Olive Senior - PEN International

14
WORDS ... PAULINE MELVILLE
not resist turning to ask one of them:
‘Is this platform four?’ He received an affirmative grunt. The father scrunched
up his empty can of lager, stuffed it down the side of his seat and pulled another
can from his pocket, opening it with a fizzing spurt. As the train set off the younger
man leaned towards the woman across the aisle:
‘What time does the train reach Doncaster?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But it’s after York.’
‘After York?’ He sounded suspicious. His forehead wrinkled into a frown.
The dark glasses looked at her with blank threats.
‘Yes. Doncaster is after York,’ she added with a friendly smile.
‘After York? Are you sure? Is it? Is it? I get confused. I’d hate to be wrong.’
He suddenly seemed struck with heart-rending anxiety.
‘We’re Gypsies.’ The older man leaned towards the woman, addressing her
with an expansive air of intimacy and wreathing her with beer fumes: ‘We’re
going to Doncaster. There’ll be plenty of Gypsies there tonight. The king is buried
there. With his cat.’ He gazed down at the plain tabletop and shook his head with
concern:
‘Although the cat hops out sometimes.’ He looked up at her again with mischief
in his eyes. ‘Yes. We’re on the Donny. We’re on the Donny tonight. We’ve come from
Edinburgh. Bathgate. There will be plenty of us at the gathering tonight, coming
from all over the country. We’ll pour ale on the grave. And have a big party. A great
shindig. That is what we do.’
The son was sitting up straight and staring ahead. The seat back caused a tuft
of his hair to stand up on the back of his head.
‘Yes.’ The older man rubbed his hands together with relish. ‘We’ll have a good
time tonight. Everyone will be in Doncaster tonight. It’ll be cushty.’
The train plunged into a tunnel with a screaming hoot, and the lights in the
compartment dimmed. He leaned forward:
‘It’ll be cushty. Cushty.’
The woman’s interest was aroused. She was left with the impression that
travellers were making their way from all over the country through the dark night
on their way to this secret gathering in Doncaster. Suddenly she wanted to join
them.
‘Where will you stay?’ she asked, curious.
The father’s reply was immediately evasive. ‘Oh I dunno. In a pub, perhaps.
Someone will put us up. We will stay somewhere. That’s for certain.’
‘We will not be staying nowhere,’ added the son in a tone that sounded oddly
supercilious. Suddenly he leaned towards her and announced in a confidential
undertone:
‘I’m going to marry and settle down one day.’
‘How many children will you have?’ she asked, smiling.
‘One or two – if the wife will let me.’ He slumped back suddenly into his seat
and looked wistful as he stared out the window at the darkening landscape.
The red-faced father gazed ahead in a bucolic haze and took another sip of lager.
He addressed his remarks to the whole carriage:
‘My wife is buried in Lincolnshire. On the way back we shall make a detour to
Newton by Toft. That is near Market Rasen. Her name was Rosemarie. I want to put
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