Roger Curtis - Lights in a Western Sky

Claire was not to blame, of course, just as she had not been to blame for the nights on the tiles, the wild parties in her parents’ absence and, earlier in the summer, certain wilful extravagances in Ibiza. They were all the influences of others. And if that boyfriend of hers, Scott Richards, had not sent off those photographs – he shuddered at the memory of seeing certain details of her scantily clad body for the first time – she might still be what he had always intended for her, the future wife of a local beet farmer.

‘My appointment’s on Tuesday,’ she said. ‘At ten in the morning, in Colchester.’

‘Then I suppose I’ll have to take you,’ Gabriel replied. ‘That’s no place for a seventeen-year-old to be on her own.’

‘Daddy, Daddy, that will give us the whole weekend to go out and buy new clothes.’

And that’s why, on the Tuesday morning, the pair found themselves on the ‘up’ platform of the local station waiting for the 7.49 intercity train to Liverpool Street, via Colchester, toeing the yellow line like the hordes of London commuters around them.

Gabriel, in spite of the black suit that he kept for funerals and the spotted blue tie he had stolen from the wardrobe of his son Tom, felt himself as conspicuous as a lighthouse in a storm. Nor was this feeling lessened by Claire’s presence beside him. He had the distinct impression that several of his fellow travellers were marching up and down the platform for the sole purpose of ogling her. He reflected upon the milk churns that had once stood waiting on this same platform and wondered how it was possible that these foreigners could so comprehensively have invaded the county of Norfolk. After the train pulled in they all stood aside to let Claire step into the carriage, but then closed around her before he could follow. A hatred for this modern world into which he had been thrust welled up inside him.

The carriage was not quite full, even after their companions had jostled amongst themselves to be seated. There were only two unoccupied seats together and on one of these lay a large dark blue travelling bag, apparently belonging to a young man of Middle Eastern appearance sitting across the table. Gabriel fixed him with an expressionless stare designed to offer an opportunity to remove the offending article. He took in the dark blue suit – for which the bag seemed a deliberate match – the creamy silk shirt and the spotted tie that outclassed his own. He noted the trimmed and parted black hair, and the neatly sculpted black fur between the mouth and the chin that was a mockery of a beard. There was a laptop computer on the table in front of him and his thoughts seemed remote from the world that Gabriel and his daughter inhabited.

‘My daughter and I would like to sit here, if you please,’ Gabriel said, in a voice that was neither his own, not that of the culture he was trying to imitate.

Suddenly the man seemed to realise he was being addressed. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said, without changing his expression, or looking up.

‘Please remove your bag, Sir, so that we can sit down.’

‘Oh, of course, of course. Not a problem.’ The man was with them now, and apologetic.

He began to rise but Gabriel motioned him to remain seated. ‘Let me do it for you,’ he said, grasping the handles of the bag and swinging it up upwards onto the luggage rack. There was a look of acute alarm on the man’s face as he rose to a half-standing position with his mouth open. ‘Please be very…,’ he began and then stopped as Gabriel punched the bag twice with his fist to force it into the limited space.

‘There,’ Gabriel said, ‘that wasn’t too difficult, now was it?’

‘Thank you,’ the man replied, sitting down gingerly. ‘I am grateful.’

The tapping into the laptop resumed with a nonchalance that Gabriel found offensive. Remembering that he had brought a newspaper with him, he removed it from his pocket. With as much noise as he could manage, he unfolded it and placed it on the table beside the laptop, part of which became obscured by the rustling sheets. After a few seconds he judged that enough time had elapsed for the point to be made. ‘I do beg your pardon,’ he said, flapping the paper over with much gusto before folding it flat on the table.

‘It’s not a problem,’ their companion replied, in a manner that seemed to negate Gabriel’s easily-won advantage.

The train entered a tunnel. When they emerged into the bright sunlight Gabriel became aware that something had changed. The man was no longer concerned with his laptop, but was looking directly at Claire. A small, sly smile moved across his lips. Gabriel looked at his daughter and was horrified to see the same conniving expression replicated on her own fair face. Instinctively he moved his head sideways and downwards to see below the table, but the geometry was wrong. He felt powerless and breathed heavily. Then, to his horror, the man had the impudence to ask Claire where she was going.

‘I’m going to be a model,’ she said.

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ the man replied.

‘What do you do?’ Claire asked.

‘I? I am a consultant, with a special interest in railways. I advise colleagues on the logistics of rail movements – timings, capacities, that sort of thing.’

‘Is that what you’re doing on your laptop?’ Claire asked.

He turned the computer through ninety degrees, but away from Gabriel. ‘This is the route we are on,’ he said. ‘I can tell you where we will be at any moment, almost to the second. And here – you see these rectangles? – these are other trains on this line. Did you know that each of the trains at this time of day can carry up to one thousand people? When you get two trains running side by side – like they will be here – you get the highest density of human bodies on earth.’

‘That’s really interesting,’ Claire said. Gabriel thought that she meant it. She turned to him and smiled. ‘Isn’t it, Dad?’

The man told her that he worked in London and had travelled to Norwich to discuss railway matters with colleagues there. ‘We go there sometimes,’ Claire said, ‘but I’ve only been to London once.’

‘Then we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?’ the man replied.

‘That would be great ,’ Claire said dreamily.

Gabriel’s wordless attempts to attract the attention of these young people proved fruitless. He snorted noisily to himself, picked up his paper and rustled it. ‘Best get yourself ready,’ he said to Claire, ‘it’s Colchester coming up.’

They had to battle against another influx of commuters. When Gabriel looked back into the carriage he could no longer see the young man and suddenly felt relieved.

The time was still only 8.45, so they found a table in the cafeteria and Gabriel brought coffees and a cake for Claire. She took a sip from the cup, then excused herself and made for the toilet carrying her make-up bag. Gabriel leaned back in his chair to watch Sky News on a screen opposite. It held little interest. The goings-on at Westminster were a world away. He hankered after his radio and Farming Today . Then, on the screen, were images of police on the streets and around stations. A voice-over warned the public to be especially vigilant, it being the anniversary of some atrocity or other. He was glad that these days he never went to the city.

Then, there she was coming back towards him, his bright spruced-up smiling daughter, about to embark on a career that even he had to admit might suit her. There was a lightness in her step and an elegance about her that heralded the onset of womanhood. In his own youth it had been an experience of a most transitory kind, before his young and promising new wife had been caught in the clutches of the beet industry. He saw the first glimmer of light in the release that this turn of the wheel seemed to be offering, a chink in the armour of his determined resistance to change. He thought that when Claire was occupied with her photo-shoot he would see what suits Marks and Spencer might have, perhaps even saunter further down the High Street to look at what else was on offer. Then there was the matter of a present for his wife, which he always brought back when he travelled this far afield. Life was perhaps not as bad as he had thought.