Sketches, Dispatches, Hull Tales and Ballads - University of Hull

highly indignant.
‘There’s been an incident and we’re not going all the way now.
Change for ᾽Ull at Bartonby-le-Wold, and remain on the platform.’
I wiped my palms furtively on my trouser-knees.
‘What sort of an incident?’ I asked, dreading the reply.
‘Protestors or rioters or sommat, chucking girders on t’line. Plain
vandalism, in’t it?’ Tracy-the-train-manager walked away, with a
gleam-catching movement of her pony-tail.
The old fool was excited. ‘Protesting about what?’ he shouted, but
Tracy strode resolutely on.
‘I used to be a protestor! CND. We used to march to Aldermaston,
I remember…’
I put my finger to my lips as another voice, the driver’s, perhaps,
came over the intercom. It was the same announcement, though
garbled and choked by poor amplification.
I’d never heard of Bartonby-le-Wold. It sounded remote in time
and place. How far from Hull it was I didn’t know; but it was far
enough. I’d need to make certain phone calls, tell certain white lies,
but it could be done. My heart raced. I zipped up the laptop, packed
away Mugby and my unread newspapers.
I saw myself arriving at the tiny rural station. Instead of staying
on the platform in the jostle of disgruntled passengers, I walked
resolutely away and turned down the little approach-road, hearing
birdsong, staring around me and storing everything I saw, as I had
in the days when I meant to write David Copperfield, in the days
when I went all over the British Isles because I needed material,
needed to see the world.
I smiled to myself. Not the world, but the wold. A peaceful place,
a room in an old pub, the kind Nella would call Dickensian, and
time stretching around me like the unassuming countryside.
It wasn’t too late. Nella planned to fall pregnant soon, but I was
pregnant already. My infant was only a few chapters long, cradled
in a rarely-updated Office Word document, but it was going to live
and grow, now that He trusted me. I could read His dreams. I ought
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