Stop! Mary, wait!

The words must have come from somewhere in her head.

Help me, someone. Mary!

She didn’t know what was wrong. She was still clinging to the rail, shaking.

Please, don’t leave me!

This couldn’t be happening. Miles had walked on. He paused to glance back. ‘Coming? The train has been signalled,’ he called. She could see his hair lifting boyishly on his forehead in the wind. The words were being whipped from his mouth.

Somehow she forced herself to take a step forward. Then another. Then suddenly it was easy. She was hurrying after him, the wind tugging at her hair. Behind her, on the roof of the old hotel, the pigeons lifted as one, whirled high above the station and settled back onto the old broken slates.

On the train, still shaken by her experience, she ordered a coffee from the trolley. Miles Rowton had seated himself opposite her, across the aisle. Too far away for easy conversation, but close enough not to appear rude. Once their eyes met as she sipped the scalding liquid and they smiled. Then both looked away back to their respective laps, his covered in papers, hers the newspaper she had grabbed at the village shop as she drove past.

London was all Chloë had feared. Crowded, wet, taxis impossible to find and when she did, gridlocked in the traffic. She was late for her first meeting, then the knock-on effect came into play and the whole sequence of the day slipped back first twenty minutes, then forty, and by the time she reached the end of lunch she was running an hour and a half late. Moving her design consultancy to the country at Edmund’s behest still worked best for her most of the time. It was on days like this when she wondered briefly whether the hassle of commuting and serving many masters was worth it all. Thankfully they did not happen that often.

In the end she caught a very late train home. The cats would be livid, showing their displeasure by sulkily shunning their food and refusing to climb into bed for a goodnight cuddle. She smiled at the thought. Was she so devoid of human relationships these days, that she was worried that her cats would be cross with her? Settling back in her seat, exhausted, she unbuttoned her jacket and kicked off her shoes. There was barely anyone else left in the carriage.

With a sigh she fought back a longing for a huge baguette, the kind it is impossible to eat without doing an impression of Quasimodo, and which, when bitten, empty their contents down one’s front. She had had to run to catch this train and at this hour, when she needed it most, there would almost certainly be no trolley on the train. She hadn’t even had time to buy an evening paper. Closing her eyes Chloë dozed.

It was dark when she stepped onto the deserted platform and took a deep lungful of the cool fresh air. It had stopped raining at last and she could see the stars. There was no one else on the station. Even the ticket office was closed. There would be only one more train that night.

With an exhausted sigh she gripped the handle of her briefcase more tightly and set off for the footbridge. Halfway over she realised she could hear, above the ringing echo of her own footsteps, the sound of music drifting on the wind across the car park. She stopped and listened. Below in the dark the car park was deserted. Only three cars remained from the huge crowd this morning, their bodywork gleaming gently in the darkness. She could barely see over the tall parapet, but standing on tiptoes she gazed into the dark with sudden misgivings. The station was down a quiet lane some half-mile from the village. There were no houses near by. Yet she could see lights. They seemed to be coming from the direction of the derelict hotel. And again, faintly, in the distance, the music drifted up towards her.

Nervously she began to move forward, trying to silence the sharp echo of her heels. At the top of the downward flight she stopped again, reaching out for the handrail.

Mary, please come back!

The man’s voice sounded so close to her that she recoiled.

She peered down, expecting to hear the echo of footsteps running up the metal steps. There was nothing. Far away, on the main road she heard a car engine rev away into the distance.

Straining her eyes into the darkness ahead of her she gripped the handrail and put her foot on the first step.

Mary, for pity’s sake, my darling, listen.

The words were caught by the wind and whisked away over the tracks and into the darkness.

She gripped the handrail more tightly and moved down another step.

The door to the Station Hotel banged in the wind and the sound of music escaped into the night. Mary had stood there for only a second, staring into the smoky bar, looking round, but she had seen him at once, his arm around the red-haired girl. For a moment she stared. Very few bothered to turn to look, fewer had noticed the expressions which crossed her face in quick succession. Shock. Disbelief. Anger. Misery. And then that final despair as her husband raised his hand to a titian ringlet and, laughing, wound it around his finger. Mary made no sound. In that split second when her world spun and came apart she was silent. And he heard the silence. His hand fell from the girl’s cheek and he turned slowly towards the door.

For a long seemingly endless second husband and wife stared at one another and he read in her eyes what he had done.

Mary! Sweetheart! Wait!

He slid from his bar stool and began to move towards the door. But his limbs wouldn’t move fast enough. He felt as though he were swimming through the smoky air, the noise, the laughter.

Mary, wait!

The girl with the red hair tossed her curls and turned back to the bar. The married ones were the most fun. Their reluctance before, their guilt afterwards, made them more exciting. But what matter. There were plenty more fish in the sea…

Mary!

He had seen it in her eyes. Her love for him had been total. Complete. With a careless, meaningless flirtation, he had destroyed everything.

Mary!

He stood outside in the wind, staring round as the swinging door closed and cut off the smoky lamplight leaving him in the dark. And then he saw her running towards the bridge and in a flash he knew what she was going to do.

Mary, no! His voice broke as he started to run. Mary, my darling, please, you must wait!

He saw the swirling white of her petticoats below her coat as she ran towards the bridge, even as he heard faintly the hollow rumble of the train as it started across the viaduct in the distance, puffing purposefully towards the station.

Chloë stopped halfway down the steps, clutching the rail with both hands. Her briefcase fell, teetered beside her for a moment on the step, began to rock and slowly slid out of sight. She did not notice it had gone. She too now, could hear the train wheels rattling hollowly in the distance.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No.’

Suddenly the footsteps were behind her, running. Clenching her teeth against a rising scream Chloë forced herself to take another step down. She could hear the train getting closer, the clackety-clack of the wheels on solid ground now, the sound of the steam coming in powerful rapid gusts.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs she stood for a moment staring round into the dark. The platform was lit by one faint lamp near the small entrance, beyond which lay the car park. She felt the ground beneath her feet shake as the train drew in with screaming brakes.

Clapping her hands over her ears she stared at it in horror. The windows were welcoming, warm behind her. The train seemed empty. She heard a single door bang. Then silently it began to draw away from the platform. Under the tall fluorescent lights she could see it clearly now. An ordinary four-carriage train. There was no engine. Certainly no steam engine.

Behind her she could hear the footsteps again. ‘I’m going mad!’ She groped at her feet for her briefcase, swung it up and turned towards the entrance.

‘Hello there!’ The cheerful voice from the top of the flight stopped her dead. ‘I didn’t see you on the train. How was your day in London?’ He was running down towards her now. Miles Rowton, his own briefcase grasped firmly in his left hand, his right lightly skimming the handrail. At the bottom he stopped and she saw his cheerful smile turn to a look of concern.

‘I say, are you all right? You didn’t fall?’ His hand was on her arm. ‘What’s wrong? Can I do anything?’

Numbly Chloë shook her head. ‘It’s so silly,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what happened…’

She stared at him, her eyes on his for several seconds as though trying to convince herself that he was real, then reluctantly she looked back up at the bridge. ‘She was running. I was sure she was going to throw herself in front of the train… I could hear her – hear him – following. I heard the train braking.’

His arm was round her shoulders now, supporting and consoling, his own briefcase beside hers on the wet ground. ‘Mrs Denver – Chloë – what are you talking about? There’s no one there. Look for yourself. The platform is empty. The train has gone. No one is hurt.’

‘Are you sure?’ Confused, she was clinging to him.

‘I’m sure.’ He rather liked her helplessness. Always when he had seen her before, in the distance, she had seemed so calmly confident, so much in total control of herself he had felt a little in awe of her.

A similar thought had obviously occurred to her. He could feel her self-consciousness returning as she realised she was standing on the platform more or less in the arms of a man she hardly knew. She stiffened and then slowly she pushed him away.