Edith

by Joanna Hilton

Tom took his usual route past the old glass factory and down Hawkers Hill into the town.  The sky was grey and he thought that it might snow later.  The weather was becoming much colder; it would be winter soon.  He pulled on his coat collar and sleeves, but he’d grown so much in the past months that they didn’t do a very good job of covering up his neck or his wrists, so he made do with hunching himself over and letting out great, steamy puffs of breath.  He started to walk more quickly as the road sloped downwards, swinging his arms from side to side, occasionally slipping one blue hand into his pocket and then swapping it over a minute later, so that the fingers clutching his satchel’s handle wouldn’t become too frozen and bent.  He wished he’d remembered his gloves, but in the kitchen next to the stove with his mug of tea and plate of sausages, he’d pushed the damp October morning into the corner of his mind that was reserved for things like trips to the dentist and England losing a test match.

He reached the common and slowed slightly; he didn’t want to arrive at the station too early because that would mean a longer wait stamping his feet and blowing on his fingertips.  The waiting room would already be full of the solid, respectable men who caught the 8.24 every morning and he – a lowly office boy – would not fit in.  Every so often, Tom imagined, there’d be a discreet cough or a hushed enquiry and they would all nod at each other politely over pages four and five of the Times.  Tom never went into the waiting room; he didn’t feel that he was quite ready to become solid and respectable.  He wouldn’t have read the Times either, but probably just sat and stared out of the smeary glass at the pigeons strutting along the top of the signal. 

If Edith had been there, he’d have bought her an iced bun and a cup of cocoa in the station café, even though it would have meant her being almost late for school.  They’d have talked about India and Afghanistan and reeled off all the capital cities she could remember.  Maybe he’d have told her funny stories about Mr Symonds from the ledgers’ office with his runny nose, or Miss Daphne from the typing pool with her American cigarettes and bright yellow hair.  But Edith wasn’t there.  She hadn’t skipped alongside him down to the station for a while now.  The thought of her made him grow even colder.  Except it wasn’t a cold that came from the outside, it wasn’t the kind of cold you felt.  It was inside.  Part of you.  He’d been cold the night Edith had died.  He’d stood in the backyard and grown cold.  But he hadn’t felt the wind or the rain and he hadn’t felt his father’s arm across his shoulder, or heard his mother’s weeping as she tried to hold his face in her hands.  He hadn’t even felt Edith, as though something of her might be left.  Her laughter, her voice, they’d gone from the house.  From them.

Tom realised that he wasn’t walking any more.  He was standing still and this time, both of his hands were hanging out of his pockets and he was looking across the common towards the line of skeletal black beech trees, near where the track led down to the reservoir.  He had thought of Edith and now he couldn’t pretend to himself that he hadn’t.  Worse, he’d thought of her being gone.  Usually, he imagined her somewhere else, just not with him, which was far more comforting than her not being there at all.  Sometimes, he thought, she might just be hanging around the bus stop with her satchel off, ready to wallop any of the boys if they pulled her plait again.  Maybe she was whispering and giggling with that curly headed friend of hers, Gladys, outside his bedroom door.  At work, he was still saving up stories in his head, so he could be ready to tell her about Daphne’s new chap with the cocky little grin who worked in the tailor’s along the road, or the switchboard girls and how they’d all clubbed together and bought Mr Symonds a box of three monogrammed hankies for his birthday.

Tom knew that he should start walking again.  If he missed his train, there wouldn’t be another one for half an hour and it would be crowded with nowhere to sit down.  He shouldn’t really be late for work either, although he didn’t suppose anyone would mind.  He thought perhaps he’d feel relieved if they did; a sharp reprimand would be better than an anxious glance or a sympathetic pat on the back.  He found Edith creeping into his conversation, as she slipped into his dreams at night.  And then people would be embarrassed and not know what to say and they’d turn away.  He wanted to scream at them and make them start.  Talk about her or she’ll really disappear, he’d yell, talk about her and she’ll at least be here for a little while longer.  He didn’t’ yell though.  And he didn’t scream.  He went along to the pub with everyone else in his lunch hour and drank ginger ale, ate curling ham sandwiches and talked about the racing at Doncaster, or Mr Cuthbert’s two greyhounds.

Tom nodded to an old man walking his dog on the corner of the common and carried on towards the school with its faded hopscotch patterns and walls where the iron railings had been cut away to be sent to the ammunitions factories.  The granite wall was frosty and white in the chilly air.  His black leather shoes felt slightly damp and his toes were numb.  It really was bitter.  He knew that soon his morning walks to the station would be dark and black.  His hands were slowly turning purple and he wished again that he’d remembered his gloves, but there was noting to be done about it now.  As he turned into Victoria Road, a milk cart rattled past him over the cobbles and two little boys in short trousers jostled with a football, knobby knees blue with cold.  On the corner of Jubilee Street, across from the butcher’s and the main Post Office, he paused at the newspaper stand and bought a packet of lozenges.  The raw air had made his throat feel hoarse and his chest tight.

He was relieved to be standing on the draughty platform.  At least he could put down his bag and swing both arms a bit.  He rubbed his hands against the insides of his pockets, but his fingers stayed stiff and cramped.  Men in overalls on Platform Two were pulling off tattered strips of paper from the billboard and replacing them with a new advertisement.   The girl on the poster was wearing a red dress.  She had thick, brown hair and a smile that seemed to stretch across the whole of the bottom half of her face.  Tom looked at the dress and thought about the last time he’d seen Edith alive and happy and well.  They’d all been in the front room after tea and she’d come rushing in at five o’clock wearing her duffel coat, not wanting to sit down for a second and certainly not wanting to drink her cup of tea or finish the tea cakes that had been saved underneath a plate by the fire.  There had been the most divine red dress on display in the window of Margery’s boutique and she simply must be old enough by now to wear something with polka dots on it and a skirt that would twirl if she went dancing.  Tom’s mother had laughed and reminded her that she never went dancing.  But Edith had replied that she was almost sixteen and Harold from the boys’ grammar school had already told her she was the prettiest girl in the form.  Tom’s father had said proudly that that was certainly true and they’d all laughed. Tom had hugged her and said – as her older brother – that he wanted to take a good look at this Harold fellow before too long.  He took a breath as the warmth of the memory faded into the brittle air and realised to his horror that he was almost crying.  He wished the train would come.  The girl on the billboard didn’t look like Edith at all.  And there were no polka dots on her red dress.  The stamping and puffing on the platform was becoming impatient and disgruntled.  The solid Respectables were shuffling out of the waiting room and edging towards the middle of the platform.

Tom breathed deeply.  The cold air was clearing his mind and bringing him fully back to the present moment.  All of a sudden, he was grateful for it.  He debated whether or not he would have time to go over to the refreshments stand and buy himself a cup of tea, but then he heard his name being called.  He listened carefully and yes . . .  there it was again.  He turned and looked up and down the platform; he didn’t see anyone he recognised.  But the calling started once more, insistent and firm, a girl’s voice, a young, high, pretty voice.   Edith’s voice.

              “Tom,” Edith cried.  “Tom!  You’ve forgotten your gloves!” 

And there she was!  His Edith!  In her blue duffel coat, laughing and waving at him from Platform Two, right in front of that damn billboard.  She was jumping up and down, her plait was swinging and she had the forgotten gloves in one hand.

              “Edith,” he managed to whisper.  “Edith.” And then he yelled back,  “I know I forgot them, Edith.  I know I forgot my gloves, I know!  You aren’t there.  You aren’t there to remind me!”  Standing where he was, quite incapable of movement, a warm glow suffused his frozen body.  He laughed and then laughed again even louder.  But suddenly, sharply, savagely, he realised what was happening.  It was hysteria.  Nothing more. Edith was dead: dead and buried!  She was never coming back and no amount of hoping and praying and pretending would make it so; he must simply be conjuring her up, right in front of him and out of desperation to see her again.  Blinking hard to make the apparition disappear from his mind’s eye, he rubbed at his eyes roughly.  He’d wanted so much to hear her, so much to see her that now he thought he could, was that it?  There she was, his beautiful, vibrant sister - but it was not possible.   Grief had obviously driven him quite, quite mad.  He felt his eyelids become hot and knew now that the tears he’d held back earlier would surely start to run down his face.  He couldn’t have that, not here on the platform.  Reaching for the handkerchief in his trouser pocket, he started to make a big show of blowing his nose.  Bending down to pick up his satchel, his shin hit the corner of a briefcase, knocking it over.  He reached for it and when he looked up, there was nothing on Platform Two, nothing except for the men in overalls smoothing on the poster with their brushes and glue.

Bewildered, Tom looked at the briefcase in his hand and then back across the tracks.  All of a sudden, the train was upon them, pulling into the platform, hissing steam and billowing smoke. He sensed a man standing next to him, looking at him expectantly and then, Tom was handing the briefcase back to its owner, Mr Phillips, a colleague he knew vaguely from the regional office.  Mr Phillips was talking.

              “Oh thank you, Tom,” he said.  “You are so kind.  I apologise for getting in your way.  Goodness what a crush!”  Tom smiled weakly at him.  He hadn’t seen Mr Phillips since last March when they’d had an office leaving party for one of the girls who was going to be married.  Disorientated, he knew he should answer - Mr Phillips had always been kind to him - but could not.  Mr Phillips had had to raise his voice over the din of the engine and now he made to move like everyone else towards the train’s doors.  Tom let himself be swept along with him.  Then, quite without warning, Mr Phillips stopped abruptly, put his hand on Tom’s arm, and leaned close to him, starting to speak.  Above the racket of the click and slam of carriage doors, Tom watched his mouth carefully to make out what he was saying.

              “I was dreadfully sorry to hear that your sister had been taken ill,” said Mr Phillips.  He gripped Tom’s arm tighter, each squeeze emphasising his gentle sincerity.  “But I’m so awfully relieved for you all to see that she’s better.”