Chapter 18
18
It felt to Ethan as if time had flown past and suddenly Halloween was less than a fortnight away. The trouble was, there was still an awful lot of chores left on his to-do list to ensure that everything would run smoothly for the passengers.
And there were going to be plenty of them, according to his friend Joe. Using his vast business experience, Joe had come up trumps with creating a website for the ‘Cranfield Steam Train!’ experience. He had also placed an advertisement in the Cranbridge Times , which had garnered quite a bit of excitement and the number of people promising to turn up was becoming quite daunting.
Having already cleaned and painted one train carriage, suddenly the second one would need to be used as well. That one was in a poorer condition so had needed extra work on both the floor and the windows.
When Ethan went to grab a much-needed coffee from Platform 1 one afternoon, he was bombarded with questions from Katy.
‘Have you thought about what will happen when the passengers arrive?’ she asked, glancing at the worryingly long list she had made on her phone. ‘Are you going to put up some signs showing them where to go? And what about toilets and such. People will need facilities. What if it’s freezing cold? Are we going to plan on opening late that evening?’
Ethan knew she was only trying to help, but he didn’t need any more work to do.
‘I was hoping to give everyone a hand with the train,’ said Ryan. ‘But I can’t say that the additional income wouldn’t be welcome.’
Katy nodded. ‘Okay. Well, I can hold the fort here.’ She bit her lip. ‘Of course, we’ll have to keep opening late when the Christmas train is up and running in any case.’
Ryan looked at her. ‘ If the Christmas train happens,’ he told her.
‘If?’ repeated Katy, looking surprised as she spun around to face Ethan. ‘I thought it was what Eddie wanted?’
Ethan sighed. ‘It is. But let’s just get through Halloween first, shall we?’
‘But what about…?’ Katy began to ask once more.
Ethan held up his hand. ‘It’s a very short train ride of about thirty minutes. It’ll be fine.’
He hoped he sounded more assured than he felt. His actual main concerns were about ensuring that the train ran smoothly and that the carriages were also deemed safe when inspected by the train inspectors later that week.
But as he looked around the inside of the old station waiting room, he realised that there had been a change since the last time he had been there. Katy had decorated around the door with an autumnal wreath of flowers. In addition, there was a mixture of carved pumpkins and greenery around some hurricane lamps, which had thick white candles in them on each of the tables. There were also swathes of nets with fairy lights across the ceiling, along with a few strategically placed fake cobwebs.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, following his gaze. ‘I was going for a sophisticatedly spooky vibe.’
Ethan frowned. ‘Right.’
He spotted an old wicker broom in a corner, with yet more fairy lights. There were black and orange tapered candles on the tables, too.
‘Don’t you like it?’ asked Katy, catching his expression.
‘Of course,’ he replied, running a hand through his hair. ‘But I’ve just realised that it’s the one thing we haven’t thought of. Should we be decorating the train?’
Katy laughed until she realised that he wasn’t joking for once. ‘You mean you haven’t planned to decorate the train?’ she said, with a gasp.
He shook his head.
‘But it’s a Halloween-themed train!’ she spluttered.
‘Who’s talking about my famous train?’ asked Bob, coming into the coffee shop.
‘We haven’t thought about any decorations,’ said Ethan, looking round at his dad aghast.
‘Well, there’s plenty in the shops,’ said Ryan. ‘Just go and buy some.’
But, to Ethan’s surprise, Bob was shaking his head. ‘It’s all right, son,’ he told them. ‘It’s all in hand.’
‘How?’ asked Ethan, non-plussed. He could hardly imagine Bob and Eddie going online to order Halloween decorations.
‘As it happens, your cousin has offered to help out and is going to bring it all on the day.’ Bob smiled. ‘Isn’t that kind of him?’
But Ethan wasn’t smiling. ‘Dodgy Del is helping to decorate our Halloween train?’ he asked slowly.
‘For free!’ said Bob, beaming. ‘Isn’t that marvellous?’
Ethan blew out a long sigh and mentally crossed his fingers that the Halloween train wouldn’t end up being a horror show if Dodgy Del was involved.
Del was their cousin and a nice enough guy. He just had a habit of continually getting into trouble, normally leaving a trail of chaos and carnage behind him wherever he went.
‘Apparently he knows someone in the party industry,’ carried on Bob. ‘So it’s all sorted without any kind of price tag.’
‘Will there be any price to pay though?’ asked Ethan, thinking back to Del’s other disasters.
Ryan grimaced. ‘Let’s hope not, bro.’
Katy was looking out of the window onto the platform. ‘I can always get some more of our decorations and decorate the outside as well,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ replied Ethan. ‘That would be a great help.’
‘I shall think of it as a practice run for the Christmas train,’ Katy told him, her eyes lighting up. ‘Can you imagine dressing up the whole station for that? It’s going to look amazing.’
‘A big tree,’ said Bob, nodding his approval.
‘Wreaths and swags all lit up with fairy lights,’ added Katy.
‘I wonder if we could even get some fake snow from somewhere?’ said Bob, thoughtfully.
Katy clapped her hands together. ‘Wouldn’t that be magical?’ she replied.
As she and Bob carried on chatting, Ethan’s heart sank a little.
He wouldn’t be there. He would be in Seattle, helping create the lighting system for a sophisticated shopping mall, full of designer boutiques and fancy dining. It would be vastly different from tiny Cranfield in both structure and grandeur.
Normally, he would be grateful to be getting away around Christmastime. The memories of his mum trying to fake how happy she was stayed with him. Christmas had always made the sham of his parents’ marriage seem even worse to Ethan and he had managed to stay away throughout the festive season ever since leaving home.
But things felt a little different now. Katy had blown in like a hurricane a year ago and had changed both his brother’s life and the station for the better. There were more happy times now to be had in Cranfield for his family. In addition, he could feel himself growing closer to Ryan by spending more time in his company. They had always been brothers but were slowly becoming friends at last too.
Then he also had real friends now. Joe and Nico were also new to the area and weren’t tainted with the bad memories of the past. He liked the men and was enjoying getting to know them better.
Finally, there was Libby. No longer travelling around the world, even she seemed to be content to be staying on in the village.
Christmas would arrive and perhaps there would be a steam engine puffing in and out of the station past an enormous Christmas tree. Ethan found himself hoping that someone would take a video to send to him if that happened.
But it was time to go, he reminded himself. He always left, didn’t he?
However, this time, he felt a little wistful as he thought it.