmic, ring-ring and then a pause before ring-ringing again.
She tilted her head all ways to see if it disappeared, but it was still there.
At what age did tinnitus start? Could be that.
Everything else in her life was tits up; her brain fooling her into hearing things that weren’t there would be a cherry on her cake of shit.
It was a little too chilly to work, she decided.
She needed proper warmth – inside and out.
She dumped her writing pad on a chair, left the comfort of the sofa and bent to the fireplace.
There was a pile of old newspapers, kindling and matches as well as a stack of logs and she’d been adept at making fires since she’d been a kid.
The first place she’d lived in with central heating had been three years ago when she’d rented her bedsit.
Once experienced, she had no idea how she’d ever coped without it.
She made some tight twists out of the newspaper, piled the kindling and a couple of the smaller logs on top and set it aflame.
She waited until she saw the wood burning steadily before heading down through the dining car to the galley in ‘Old Tom’.
There, she put the kettle on the stove to boil some water.
She really needed something much stronger than coffee to get through today but she wouldn’t go down that road.
She’d seen the damage done when turning to substances to numb the mind.
She also knew it was human nature to hurt oneself when the legitimate target was unavailable.
She heard a door shut along the passage.
Someone else was up and probably heading this way for a coffee too.
She only hoped it wasn’t Tim. She didn’t want to see his miserable face first this morning.
She called ‘Hello’ but no one materialised.
And when she left the galley to go back to the lounge, she was met with only that still superlative silence.
Santa Claus
Wanker Claus
Jolly old St Prickerlas
It was quite satisfying how many names Santa had that could be distorted.
It wasn’t her finest work, admittedly, but it did give her a giggle as she was writing it and that was a Christmas miracle in itself, thought Roo.
Then in he walked himself: Tim, Tim, the Brother Grim.
Roo opened her mouth to say ‘Morning’ but, on seeing it was just her in the lounge, he carried on through, passing her before she could even form the word in her mouth.
‘Sweet baby Jesus,’ said Roo to herself. And not in any meaning associated with the nativity. The distant ringing bells might have been in her imagination, but him being a total rude misogynistic tosser was as real as could be.
In the galley, Tim found the still-warm kettle on the stove.
A voice in his head said, ‘It wouldn’t have killed you to say good morning.
’ What was the matter with him? Well, he knew that.
The closer it got to Christmas, the more he’d have to activate his ‘ho-ho-ho’ muscle for the benefit of others while inside he would retreat further and further into the dark cave of himself.
At least now, not having to perform for a massive group of people and excited kids, he could allow his inner Krampus to ooze out of him unhindered.
But it should only be poisoning himself, no one else was deserving of that.
He’d just lit the gas under the kettle when a chirpy ‘Morning’ from behind cut off his thoughts. A word brimming with all the cheer that daren’t visit him for fear of being told to eff off.
‘Oh, good morning, Frank.’
‘You beat me to it. I thought I’d be first up.’
‘And young Roo has beat us both. I’ve just spotted her in the lounge. She’s got a fire going.’
Frank rubbed his hands together as a shiver claimed his shoulders. ‘I know, I saw. Have you seen it outside – proper pea-souper?’
‘Yep. I didn’t know if it was fog at first or if we’d been buried alive in the snow.’
Frank opened the fridge for the milk and his eyebrows rose.
‘Aye aye, I think someone’s had a midnight feast.’ The rest of the chicken he’d brought from the storage fridge in ‘Yongle’ had been obliterated, clean bones left on the plate and what remained of the big ham had been ripped into by hungry fingernails by the looks of it.
And the same person/creature had bitten straight into the remaining pork pie.
That wasn’t on, though he couldn’t think which of the train people was likely to have acted like this.
Roo? Naw. Tim might have been his first choice if someone had held a gun to his head; only because he could have sneaked out of his cabin unseen, unlike the others, but he looked as shocked as Frank when he saw the carnage.
‘Bloody hell, is there a wolf loose?’
‘Who’d do this?’ said Frank.
‘My money’s on Jane,’ said Tim. He didn’t intend to crack a funny, it surprised him as much as it amused Frank, who chuckled.
‘It can’t be any of us, Frank. But who else?’
‘Weird.’ Frank shook his head in confusion. He tipped the savaged food into the bin though. He didn’t want to eat anything that someone else’s gnashers had been all over.
‘Tell you what else is weird, Tim, but a couple of times going up to the front of the train, I’ve felt… as if I wasn’t alone. Now I don’t believe in all that supernatural bollocks but… something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.’
‘I don’t think ghosts are partial to pork pies,’ said Tim.
Someone was, however, and Frank didn’t want to be wasting any more food, so he’d find out who the culprit was and warn them off. If that had happened in his kitchen in the Salty Cockle, he’d have had their hands in the bacon slicer.
Grace feigned sleep until Jane had left the cabin because she felt a bit awkward after their exchange last night and didn’t really know what to say to smooth things over.
She’d snapped at Frank when he suggested that maybe it was time she had some therapy.
She’d snapped at him more than she had at her sister-in-law when she’d said the same.
She’d turned Frank into her whipping boy and she hated herself for it.
She hated herself more than she hated him, than she hated the world.
And she hated God most of all and that’s why he was punishing her probably.
She was hate personified, everything else had been boiled and burned away except that emotion.
She had no love, no joy, no cheer left and no way of generating more.
She ate and breathed only to feel pain and anger and she was tired of it, so very tired.
She washed and dressed and then, hearing voices in the next carriage, walked into the lounge to find most of the train people sitting around the fireplace drawing warmth from blazing logs and mugs of tea and coffee in their hands. Frank wasn’t there though and neither was Tim.
‘You all look like a Christmas card,’ she said, trying to say something nice and positive. Especially in front of Jane. Jane smiled at her though; she hadn’t quite written her off as a horrible person then, the way she had written herself off.
‘Your old man’s in the kitchen,’ said Vincent. ‘We all offered to help, but…’
‘Oh, I know,’ replied Grace. ‘He can’t share his kingdom.’
‘We’re all discussing who the phantom midnight scoffer is,’ said Jane. ‘Apparently someone had a bit of a meat feast during the night. I can vouch for you, Grace, because if you’d stirred, I’d have heard.’
‘Hit the fridge like a famished fox apparently,’ added Roo with relish.
‘Really?’ Grace didn’t know these people but she wouldn’t have had any of them down for that sort of behaviour, especially as Frank had put together quite the supper for them all.
‘Where’s Poirot when you need him?’ Elizabeth stood up. ‘Can I get you a coffee, Grace?’
‘No, you’re fine. I’ll go and see Frank. He won’t want me hanging around him if he’s in chef-mode so I’ll probably be straight back. He says I can’t boil water without burning it.’
Jane watched her leave; she could tell from her gait she was carrying weight on her shoulders as well as in her heart. She’d thought a lot about what Grace had said to her the previous night. Maybe she could help her. Even if it did mean she’d have to make herself bleed to do so.