WAITING FOR A TRAIN.

There had been no railway line or station at Upper Parkway for many years so why were three little children waiting for a train?

Jill Somers had told her three little children, Max Wendy and Ross to go out and get some fresh air. They were continuously bickering over who was going to choose the t.v. programmes, whose toys each was to play with and who should be the one to walk the dog. She thought that if they were to go and get some air not only would they run off their excess energy but also may make them more amenable to reason and less argumentative.

I had been born in Upper Parkway and longed to go back there to live. When I met Richard who worked on the underground I hoped he’d like to go there too. He did go there but not for long and not often. He showed the greatest reluctance to even think about ever living there. I couldn’t understand this since I knew it had beautiful scenery even though I couldn’t see it. Richard and I met on the underground. Being blind I have to have help sometimes when making my transition from one train to the other. He often helped me to do this and stood there holding my hand as we waited for my train to arrive. I hoped he’d one day ask me out, which he did eventually and rather liked him holding my hand. I no longer have to hope for the signal failure I used to hope for when we were waiting for my train, not now that we are married.

“Let’s play that game with the pennies”, said Wendy who had saved up her old pennies in order to throw them onto the tracks so they could be run over by the express. Ever the tomboy she was the one who loved adventure even when it was the dangerous and foolhardy sort. She had the attention span of a flea and hopped about like one too – Hopped around when she walked and hopped from one subject to another when she talked. The boys would trail after her and found it easier to do as she suggested when it came to getting into mischief. Now she had thrown all her pennies onto the track and watched the trains run over her pre decimal coins which were big and suited the purpose very well and she was now getting bored.

Duncan Jones was also bored. He’d been given another sedative by the Matron of his Nursing Home. He always referred to her as the Ward Sister in his more lucid moments but his more lucid moments were now getting less frequent as he was entering another stage of dementia. What was all too clear were the earlier days of his life – His childhood and time spent as a train driver. When he saw the vision of the tragedy in which he was an unwilling participant he became agitated and it was then that he needed the sedatives. These scenes had not dulled over the years and he could not stop them recurring over the decades to follow them first taking place. Before the onset of his illness he longed for release from these scenes – Longed for the end to the torment which played and replayed over and over and over again in his mind. Now even the dementia wasn’t blotting them out – Not yet at any rate.

Jill had given the children a basket and suggested to them that they might like to go blackberrying. Ross would soon taste his mother’s blackberry jam which he adored and even Max was now getting a bit bored with playing down by the railway line. They’d clapped and shouted under the bridge so they could hear the echo as they did so and yesterday they had stood on the bridge and thrown big stones onto the cars below, now they thought they all should do something sensible. Wendy however liked throwing things onto the line and playing dangerous games with the trains. She grabbed the basket from Max and threw it onto the line approximately three minutes before the express was due. The seconds felt like hours as they waited for the approach of the train. Then they heard the whistle, after that they felt the rush of air and the thunderous noise of the metalic lion as it roared into the station. Suddenly thinking of their mothers wrath at the loss of the basket which would soon be a mangled mess, Wendy jumped out in front of the train to retrieve it. She slipped and fell, reaching out a hand to save herself and connecting with the live rail. She died in an instant. In one single movement of united sibling love and protectiveness, her brothers leapt forward to try and drag her clear, not quite understanding at ages seven and five that it was already too late to save her. The train rattled into the station and rolled straight over them all mangling beyond recognition all three of their little bodies. The driver saw them and tried to apply his brakes but the time lag wasn’t enough to stop the train and spare their lives and stop their deaths and horrific injuries.

As we stood in the bar of the Parkway Arms, having a drink after visiting Richard’s sister, I distinctly heard the sound of a train whistle. Richard’s face was ashen so they told me as his eyes were fixed on the wall to our right. Out of the wall and across our path hurtled the 11.45 Parkway to London Express. It came out of the right-hand wall, straight out in front of us, running over three little bodies and a basket in the process, and disappeared into the left-hand wall. At last I understood Richard’s reluctance to return to Upper Parkway. The poor little children who died were his niece and nephews and the person he’d been to see was his only sister Jill.