The Railway Girl. Nancy Carson
On the journey back Lucy was full of Dickie Dempster. She giggled and speculated wildly on what might happen when they arrived at Brettell Lane station.
‘If he don’t ask me out, should I ask him, do you think?’
‘I do not,’ Miriam answered emphatically. ‘Act like a lady, for Lord’s sake. Don’t get throwing yourself at nobody. It’s the road to ruin. What’s the matter with you? I’ve never seen you like this before. You’m like a bitch on heat. Your mother would be ashamed of you.’
‘But it’s fate that we met again, Miriam. Don’t you see?’
‘Twaddle! It’s nothing o’ the sort, Lucy. It’s a coincidence. Nothing more. The trouble wi’ you is that you’ve bin starved of a chap for too long. Get that Arthur up the churchyard and lie him down on one o’ them graves and make a man of him.’
‘Ooh no, not Arthur. Besides, the churchyard is the last place he’d want to go, seeing as how he spends half his life in churchyards already. Anyway, I’m not getting my bum all cold on the freezing slab of somebody’s grave. Not for Arthur … For Dickie I might though.’
‘Then take poor Arthur somewhere else. Over the fields by Hawbush Farm. Give him a good seeing to. And once he’s given you a good seeing to, you won’t look at e’er another chap again.’
‘And I was starting to take to Arthur as well,’ Lucy said dreamily. ‘Now I’m all unsettled again.’
‘Lucy, just forget this Dickie Dempster,’ Miriam chided. ‘Be satisfied with what you’ve got.’
As the train slowed to a stop at Brettell Lane Lucy waited with baited breath for Dickie to come along and open the door for them.
‘I ain’t waiting,’ Miriam exclaimed, deliberately teasing. ‘I’m opening the door meself.’
‘No, wait. Wait just a minute, Miriam.’
Miriam rolled her eyes.
‘Just a minute … Please …’
Dickie’s beaming, handsome face was soon framed in the window of the door. He opened it and stood aside, then offered his hand to help Lucy down.
Again she blushed to her roots, smiling self-consciously. ‘Thank you, Dickie.’
‘My pleasure, Lucy.’ He turned to Miriam to help her down next. ‘Happy to be of service. Thank you for using the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway,’ he added in an amusing parody of formality.
Reluctant to move, Lucy seemed stuck fast to the platform. ‘How often are you working on this train?’ she asked.
‘Well, nearly every day. The time depends on me shift.’
‘I’ll look out for you. I’ll wave if I see you.’
‘I’ll look out for you, Lucy.’
‘If I knew when you was coming through our station I could bring you a bottle of tea and something to eat, ready for when you stop.’
‘Oh, aye,’ he said doubtfully. ‘That’d be good, but it’d upset the station master. Do you work, Lucy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you’m most likely at work the same hours as me.’ He drew his watch from his fob and looked at it. ‘Look at the time,’ he said with a smile. ‘This train has got to be going else we’ll never get to Worcester. Like I say, I’ll keep me eye open for you.’ He winked again.
Lucy winked back saucily. ‘I’ll keep me eye open for you as well.’
He scanned the train for open doors then skipped back along the platform to his guard’s van. Lucy heard his whistle and, as the train began moving forwards she stopped to wave, disappointed that evidently nothing was going to come of this encounter after all.
‘Why did you let him know as I’ve got a chap, Miriam?’ Lucy asked, frowning as they walked along the platform to the gate. ‘I bet that’s why he didn’t ask to see me.’
‘You don’t want to see him,’ Miriam replied, looking straight ahead. ‘He’d be no good for you.’
‘I don’t know how you can say that. You don’t know him.’
‘Neither do you, Lucy … But I know you.’
Arthur made it to the Whimsey just before nine that evening. He immediately searched for Lucy across the room, and saw her serving an elderly customer. She had a soft, dreamy look in her blue eyes, a look which enchanted him just as surely as if a spell had been cast on him by some benign love witch. He approached the bar.
‘How do, Lucy. You do look nice.’
She smiled serenely. ‘Thank you, Arthur, it’s nice of you to say so,’ she said, taking money from the elderly man.
‘She does, don’t she?’ he said to the man who was standing beside him waiting for his change.
The ageing customer crinkled up his rheumy eyes and nodded. ‘Her meks me wish I was young again. But still, I’n had my day. They say as every dog has his day, and I’n had mine – more’s the pity.’
Arthur nodded his acknowledgement of the man’s reply and grinned matily. He turned to Lucy. ‘A pint please, Lucy. And have a drink yourself.’
‘Thank you, I will.’ She filled a tankard and placed it on the bar. ‘How’s your cold today?’
‘Oh, much better …’ He handed her the money. ‘But I’ve hurt me back lifting a slab of marble.’ He put his hand to the small of his back and grimaced as if in pain.
‘How did you do that?’
‘Me and our Talbot was fitting a new counter top at Mr Guest’s shop this morning – you know, the haberdashery. I tried to lift it on me own, but it was too heavy. Now I’m in agony.’
‘Maybe you’d best not stay here then,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe you should go home and rest.’
‘No, I’ll be all right. What time’s your father due?’
‘Any minute.’
Another customer came and stood at the bar seeking service, and Lucy served him before turning to Arthur again.
‘So you’ve done nothing this afternoon?’ she queried. ‘On account of your back.’
‘Yes, I have. I went and had me likeness taken in Dudley.’
‘Had your likeness taken? I bet that cost a fortune. Did you have that same look of agony on your face?’ she asked impishly.
Her irreverence amused him. ‘I’d like you to have yours taken, so’s I can look at it when I’m home and you’re not with me. I forget what you look like sometimes and it drives me mad. If you had your likeness taken it would remind me.’
She laughed self-consciously and wiped the top of the counter with a cloth. ‘How can you forget what I look like?’
‘By trying too hard to remember, I reckon. I think about you a lot, Lucy … Anyway, you can have a copy of my likeness when its done. You never know, you might take to it.’
She smiled, endeavouring to hide her conscience at both her inability to reciprocate his feelings and her eagerness to yield hers to Dickie Dempster, should he ever ask. ‘Look, I’m getting busy, Arthur,’ she entreated. ‘I can’t talk now, or I’ll get into trouble. I’ll see you later.’
Haden Piddock appeared just at that moment, accompanied by another man. ‘Why, it’s King