Thursday came around quickly, and with it the trip to the cinema with Rob. The film was fun, full of special effects and a complex storyline that you probably needed to be a Marvel comic heroes geek to understand fully, but it was entertaining enough and Tilly left the cinema with a grin on her face.
‘Fancy a drink then?’ Rob asked, as they emerged onto a wet street in Michelhampton. ‘There’s a decent pub around the corner.’
‘Sure. Just a sparkling water for me, though.’ Tilly had borrowed Ken’s car and driven herself to Michelhampton, meeting Rob in the cinema foyer. That way she couldn’t be tempted to drink too much, and the evening wouldn’t end up the way the last one with Rob had.
‘Same here,’ Rob said, leading her into a bright, modern bar where he ordered a large bottle of mineral water with two glasses. ‘So, you liked the film?’
Tilly laughed. ‘It was entertaining. Not sure I understood all of what was going on.’
‘Have you seen the earlier ones in the series?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well, I could give you all the background … but you’d probably walk out on me after about forty minutes …’ Rob grinned, then picked up his glass. ‘Anyway, cheers. Thanks for coming with me. There’s something unutterably sad about going to the cinema by yourself.’
‘Cheers. And thanks for asking me.’ She clinked her glass against his.
They chatted for an hour, laughing at each other’s jokes and swapping life stories. Rob had married young, had one daughter, and divorced ten years previously. He was still friends with his ex, but in his words, ‘We grew up and grew apart’. Tilly tried imagining a world in which she stayed friends with Ian, but couldn’t. He’d hurt her too badly. There was no way back after how he’d treated her. She told Rob a little about her history, but not everything. Just that she’d been made redundant, and around the same time Ian had dropped his bombshell. She avoided mentioning the miscarriages, or what had happened after.
‘Jeez. That all sounds like you had a tough time. And now you’re living with your dad.’
‘Yep. I had nowhere else to go. Well, I’d stayed with a friend for a while, and she’d have let me stay as long as I liked, but she’s got a husband and two little kids and no spare room. Better to come down here.’
‘Good old dad, eh?’
‘He’s the best. Mum died a couple of years ago, and I think he’s enjoying my company. So it’s mutually beneficial.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘But at 39 I probably ought to be thinking about moving out …’
He laughed. ‘No hurry. Well, I’ve had a lovely evening. Thanks again for coming with me. Do it again sometime?’
She smiled, as she shrugged on her jacket. ‘I’d like that. As Dad said, it’s good for me to make some friends around here. Especially if I’m staying a while.’
‘Do you think you will?’
‘Right now, I can’t think where else to go.’ Or what else to do. The thought of going back to London and looking for a new job terrified her. Maybe she could find a new job locally, here in Dorset. But not yet. She wasn’t ready. She’d give herself six months. Or more. There was plenty of redundancy money to last her a while yet. And she could feel herself healing, down here with the sea air and the cliff-top walks, the gentle life researching the railway, and friends like Rob to hang out with. This place was good for her.
*
The next day, Tilly applied herself to her research, trying to find out what had happened to Ena Pullen’s father and to Ted Morgan. There was nothing in the boxes of archives, other than Ted’s diaries that would help. But she’d vowed to read through the diaries in sequence, and Ted’s writing was so hard to decipher, especially on the pages that had got wet and smudged, that she did not feel ready to do that yet.
Instead she went online and began once more searching newspaper archives from around the time the railway closed.
Two cups of tea later she struck lucky. How she’d missed this before, she did not know. A brief account of a death, at Lynford station, on the very last day of operation! She knew there’d been a death, but not that it had happened on the evening of the last day, presumably not long after the final train departed.
Article in the Dorset Herald, 22 September 1936
Police were called two nights ago to Lynford station, within hours of the station closing its doors for the last time. A man lay dead at the foot of the station house stairs, apparently having fallen from the top. Another man and a woman were present, and after questioning, the man was taken into custody on suspicion of foul play.
The Herald understands that another witness states that he saw the second man who has not yet been named, push the dead man down the stairs after an altercation. He has not yet been charged, but the Herald understands that is likely to happen within the next twenty-four hours.
All in all, it is a sad end to the railway’s history.
Two men and a woman, and then another witness. Three men, then, and the woman. Tilly stared out of the window at the grey seas and sky, and pondered. Who would they be? It was likely that one of the men would be Ted Morgan. He was after all the stationmaster, and lived at Lynford station, so was the person most likely to be there. But was he the dead man, the arrested man, or the witness? And who was the woman?
What had Ena said – that the railway had been the death of her father? Was her father the dead man, the man found at the foot of the stairs, then? She shivered, imagining the Lynford station house, that steep, narrow staircase leading down from the tiny landing. She could imagine how a fall there, landing badly, could lead to a broken neck. Perhaps that was what had happened. But had the man fallen or been pushed? That was clearly what the police had wanted to find out, when they’d made their arrest.
Tilly searched further through the newspaper archive but could find nothing more about the case. The archive for the Dorset Herald was incomplete, and it seemed the story had not made the national papers. Maybe if she went to the Michelhampton Library they’d hold more copies. She Googled to find a number for the library and gave them a call.
The young male librarian who answered the phone had bad news for her. ‘The Dorset Herald was taken over by another paper, the Dorset Enquirer, in autumn 1936. The other paper’s archives were all lost in a fire in the Sixties. So you’re right, there is a gap. It’s such a shame.’
‘Were there other local papers at that time?’
‘I’ll check, hold on.’
She heard the sound of him tapping a keyboard and realised he was probably using Google or the newspaper archive website, just as she could do herself.
‘Hmm, no, it looks like there was only the Herald covering Michelhampton at that time. The place was a lot smaller than it is now. Is there anything else I can help you with?’
She thanked him and rang off. So, any reporting of whether the man had been charged with murder and what had happened, would have been reported in the Enquirer and those archives were lost.
Back to the diaries, then. Though if Ted Morgan had been either the dead man or the arrested man, there’d hardly be an entry about that day, would there? Besides, none of the entries were dated.
She turned to the first one and began reading. It felt intrusive, as though she was peering into his innermost thoughts. They sounded like the angsty outpourings of a tormented teen, rather than the words of a grown man. There were lots of mentions of his sister, Norah, who apparently had advised him to keep a journal and write everything down, to help him make sense of the world.
And there were constant mentions of Annie Galbraith, and his deep and apparently unrequited feelings for her.
Or were they unrequited? She read on and came across a passage that made her raise her eyebrows. Its tone was different somehow to the earlier entries. It sounded more like adult love than teenage infatuation.
Annie, Annie, Annie. You looked my way this morning, as you alighted from your train. You smiled, so sweetly, and I could tell you were thinking of that night, the night of the storm, that splendid, magnificent night. But I had to help the old gentleman alighting with his luggage, and when I’d dealt with him you were gone, and I had hours to wait until it was time to catch a glimpse of you again. When at last you arrived for your homeward train, it was with ten minutes to spare, and we were able to sit in the waiting room and talk, and I held your hand and wondered, as always, at its divine softness and smoothness of skin. Oh, Annie. There will come a time, I am sure now, when you will be mine, and I will be yours, and we will be together. Where we will be living and what I will be doing for a living, I do not know. But I will find something, I will find a way, and then I will propose to you. I dare to hope, since that night, that you will accept. And Annie, my Annie, I live for that day.
‘That splendid, magnificent night,’ Tilly repeated. ‘What happened then, eh, Ted? What did you and Annie get up to?’ Whatever it was, it seemed to have changed their relationship, at least in Ted Morgan’s eyes. Clearly by this date, whenever it was – Ted had not dated his journal entries – he knew the railway was due to close, and was looking for another job. Perhaps he’d felt he must have a secure future before he could ask Annie to be his wife.
When Ken arrived home, Tilly filled him in on her research, especially the part about the death at the station on the last day.
Ken nodded. ‘I’d heard rumours someone died there, but not that it was murder. You know some people think the station is haunted – occasionally volunteers have slept there overnight, and often report on strange noises. I always said it was just the usual sounds you get from an old building – pipes knocking, woodwork creaking. You know what I mean. Maybe it’s the ghost of this fellow who was pushed down the stairs?’ His eyes were twinkling.
Tilly gave him a playful punch. ‘Knew you wouldn’t take that seriously. But it’s interesting, isn’t it? I need to find out who he was, and what happened to the man who was arrested. That dead man might be Ena Pullen’s father, and that would explain why she doesn’t want the railway rebuilt.’
Ken nodded. ‘So look for death reports of someone called Pullen, around the time the railway closed, perhaps? She’s unmarried, isn’t she, so her father’s name would have been Pullen.’
‘Good idea. I’m not too sure where to look up death records but there must be somewhere online.’ Tilly noted it down. More work for another day. The more she researched, the more there seemed to be, still to do.
*
‘Come up to Lower Berecombe with me today?’ Ken asked Tilly, over breakfast the next morning. ‘I want to show you the progress and ask your opinion on a few things.’
Tilly hadn’t been to Lower Berecombe since the day after she’d arrived in Dorset, although she’d been to Lynford station many times. It would be good to see a station in an earlier stage of its restoration. She would actually pay attention to it this time, not like last time when she’d been in no fit state to care about the work being done. And it was a lovely day – warm and sunny, the kind of spring day that promised so much for the summer ahead. She dressed in jeans and an old T-shirt, and drove with Ken through the Dorset countryside that seemed to be leaping into life after the long winter.
Things had changed at Lower Berecombe. There’d been a lot of clearing up done – Ken had told her of the several skip-loads of rubbish that had been removed. A volunteer had repointed the brickwork of the station house, and the Society had paid a roofer to fix the broken tiles. Inside, the station was badly in need of restoration, but at least now it was tidy. Gone were the piles of rubbish, mouldy sofas and half-used tins of paint. Instead a set of garden chairs and table sat in the middle of the main room, and in the little kitchen area at the back was a kettle, mug tree and other tea-making facilities.
‘We’ve got electricity here now,’ Ken said proudly, ‘so no need to use the Primus stove anymore. And we’re on mains water, so we can even wash up properly.’
‘Could do with replacing the sink though,’ Tilly said, eyeing up the cracked and stained Belfast sink that was far too big for the tiny kitchen.
‘Yes, that’s what I was hoping you’d help with,’ Ken said.
‘Ripping out the sink?’ Tilly’s eyes widened. She was casually dressed but not ready for heavy-duty DIY.
‘No, designing us a new kitchen. While we’re intending to restore the rest of the building to how it would have been in the 1930s, we want a modern kitchen. There’ll be no café here, unlike Lynford, as the place isn’t big enough. But we want to be able to cater for volunteers, so they can heat up food, make tea and coffee, etc. A small fridge and a microwave, sink, and some storage space, I guess. Can you measure up and see if you can come up with a design to fit all that in and make the most of the space?’
Tilly smiled. ‘Sure. I’ll have a go.’
Ken patted her shoulder, handed her a tape measure, pencil and paper, and went outside to his shed. Tilly got straight to work, measuring the space and drawing a rough outline of the room on the pad of paper, marking the position of the door and window. And the mains water feed – she should mark that. There was a rotting cupboard under the old sink, so she knelt down to check if that was where the water pipe came in. Tugging open the door she gasped to find the cupboard occupied. A cat – the same tabby she’d seen on her first visit – was curled up on a stack of old newspapers. There was a sizable hole in the wall where the pipe entered, and that was presumably how the cat had got in.
‘Aw, hello little one.’ Tilly reached out a hand to stroke the cat’s head. As she did so, the cat hauled itself up to a kind of crouching position.
‘What’s up, eh?’ Tilly said. The cat looked uncomfortable, its belly swollen. As Tilly crouched down beside it the cat seemed to heave, pushing hard, and then …
‘Oh my goodness, sweetie! You’re giving birth!’ She watched, astonished, as a kitten slithered out. The mother cat turned, sniffed it and began licking, clearing away the amniotic sac. The kitten snuffled and wriggled, and then the mother heaved once again and there was a second kitten.
Tilly was mesmerised, watching as another three kittens were born, one after the other, the mother barely making a sound. But she was exhausted after the last one, Tilly could see, for she collapsed down before licking that last kitten, who was still in its sac, wriggling. It would suffocate, Tilly thought, if the mother didn’t see to it.
‘Come on, girl, you’ve got a duty to do here,’ she said, gently pushing the mother cat’s nose towards its newest kitten. Thankfully the cat got the message and began licking, breaking the sac and stimulating the kitten to breathe.
‘Is that the lot, then? Five? Well done, you,’ whispered Tilly. The cat looked at her and miaowed slightly, as if thanking her for her help. The first couple of kittens, their fur already beginning to dry and fluff up, had crawled across the pile of newspapers in search of sustenance. Tilly gently moved them a little so that their mother could lie down, then she positioned them by their mother’s underside where they quickly found teats and latched on. When all were feeding Tilly sat back, heaving a sigh of relief, and only then realised that tears were streaming down her face. This cat had managed to have five kittens, just like that, with no fuss. All healthy. And yet she, Tilly, had not managed to keep a pregnancy going despite three attempts. It felt so unfair. So very unfair. If just one of her pregnancies had lasted, she’d still be living in London now, with Ian and a baby. A baby she’d have loved, but would their marriage have lasted? Given that she now knew Ian had only stayed with her because he wanted children, she wasn’t sure. Overall, she felt she was better off without him.
At the thought of Ian, Tilly wondered about Naomi’s baby. It must be due very soon. He would be a father. Well, good luck to him.
She found a saucer and poured some milk from the carton Ken had brought for cups of tea into it, then placed it beside the cat in the cupboard. The cat managed to twist a little so she could lap from it without disturbing her suckling kittens.
‘Good girl. You’re going to be a great mum to this lot, aren’t you?’
She’d have been a good mum, too, Tilly thought. If only she’d had the chance to prove it.
Her next thought hit her like a sledgehammer, sending her stomach churning and her mind wheeling. That night with Rob – they hadn’t used any protection, had they? She’d told him there was no need … She sat back on the floor, face in hands, feverishly calculating how long it had been since her last period. Oh God. Could it be true? Could she be pregnant? And if so, what then? What on earth would she do?