The Stationmaster’s Daughter. Kathleen McGurl
vaguely remembered meeting a pretty blonde at one of Ian’s Christmas work parties.
‘Yes. Listen, Tils, I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened like this, but, well, it has. We’ve been seeing each other for a while now. And … she’s pregnant. Sixteen weeks. All looking good on the scans and everything.’ He smiled. ‘This time it’s going to work. I’m going to be a dad.’ He picked up the glass of Prosecco and took a swig.
‘She’s having a baby?’ Tilly whispered. It wasn’t making sense. What did he want – for them to adopt Naomi’s baby?
‘Yes, she is. Well, she and I are having a baby. I know it’s difficult, what with you losing your job and all, but there’s no great hurry. Move out in a month or so, perhaps? That’d still give us time to get her settled well before the baby comes.’
‘Move out?’
He looked sheepish. ‘Well, yes, you can hardly stay here when Naomi moves in. We can sort out the legal stuff later. It’s OK – you can name me as the guilty party. The house is in my name anyway. I know you’ve paid something towards the mortgage, but I can compensate you for that, I guess.’
‘You’re divorcing me?’ Tilly stared at him. What he was saying was just not sinking in at all.
‘Technically you’ll divorce me, for being unfaithful. But yes. This is the end, for us. This children issue – or lack of children – it’s so important. If only we’d known you couldn’t have them sooner, we could have—’
‘Divorced sooner?’ She spat the words out.
‘Well … No, I don’t mean it like that. I loved you. Still love you, I guess. But I want children. And Naomi can give me that.’
‘Do you love her?’
He hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘Yes. Yes, I do. She’s glowing in pregnancy.’
‘Well fuck you, then,’ she shouted, grabbing his Prosecco out of his hand and throwing its contents over him.
‘I deserved that, I suppose,’ he said, his tone infuriatingly mild as he brushed the wine out of his eyes. ‘I’ll go and stay in Naomi’s flat for a few weeks. Just until you’re able to find somewhere else.’ With that he stood up and left the kitchen, leaving Tilly staring at the chair where he’d been sitting. A few minutes later the front door banged shut, and she realised she was alone. Alone with an almost full bottle of Prosecco to ‘celebrate’ her new, unwanted freedom from both job and husband. She topped up her glass and stayed sitting exactly where he’d left her, her gaze fixed on her bleak, lonely future.
*
When she’d finished telling her story, she picked up the cup of tea Ken had quietly placed in front of her and sipped it. Ken was silent, but she could see a muscle twitching in his cheek, as though he was clenching and unclenching his jaw. He lifted his own cup of tea but before it reached his mouth, he put it down again, hard, so that some spilled and joined the red wine that already puddled on the table.
‘I can’t believe it. So he’d been cheating on you with this Naomi. And now she’s pregnant. And I’d thought I liked the man.’ Ken reached for her hand. ‘Tilly, pet, you are definitely better off without him, although I know it might not feel like it right now.’ He looked distraught.
‘You’re right, Dad, I am. Not that I had any choice in it. But I can see now that we’d been drifting apart, after that last miscarriage. I guess there are some things a relationship can’t cope with.’
‘For some people, it’d make them closer. Shared tragedies.’
‘Not us, apparently.’ She drank more of her tea. Her half-drunk wine was still there, on the table, but she no longer wanted it. ‘Thanks, Dad. For listening. It’s definitely helped.’ It had, she realised. He knew nearly all of it now. Not everything – but he knew about the miscarriages and Ian, and somehow that made it seem just a tiny bit easier to cope with.
Ted was planning to spend a quiet Christmas on his own at Lynford station, as he’d done for so many years. Norah always spent the festive period with her husband and children – there was not enough space for them all in the station anyway, and Ted was not able to go to visit her. He was entitled to a couple of weeks’ holiday each year, but never took them. If he’d had a wife and family maybe he’d feel differently, but his life was here, at Lynford station, and he wanted no other. Or at least, that had been true until he’d fallen in love with Annie Galbraith.
The last train before the short closure was to be the 17.21 – Annie’s usual train. She was working that day. He’d seen her as usual in the morning, when she’d flashed him a smile and waggled her fingers at him as she hurried through the station in her red coat. Ted had taken pains to make the station look welcoming and festive, festooning the mantelpiece in the waiting room with sprigs of holly, and attaching paper-chains around the edge of the ticket counter. It wasn’t much but it was more than he normally did, and it was all for Annie.
To his surprise she returned early that afternoon – just after half past four. Ted was in the process of setting a fire in the waiting room. She sashayed in, humming a Christmas carol, and sat down on one of the chairs.
‘Well, Ted, the bank closed early today and we’ve been sent home. But my father is not expecting me until the usual time, so I wondered – what shall I do for the next half-hour or so? I know, I thought to myself, I’ll come and see my favourite stationmaster. So here I am!’
‘A-Annie! You’re very welcome. I’ll just light the fire, and then w-would you like some tea, perhaps?’
He was rewarded with a smile, that lit up the room like a Christmas tree. ‘I’d love a cup, but only if you’ve time to sit and drink one with me.’
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