63

Truro was a railway town and proudly called itself the “Hub of Nova Scotia”. The great Victorian brownstone station grandly proclaimed this status to everyone passing through, and there was no other way to go. There were a dozen parallel tracks in front of the station and a wide metal canopy over the concrete platform. Railroading was a way of life here, complete with its own sounds and symbols and unique courtesy. Even in wartime, when everything was strained to the limit, the railroaders were polite.

Mrs. Eva MacQueen stood on the platform in a pale blue suit to await her son’s arrival. She had one hand on the top of her head, to keep the wide hat from blowing off, and she was speaking to the children who gathered around her wherever she went. It was a mysterious magnetism that she did not always appreciate, but she never turned any of them away.

The huge locomotive slowly came into view, belching smoke and spraying clouds of steam as its bell clanged. The engineer tooted at the street crossing, where striped barriers were lowered. The conductors leaned from the coaches’ stairwells, holding onto the railing with one hand and waving yellow stoops with the other. The platform was crowded as usual, and the children watched this procession of rotating machinery with round eyes and open mouths. The engineer waved. Everyone connected with this iron monster seemed to have an immense dignity—even the telegraph clerk who wore armbands on his white shirt and a green shade over his eyes.

There were soldiers and sailors and airmen, commercial travellers, and mothers with children. They spilled out of the coaches and into the sunlight. The doors of the deluxe lunch counter opened, and two men in red kepis pushed trolleys towards the baggage car to collect packages, suitcases, and mail. “Ten minutes for Amherst, Moncton, Quebec, and Montreal!” shouted the conductors. “Change trains for Sydney on track four, connecting with Pictou, New Glasgow, Antigonish, and Glace Bay!”

Eva MacQueen saw the tall naval officer emerge and step onto the sunny platform. The cap shaded his face, and he had a Burberry slung over one shoulder. She raised an arm and waved for attention. He saw her, and his face broke into a wide grin. They always seemed to be walking towards one another…or walking away. He wondered if he loved his mother—or if he was in love with her. He didn’t dare to ponder the point.

“Let me look at you,” said his mother after they had embraced. “That is certainly better than that dreadful outfit you had in the army! Patrick, it’s been almost two years!”

They waited by the baggage room until his things were delivered. “All ab-o-o-o-o-ard,” intoned the conductors. Patrick had a wooden sea chest with brass corners and his name painted on it, and a canvas gunnysack tied with a cord at one end.

“That’s it?” asked his mother. “You’re getting very Spartan.”

This was wheeled to the back of the black Buick, and MacQueen over-tipped the baggage boy a quarter. He opened the right-hand door for his mother then climbed into the driver’s seat. Four children stood on the platform in front of the car—and one waved.

“Who are they?” asked Patrick as he backed onto the street.

“I don’t know,” answered Eva MacQueen. “It’s been such a long time. Slim Cocker bounced somebody and got me a seat on the clipper from Lisbon. I put our things on a ship but I haven’t heard anything. It worries me.….”

“All of your Chinese furniture?” They drove down Prince Street, under the high arch of elm trees.

“I’m afraid so,” answered his mother, with a faint sigh. She had removed her hat and her brown hair blew across her face. “Will this war ever end?”

Almost automatically, Patrick turned into the cemetery off Robie Street, just outside of Truro and on the way towards Rosemere. They drove down a narrow road towards a small crossroad, where a pine tree had been planted following his little sister’s death. It was a family plot, and looked past a large crucifix of Christ, towards the marshlands at the head of the Bay of Fundy. The small stone had been selected by his father and featured a kneeling angel with a little spray of Easter lilies at the base. Fleur-de-lis, thought Patrick.

They stepped out of the long black car and held hands above the buried corpse of the one they had both loved the most.

“I took her portrait under my arm on the plane,” said Eva MacQueen. “At least that is still with us.”

Patrick had once tried to write a poem about this headstone.

It’s a windswept stone that signifies
To prying eyes
That once you were alive…

That was as far as he ever got.

As yet the only other stone in the plot was that of his aunt’s war-hero husband. It stated that he had been decorated at Buckingham Palace in 1918. He had rammed a German submarine, then a German submarine had torpedoed him. He had died of the flu in 1919 and had left no descendants.

The copper-haired little girl never had a chance to have descendants either. The priest had comforted his mother by saying that she was now the mother of an angel.

Patrick hoped he was right.