Countryside Life wasn’t the magazine Julia Adams would have chosen given a little more time, but it had been closest to the tills and therefore would have to do.
She had made the train, though. That was the important thing.
As the two-carriage commuter trundled out of Brentwell Station, Julia allowed herself to relax, leaning against the window as lines of houses passed by, the first flutters of an early snow flicking against the glass, where the flakes melted and combined into little streamers to be buffeted sideways by the wind as the train picked up speed.
She would be home soon. Her parents would be there, and perhaps her sister’s family would already have arrived. Once the initial jokes about her showing up alone yet again were out of the way, Julia would enjoy eating and drinking herself silly, playing games with her nieces and nephews—two of each last year, but it wasn’t impossible that number five could show up over Christmas—and watching too much bad Christmas television.
She sighed. So nice to have two weeks off work. Mary next door was looking after Mittens, her cat, and promised to go in and check that none of the pipes had burst if the big freeze the weather forecast had mentioned actually happened. She had noticed the local bookies offering pretty good odds on “Will it actually snow this Christmas?” on a signboard outside the shop, but even though Julia was expecting the usual rain in Olive Hill, had she been a gambler she might have been tempted with a flutter.
Instead, she contented herself with flicking through the pages of Countryside Life dreaming of kitchens, living rooms and bathrooms that she would never be able to afford.
Twenty minutes later, the train came to a stop in Willow River, where about half the passengers disembarked. Out on the platform, snuggly dressed relatives and loved ones came forward with open arms to greet the alightees, patting shoulders, offering warm embraces, taking suitcases and leaning inwards in that way where any conversation was welcome, even a boring monologue about the train journey from Brentwell.
Julia smiled. It was what the Christmas holidays were all about. Perhaps Mum and Dad would be waiting at the station when she got to Olive Hill? It was only a short walk and Becky would have passed off her clan for Barbie marathons and games of Connect 4, so it wasn’t likely, but maybe, just maybe. Like they had in the old days, when she came back from university for a visit, waiting for her as though they hoped she’d never leave again.
Which of course, she always had.
A sudden wave of nostalgia washed over her, and she gave one of those awkward gasp sobs that was out before she could stop herself, as though a balloon stuck in her throat had decided to set itself free. A young man sitting in a window seat further up the train looked up from a newspaper and gave her a frown and a forgiving smile, while a boy playing a Nintendo Switch in the seat across the aisle stifled a snigger and turned to stare pointedly out of the window. Julia smiled back at the man and forced a fake cough to try to cover it, but there was no denying how she felt.
Nearly thirty-five now, and time was moving on, slipping slowly past like the railway sleepers beneath the wheels of the train.
Which ... now that she thought about it, weren’t moving all that fast.
She glanced out of the window, wondering why they appeared to be going so slowly. They were going through a patch of farmland, but she barely recognised it now that the snow had picked up and covered everything in a blanket of white. It really was a blizzard, the like of which she hadn’t seen since she was a child. Perhaps it was global warming, even if that was a bit of an oxymoron, considering how chilly the carriage was getting.
She climbed half out of her seat and looked up the carriage. Most of the seats were empty but a few kids were leaning against the windows, muttering vague threats about snowball fights and fort battles to come in the morning when the skies would likely have cleared and the school holidays were officially underway. A couple of parents ordered them to sit down, lower their voices, mind the other passengers.
Julia had just sat back down when the train came to a grinding halt. The pneumatics hissed, and the rails gave a lazy squeal. A burst of loud static came from a speaker overhead, and then the driver’s voice said, ‘I do apologise for the delay. We’ll be moving again in a moment. Bear with us, please.’
Further up the carriage, people were starting to speculate. Julia caught the eye of the young man in the window seat and he gave her a shrug and a quizzical shake of the head. The boy opposite, buried in his game, didn’t appear to notice the stoppage.
Outside, the snow was dumping down.
‘Never seen nothing quite like this,’ said an old man about halfway up the carriage, standing up to make his pronouncement as though the carriage had suddenly transformed into a soapbox stage. ‘Not since sixty-three. Came down in buckets that year, as though someone up there was scooping the stuff. Thick as ice-cream, though didn’t taste quite the same.’
‘Dad, please sit down,’ came a woman’s voice, her identity hidden by the seats.
‘Couldn’t leave the village for a week that year,’ the man continued. ‘We kids didn’t want it to end. Went out there with shovels and built a barricade across the only road into the village. Silly old tractor went into a pond by mistake, thinking ‘twas the thoroughfare—’
‘Dad, you’ll start scaring people!’
‘Best Christmas ever. Built a big old bonfire in the village square and danced round it ‘til midnight. ‘Twas where I met your mother, ‘twas. Pub’s cellar was running empty … good times. We had all that cheering and stuff when the clock ticked round, and then we went back home for some sherries and a little cuddle up by the log fire—’
‘Dad, please!’
‘What happened, Grandad?’
‘Ah, best save that last bit for when you’s a little older,’ the old man said with a chuckle. ‘But your uncle showed up nine months later, and your mother a couple of years after that. Can’t beat the magic of a good snowstorm.’
Julia smiled, but as she looked out of the window, she found her fingers tapping nervously on the armrest. While she had nothing against snow, the thought of getting stuck on a train overnight certainly didn’t appeal—
With a lurch it began to move forward, and Julia let out a sigh of relief. The man in the window seat smiled and gave her a thumbs’ up. From the seats in front came a series of contrasting cheers and boos.
‘We apologise for the delay,’ came the driver’s voice through the speaker. ‘We’re currently ten minutes behind schedule. I can’t promise we’ll make that up in this weather, but we’re not expecting any more delays. Next stop, Bathwater, in twelve minutes.’
Julia leaned back in her seat, a strange feeling washing over her. Hadn’t a part of her been excited about the thought of getting stuck? What would they all have done? She had a bottle of water and a packet of steak flavour McCoy’s in her bag, but other than that, nothing. Would the train’s heating have stayed on, or would it have got really cold? She glanced up at the young man further down the aisle. He was probably in or close to his thirties, and attractive enough that she could daydream about a romantic encounter. He was reading his newspaper again now. A Daily Express, she thought. What would Dad say that made him? A Liberal? A Conservative? Or had he, like she, just picked up whatever was closest as he ran for the train?
She opened her copy of Countryside Life again, tilting it slightly so he would be able to see the title. Perhaps he would think she was an interior designer or an architect, rather than an insurance claims administrator, a job which, for the most part, involved tapping numbers into a screen all day long.
When she glanced up again, he was not looking at her, but wore a slight smile. Perhaps he understood the game. Or perhaps he was looking at the jokes page.
Did the Daily Express have a jokes page?
Dad would have said something like, ‘That whole paper’s a joke.’ Or was that the Daily Mail?
Outside the snow seemed even heavier than before. It was getting dark now, but she could only tell from the shadow that seemed to back the snowfall, as she could no longer see anything beyond the snow. They were coming up for Bathwater, a drab little place no one ever visited which was famous only for a pie factory, but the flat farmland that surrounded it was hidden behind the snow. Further up the train, the kids began to whoop as a sudden gust of wind turned the snowfall towards the train, buffeting the windows so hard it sounded like fingers drumming on the glass.
‘Bathwater,’ announced the driver. ‘Bathwater in two minutes.’
Nearly home. Three more stops, she thought, although until her car had failed the MOT she had usually driven down from Brentwell. Fourteen years on since graduating, and she felt like a student again, just one who was still doing an entry level job and who couldn’t handle hangovers anymore.
The train pulled in at Bathwater, and a couple of people got off, sighing as they did so, as though it were a regrettable chore. Then the train pulled out of the station again, leaving Bathwater behind. Olive Hill was much nicer, and the thought of being home made Julia smile, even if she would be inundated with game requests by her sister’s lot within seconds of walking through the door. Still, she had gone last Christmas unbeaten at Guess Who?, and had even once managed to beat her dad—a self-proclaimed master—at Jenga. However, the kids were growing up, and it wouldn’t be long before she could no longer pretend to miss easy wins at Connect 4 in order to give them a chance, and would find herself on the losing side. And once that happened, once she could no longer compete, what was the point? What was the point of coming home at all? Fifty and a spinster, whitewashed at memory games, always the one to make the Jenga tower fall, she might as well be in the ground already—
The train’s brakes squealed, and she lurched forward, nearly headbutting the back of the seat in front.
‘My apologies,’ came the driver’s voice through the speaker. ‘Unfortunately, we’re hearing that a tree has fallen on the line up ahead. We’re coming into Birch Valley, which will be our final stop.’
From near the front of the carriage came a cackle of laughter. ‘Told you, didn’t I?’ came the old man’s voice. ‘Not seen snow like this since fifty-five.’
‘I thought you said sixty-three, Grandad.’
‘Nah, lad, talking ‘bout one before that, ain’t I? Snow so piled up we were trapped in there for weeks. Power out, only a wind up wireless for company. So cold we had to huddle together for warmth. Your old Grandpa was just eighteen years old that time. First time I ever went with a—’
‘Dad!’
The old man chuckled. The young man in the window seat smiled as he stared at his newspaper. Across the aisle, the boy playing the game groaned, rolled his eyes, and began to tap faster and faster.
Birch Valley. Julia frowned. She didn’t realise the train stopped there, because it was nothing more than a cluster of houses hidden among a few trees. Hardly even worth giving a name, but admittedly she couldn’t remember ever going there. It was one of those places that you grow up knowing about, that’s just up the road or just over the hill, but you never get around to visit because you don’t know anyone who lives there, or its not on the road that you usually use. So even though it was no more than six miles from Olive Hill, she couldn’t ever remember passing through. It had a church, maybe, she thought. Perhaps a small lake, or a river, being a valley after all. Wasn’t there a tree farm?
She pulled out her phone to send a message to her parents, just to let them know. Perhaps they would be able to come out and pick her up, or the rail company would put on a bus to take any remaining passengers back to their hometowns. Three more stops after Birch Valley, but one glance out of the window and she knew she had a problem.
The snow was absolutely piling up. She could no longer see further than the edge of the rails where the light through the windows petered out, but it was piling up everywhere, drifting onto the tracks. They’d be lucky if they made it as far as Birch Valley. Perhaps they’d be stuck halfway there, buried in snow.
To her frustration, the snow was blocking her phone reception. She managed to send a quick message—Mum, Dad, the train’s delayed—but her attempts to add some detail wouldn’t send, and she began to get a no signal message whenever she tried.
The train began to slow down.
‘Now arriving in Birch Valley,’ the driver said through the speaker. ‘All passengers please alight here. If Birch Valley is not your destination, please proceed to the waiting room next to the ticket office. We regret that it appears onward transportation will not be available until the snow clears. However, we are doing our best to arrange local accommodation for the night. In the meantime, please gather for some complimentary hot chocolate and marshmallows.’ The children near the front of the carriage began to cheer. ‘And we apologise again. However, on behalf of the station master, I’d like to welcome you to Birch Valley. Hopefully your stay will be short, but there’s quite a storm going on, isn’t there?’