Thursday
“You can go, if you like.”
It took a moment for Laura to comprehend what she had just been told, so intently had she been staring at the screen before her. She blinked, shook her head, and glanced over at her boss, before turning to check the clock on the wall; it showed there were still ten minutes left before the end of her shift.
“Are you sure?” she said; it had been a slow day, by any stretch of the imagination, but the biggest stories had a habit of breaking just as she was putting her coat on. She really didn’t want to get her hopes up, not with escape so close she could taste it.
Arthur smiled at her. “Yes, I am sure,” he said. “Reception just rang; Ward the one-man wonder is early, for a change.” He looked at her over the top of his glasses – he probably thought it made him look debonair, when it actually just emphasised his deepening wrinkles and thinning hair. “Go on, you’ve earned it.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” Laura asked again, even as she got to her feet. Maybe she shouldn’t be pushing her luck like this, but she’d feel guilty if she didn’t – and besides, she was certain Arthur wasn’t going to change his mind.
“Go on, get out of here – before I change my mind,” he said, half-laughing, just as she had anticipated; just as he had, in fact, every time since she started working at the Register.
She could feel him trying not to look at her as she walked over to pick up her coat and bag; he was getting better at hiding his attraction to her, but he still wasn’t very good at it. Still, he had never been anything but professional towards her – he’d even managed to make awkward small-talk over the past year or so.
“So, er...” he began as she was buttoning up her coat, “any plans for your long bank holiday weekend?”
“Nothing too exciting,” she replied. “I’m going home for the May Day celebrations. I’ve missed the last couple, so it’s going to be, y’know – pretty special.”
“Ah.” There was a brief, pregnant pause; Arthur really couldn’t do comfortable silences. “So… where is home for you again?”
“Up near Argleton.” That was true; it was also as much as she was willing to allow him. It wasn’t that she thought he was about to jump on a bike and follow her there – she just didn’t trust him not to laugh when she told him she came from Titfield. This seemed an unnecessarily short answer, so she added, “I’m looking forward to it – I haven’t been home since Christmas.”
“Really? Over four months? It’s not that far away...”
“Yeah, but...” Laura puffed her cheeks out and exhaled expressively. “It’s – what – nearly two hours to Argleton, and then another ninety minutes up a branchline… I can do it in a weekend, but it’s not easy.”
“Still, though...”
“I was supposed to be staying over New Years’, but I got called back – remember?” There was the merest hint of put-upon bitterness there; she hoped Arthur didn’t take it personally. “Then my boyfriend was going to come up over Easter, but he had to work...”
Maybe Arthur was getting better than she gave him credit for; his expression barely moved when she mentioned her boyfriend. She pitied him slightly, which she felt bad about – he deserved better than that. If she were single… and if he were five years younger… and if they had more in common and if they didn’t work together… and if- yeah, this wasn’t doing anyone any favours.
“How about yourself, you up to anything?” she said companionably as she made her way to the door. Arthur gave her a rueful look.
“In here – where else would I be?” She needn’t have worried about sounding bitter; her boss was leaving her in the shade.
“Oh, that’s a shame” - and it was, even if she didn’t sound like she believed it herself - “well, I hope it’s not too busy.”
That rueful half-smile was back. “I’m sure I’ll cope,” he replied. “Now go – enjoy yourself!”
“Are you-” Laura began, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.
“Look, if the Prime Minister does a Harold Holt I will call you, all right? Otherwise, go!”
She nodded in assent, and made for the door; as she opened it, though, she turned back to him with a quizzical expression. “Who’s Harold Holt?”
“You don’t remember? He was the Aussie Premier who got his head chopped off by a helicopter rotor.”
Oh, now she remembered; she winced as she recalled the video somebody had shown her at college. “Why not just use Barry Goldwater? At least people have heard of him...”
“Well, firstly,” came the reply, bristling with mock outrage, “more people should have heard of Harold Holt, and secondly-” Arthur’s tirade was cut short by the first of the night-shift scuffling awkwardly into the room. “Right, you can definitely go now. Have a wonderful time – see you Tuesday?”
“Wednesday,” Laura replied, stepping out into the corridor.
“Lucky!” came the response; she smiled, and waved a farewell as the door closed behind her. As she reached the stairs, she heard the muffled exclamation: "How did you manage to get lost in a lift?!"
The light was fading as she stepped outside; the cloud-cover which had been around all week was breaking up, and the western sky was eggshell-blue streaked with gold and violet. She fancied walking home, but she was too tired; by the same token, she didn’t want to stand around waiting for the trolleybus, especially as the temperature was dropping. And now she was on holiday, she felt like treating herself.
She reached into her pocket for her brightphone, taking a moment to enjoy the feel of it in her hand. It was old, by the standards of its kind – she’d had it for nearly eight years now, and she could feel the dings in the aluminium casing where she’d dropped it on the pavement or flung it across the room (always by accident, of course; although there had been that one incident when Ward had managed to wipe ten thousand words of an article she’d asked him to proof) – but it still felt thrillingly decadent, as much for its copious plastic parts as the possibilities of a portable gratlink. Many papers had taken to carrying periodic articles decrying the evils of brightphone culture – the right-wing ones bemoaning the ‘anti-social tendencies’ of their proliferation, their left-wing counterparts raging against the ‘materialism’ of objects so frequently replaced and yet rarely recycled. She’d written a well-received article recently about the inaccuracies of the latter argument – yes, very few brightphones went through the Shinwell System (not that breaking them down for parts was all that useful), but the vast, vast majority were re-engineered and sent abroad to be resold in developing economies like China, South Africa and Nigeria – although the last on was ironic, for an awful lot of them were made there. That article had gotten her a lot of notice, and a job offer from the Daily Mirror which she had turned down with a certain vehement pleasure; it may have been the most left-wing Rothermere paper, but it was still a Rothermere paper.
She began to pull up her phonebook, but paused; she wasn’t sure she could face the hassle of calling a cab, or that it was warm enough to wait around for one. As if on cue, the coconut-shell sound of hoofbeats echoed off the tall buildings. She raised her hand to hail it, crying: “Taxi!”
The driver was good; he pulled up right beside her, his charge snorting gently in the shafts. She told him where she was going; he gave her a rough fare, and told her to ‘hop in’. It was at that moment that the horse decided to relieve itself on the pavement.
It didn’t end up anywhere near her, which was a blessing – they did have an occasional tendency to, ah, ‘splash’, especially on tarmac – but the smell was atrocious; despite herself, she wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“Sorry love,” said the driver, with nary a hint of bashfulness, “he’s been a bit sick lately. Vet says he’s got worms or something.” Without waiting for a response now he knew Laura was comfortably seated, he hauled on the reins and they set off.
It was a rather nice taxi, all things considered; the seat was comfortable, if weatherbeaten, and the fare-meter was pleasingly chunky, black metal with the numerals raised and burnished. She watched the pennies tick by for a few shillings’ worth of distance, but she increasingly found herself leaning over one side and watching the city go by.
There were regular moments of light and noise; pools of revelry as they passed pubs, bars and other hostelries. These were interspersed with spaces of solitude and silence; commercial streets, shuttered and deserted, with the occasional lightened window on the upper floors breaking the monotony. Vehicles passed on the other side; buses, their windows lit and decks half-empty, humming quietly, and electricabs with radios blasting pop music, several sporting intricate neon patterns on their roofs and sides. The clip-clop of hooves seemed to be the loudest thing on the road. Everywhere there was the scent of cherry blossoms; the trees lined the roads and filled gardens and parks, and their petals formed drifts on the pavements.
They couldn’t actually get down her street; a short, rotund man in overalls had stopped his traction engine across the junction and was having a furious row with a gangly, bearded pensioner on a battery-bike. Laura disembarked around the corner and walked briskly to her door; it had gotten surprisingly chilly with the sun properly down. She let the argument wash over her as she let herself into the building, and climbed the stairs to her chilly flat in near-darkness.
Whatever had caused the argument, it had ended by the time she got in; there was no sign of the cyclist, and the traction engine was reversing and attempting to make a turn with its trailer. The slightest scent of steam hung in the air; any stronger and it would have been a serious problem, but it was just enough to get the nostalgia flowing without getting into the fabrics.
She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply; for a moment, she was already aboard the Darling Buds Express on that final grand sweep into Titfield…
...She didn’t think she’d ever been as homesick as she was right now.
She stood there for a moment, enjoying the last moments of her reverie, before the vibrations of her phone brought her back to reality. She scrabbled to check the message.
Arthur
20:16
Jus hearin frm govt leaks tht
Bethlehem Summit mite b on
verge o colaps alredy.rekn
mite b dun by Sun
Oh, god – she had barely been gone an hour, and already work was out for blood! She typed a reply with hands she tried to keep from shaking.
20:17
Nah wel b fin.Enjoy yr hols luv!
She stood staring at the response for a moment, then sighed with relief. She took a moment to let the sense of longing soak back into her soul, before shaking her head and going to find a jumper.
“You can go, if you like.”
It took a moment for Laura to comprehend what she had just been told, so intently had she been staring at the screen before her. She blinked, shook her head, and glanced over at her boss, before turning to check the clock on the wall; it showed there were still ten minutes left before the end of her shift.
“Are you sure?” she said; it had been a slow day, by any stretch of the imagination, but the biggest stories had a habit of breaking just as she was putting her coat on. She really didn’t want to get her hopes up, not with escape so close she could taste it.
Arthur smiled at her. “Yes, I am sure,” he said. “Reception just rang; Ward the one-man wonder is early, for a change.” He looked at her over the top of his glasses – he probably thought it made him look debonair, when it actually just emphasised his deepening wrinkles and thinning hair. “Go on, you’ve earned it.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” Laura asked again, even as she got to her feet. Maybe she shouldn’t be pushing her luck like this, but she’d feel guilty if she didn’t – and besides, she was certain Arthur wasn’t going to change his mind.
“Go on, get out of here – before I change my mind,” he said, half-laughing, just as she had anticipated; just as he had, in fact, every time since she started working at the Register.
She could feel him trying not to look at her as she walked over to pick up her coat and bag; he was getting better at hiding his attraction to her, but he still wasn’t very good at it. Still, he had never been anything but professional towards her – he’d even managed to make awkward small-talk over the past year or so.
“So, er...” he began as she was buttoning up her coat, “any plans for your long bank holiday weekend?”
“Nothing too exciting,” she replied. “I’m going home for the May Day celebrations. I’ve missed the last couple, so it’s going to be, y’know – pretty special.”
“Ah.” There was a brief, pregnant pause; Arthur really couldn’t do comfortable silences. “So… where is home for you again?”
“Up near Argleton.” That was true; it was also as much as she was willing to allow him. It wasn’t that she thought he was about to jump on a bike and follow her there – she just didn’t trust him not to laugh when she told him she came from Titfield. This seemed an unnecessarily short answer, so she added, “I’m looking forward to it – I haven’t been home since Christmas.”
“Really? Over four months? It’s not that far away...”
“Yeah, but...” Laura puffed her cheeks out and exhaled expressively. “It’s – what – nearly two hours to Argleton, and then another ninety minutes up a branchline… I can do it in a weekend, but it’s not easy.”
“Still, though...”
“I was supposed to be staying over New Years’, but I got called back – remember?” There was the merest hint of put-upon bitterness there; she hoped Arthur didn’t take it personally. “Then my boyfriend was going to come up over Easter, but he had to work...”
Maybe Arthur was getting better than she gave him credit for; his expression barely moved when she mentioned her boyfriend. She pitied him slightly, which she felt bad about – he deserved better than that. If she were single… and if he were five years younger… and if they had more in common and if they didn’t work together… and if- yeah, this wasn’t doing anyone any favours.
“How about yourself, you up to anything?” she said companionably as she made her way to the door. Arthur gave her a rueful look.
“In here – where else would I be?” She needn’t have worried about sounding bitter; her boss was leaving her in the shade.
“Oh, that’s a shame” - and it was, even if she didn’t sound like she believed it herself - “well, I hope it’s not too busy.”
That rueful half-smile was back. “I’m sure I’ll cope,” he replied. “Now go – enjoy yourself!”
“Are you-” Laura began, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.
“Look, if the Prime Minister does a Harold Holt I will call you, all right? Otherwise, go!”
She nodded in assent, and made for the door; as she opened it, though, she turned back to him with a quizzical expression. “Who’s Harold Holt?”
“You don’t remember? He was the Aussie Premier who got his head chopped off by a helicopter rotor.”
Oh, now she remembered; she winced as she recalled the video somebody had shown her at college. “Why not just use Barry Goldwater? At least people have heard of him...”
“Well, firstly,” came the reply, bristling with mock outrage, “more people should have heard of Harold Holt, and secondly-” Arthur’s tirade was cut short by the first of the night-shift scuffling awkwardly into the room. “Right, you can definitely go now. Have a wonderful time – see you Tuesday?”
“Wednesday,” Laura replied, stepping out into the corridor.
“Lucky!” came the response; she smiled, and waved a farewell as the door closed behind her. As she reached the stairs, she heard the muffled exclamation: "How did you manage to get lost in a lift?!"
The light was fading as she stepped outside; the cloud-cover which had been around all week was breaking up, and the western sky was eggshell-blue streaked with gold and violet. She fancied walking home, but she was too tired; by the same token, she didn’t want to stand around waiting for the trolleybus, especially as the temperature was dropping. And now she was on holiday, she felt like treating herself.
She reached into her pocket for her brightphone, taking a moment to enjoy the feel of it in her hand. It was old, by the standards of its kind – she’d had it for nearly eight years now, and she could feel the dings in the aluminium casing where she’d dropped it on the pavement or flung it across the room (always by accident, of course; although there had been that one incident when Ward had managed to wipe ten thousand words of an article she’d asked him to proof) – but it still felt thrillingly decadent, as much for its copious plastic parts as the possibilities of a portable gratlink. Many papers had taken to carrying periodic articles decrying the evils of brightphone culture – the right-wing ones bemoaning the ‘anti-social tendencies’ of their proliferation, their left-wing counterparts raging against the ‘materialism’ of objects so frequently replaced and yet rarely recycled. She’d written a well-received article recently about the inaccuracies of the latter argument – yes, very few brightphones went through the Shinwell System (not that breaking them down for parts was all that useful), but the vast, vast majority were re-engineered and sent abroad to be resold in developing economies like China, South Africa and Nigeria – although the last on was ironic, for an awful lot of them were made there. That article had gotten her a lot of notice, and a job offer from the Daily Mirror which she had turned down with a certain vehement pleasure; it may have been the most left-wing Rothermere paper, but it was still a Rothermere paper.
She began to pull up her phonebook, but paused; she wasn’t sure she could face the hassle of calling a cab, or that it was warm enough to wait around for one. As if on cue, the coconut-shell sound of hoofbeats echoed off the tall buildings. She raised her hand to hail it, crying: “Taxi!”
The driver was good; he pulled up right beside her, his charge snorting gently in the shafts. She told him where she was going; he gave her a rough fare, and told her to ‘hop in’. It was at that moment that the horse decided to relieve itself on the pavement.
It didn’t end up anywhere near her, which was a blessing – they did have an occasional tendency to, ah, ‘splash’, especially on tarmac – but the smell was atrocious; despite herself, she wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“Sorry love,” said the driver, with nary a hint of bashfulness, “he’s been a bit sick lately. Vet says he’s got worms or something.” Without waiting for a response now he knew Laura was comfortably seated, he hauled on the reins and they set off.
It was a rather nice taxi, all things considered; the seat was comfortable, if weatherbeaten, and the fare-meter was pleasingly chunky, black metal with the numerals raised and burnished. She watched the pennies tick by for a few shillings’ worth of distance, but she increasingly found herself leaning over one side and watching the city go by.
There were regular moments of light and noise; pools of revelry as they passed pubs, bars and other hostelries. These were interspersed with spaces of solitude and silence; commercial streets, shuttered and deserted, with the occasional lightened window on the upper floors breaking the monotony. Vehicles passed on the other side; buses, their windows lit and decks half-empty, humming quietly, and electricabs with radios blasting pop music, several sporting intricate neon patterns on their roofs and sides. The clip-clop of hooves seemed to be the loudest thing on the road. Everywhere there was the scent of cherry blossoms; the trees lined the roads and filled gardens and parks, and their petals formed drifts on the pavements.
They couldn’t actually get down her street; a short, rotund man in overalls had stopped his traction engine across the junction and was having a furious row with a gangly, bearded pensioner on a battery-bike. Laura disembarked around the corner and walked briskly to her door; it had gotten surprisingly chilly with the sun properly down. She let the argument wash over her as she let herself into the building, and climbed the stairs to her chilly flat in near-darkness.
Whatever had caused the argument, it had ended by the time she got in; there was no sign of the cyclist, and the traction engine was reversing and attempting to make a turn with its trailer. The slightest scent of steam hung in the air; any stronger and it would have been a serious problem, but it was just enough to get the nostalgia flowing without getting into the fabrics.
She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply; for a moment, she was already aboard the Darling Buds Express on that final grand sweep into Titfield…
...She didn’t think she’d ever been as homesick as she was right now.
She stood there for a moment, enjoying the last moments of her reverie, before the vibrations of her phone brought her back to reality. She scrabbled to check the message.
Arthur
20:16
Jus hearin frm govt leaks tht
Bethlehem Summit mite b on
verge o colaps alredy.rekn
mite b dun by Sun
Oh, god – she had barely been gone an hour, and already work was out for blood! She typed a reply with hands she tried to keep from shaking.
Laura
20:17
Do you need me to come back in?
Arthur20:17
Do you need me to come back in?
20:17
Nah wel b fin.Enjoy yr hols luv!
She stood staring at the response for a moment, then sighed with relief. She took a moment to let the sense of longing soak back into her soul, before shaking her head and going to find a jumper.
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