Olive Senior - PEN International

the pull of gravity, found the upright position, placed one hand on his chest and
began to sing. His voice was light and melodious:
In summertime when flow’rs do spring
and birds sit on each tree,
let lords and knights say what they will,
there’s none so merry as we.
WORDS ... PAULINE MELVILLE 13
Other waiting passengers looked away. The songster seemed to have stepped out
of a different period of history. When he had finished singing he looked around and
said, in a melancholy tone, to no one in particular:
‘Have you been to Milton Keynes? There’s nothing there.’ He paused. ‘Nothing
there,’ he repeated, and heaved a great sigh, staring into the middle distance.
The son, in contrast to the father’s relaxed manner, appeared precise, fastidious and
nervous. There was something mocking in the expression on his pale face as he
looked around the station. He waited for a minute or two before accosting another
passerby:
‘Excuse me, sir. Is the next train going to Doncaster? Is it the six-forty-five? Is it?’
The passerby glanced at his watch and nodded. There was no mistaking the relief
and intense satisfaction on the young man’s face as he acknowledged the gestured
response: ‘It is. Good.’
After a while the train that had been waiting in the distance began to snake its
way slowly along to platform four. The woman on the bench stood up. Passengers
drifted towards the edge of the platform. The young man turned and saw the
approaching train, which caused a fluster of movement on his part, first toward the
train; but then he swung suddenly away, and addressed a girl with spiky Mohican
hair who was trying to fold up a buggy and at the same time keep an eye on her
toddler:
‘Is this the train going to Doncaster?’
What had seemed from far away to be a toy metamorphosed into a huge
train with buffet cars and dining cars gliding slowly towards them, rumbling and
creaking as it came to a halt.
‘Yes. This is it.’ She smiled and indicated the departures board, which stated
clearly that the London train left at six-forty-five from platform four and would
stop at Doncaster. ‘Look, see up there.’ But the young man was already quickening
his pace to a loping run as he made his way back to his father.
‘This is it. Quick,’ he said to his father with some urgency. ‘Everyone has said
that this is it. They all say so. I have made several checks. The word is out that this is
the right train.’ The father took his time ambling down the platform, a can of lager
grasped in his hand. The son walked next to him, casting sharp anxious glances
into the empty carriages. Hobbling behind them came the middle-aged woman
whom the son had first addressed on the bench.
The two men boarded the train and made their way down the centre aisle.
They settled down opposite each other across one of the Formica-topped tables in
the bleakly lit compartment. The woman was following them. She struggled to lift
her bag into the overhead rack, then sat down heavily across the gangway from the
pair. A handful of other passengers occupied the surrounding seats. The son could