Despite the Angels - By Madeline A Stringer Page 0,89
a small crowd of people jostling for news, information, answers. He stood with them and listened, but his mind shut away the dread and he said to himself ‘no, they were not on the train. It was not crossing the bridge, so they went home. They are still at home with Mrs Milne. They will come across later on the ferry. I will have to go and meet it. I had better buy some food to have for their dinner.’ He straightened up and strode back to the town, full of resolve and plans for a hot meal. Dorothy so loved hot food, despite being so cautious about making it herself. It was always the way to give her a treat and himself too, to have something interesting to eat. He remembered when they had no money at all, before he got the job, Dorothy had experimented with different quantities of salt in the porridge, to ‘ring the changes’ as she said, to make their food more varied. So I will buy something special, to welcome her home after giving me such a fright.
“What kept you from work? The foreman is not pleased with you!” Neil was in the doorway, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together. . “Are you coming for the afternoon shift?”
“No.”
“Just ‘no’? Are you sick? Or rich all of a sudden?”
“Did you not hear? Are they not all talking?”
“Hear what? I have no time to listen to gossip and tittle-tattle.”
“It is not gossip. For some people it is the end of the world.” Lewis let his head fall forward again, and his hands twisted together.
“The end of the world? I did not hear the last trump, did you? Come on man, what can be that bad?”
“The rail bridge collapsed. The train fell into the firth.”
“Oh, that! Amazing that a great bridge like that could just collapse. I wonder why?”
“How do I know? It makes no difference how. I only know the train is at the bottom of the Firth, but I must go and meet Dorothy off the ferry. She was staying with her mother.”
“You never said Dorothy was away. Why are you bothered about the bridge if they went by ferry? What time are they due back?”
“They went on the train.” Lewis began to tremble. “But they must be coming back on a ferry. They cannot be at the bottom of the sea. They cannot.”
“Did Dorothy have a return ticket?” Neil’s face was pale and his eyes were round.
“No!” Lewis jumped up, smiling and rushed to the window to look out. “No, for some reason she only bought a single. Waste of money, I thought, but she had some reason. So it is all right. Come on, come with me down to the ferry.”
“If they are safe you have no excuse to miss work and nor have I. I will walk part of the way with you, but it is in the wrong direction. You will have me late.”
“You can explain, you have a way with words.”
Lewis waited at the ferry’s landing place for most of the day, but no one he knew got off the ferries, until just as the short day was drawing to a close, the very last boat of the day pulled in to the shore and Lewis, sitting despondently on a bollard, saw at last the comfortable figure of his mother-in-law. She was first onto land and walked slowly towards him, her stout figure looking too heavy for her. She had never looked heavy before.
“Lewis, pet!” She put her arms around him. As he returned her embrace he could just see, in the dim light, the tracks of tears on her face. He took a deep breath.
“Were they on the train?”
“Yes,” her voice was gentle and sad. Lewis slumped down onto the bollard again. “I went up onto the bridge to watch the train leave and she was on it in Cupar, so unless she got out somewhere, she was on that train. I’m sorry to have to tell you so.”
“Oh, Mrs Milne! My Dorothy, my Dawn!”
“Yes. Our beautiful girls.” She lifted Lewis’s arm. “Come, on, let’s go home. We can talk as we go.” But they walked in silence for most of the way, as the tears spilled out of Lewis’s eyes and poured unchecked onto his collar. They got into the little room and Rose stirred the fire into life and put on a kettle to boil. They sat and looked at each other.