CATCHING THE TRAIN

It was the morning after the dreadful night before. He’d gone. Left early. Slammed the front door as if to punish the house for being there. She lay for a moment or two almost enjoying the relief, the calm after the storm. Then her baby cried, a delayed reaction, disturbed by the noisy exit and the shudder from downstairs that shook the whole house. She dragged herself out of bed and went to get the child.

It was a beautiful morning. The sky was flecked with fluffy clouds and a light breeze ruffled the leaves on the overgrown shrub by the front door. She put a fleece jacket over the baby’s T-shirt just in case he felt the cold. Not yet a year old, she’d read somewhere in one of the baby books that they feel the cold so need double the layers that she did. She strapped him in the three-wheeled pushchair and manoeuvred its spoked wheels through the hall and out of the front door, locking it behind them.

The road out of the village was narrow, a country lane, and people always drove too fast. She pushed the pram on the right hand side of the road, walked towards any approaching traffic. There wasn’t a lot and the three or four vehicles that past her all slowed down when they saw her on the edge of the road. The blackberries where just ripening in the thick hedge and at a gateway she could see the sheep, heads down, grazing the still green grass. Her baby twitched, looked up at the sky, the top of the hedge perhaps, his mother's familiar outline.

She knew the quickest route to take. An even smaller lane turned off right and she pushed on down the less hazardous road, more able to relax without the traffic. The lane wound its way through the countryside following the course of an old drover’s track. The hedges were banked high on both sides and old trees over hung so that in places their branches reached across to touch each other. She was glad she’d put the extra coat on her baby. Out of the sunlight, the chill of the breeze became more cutting. The tram line wires strung out between the pylons crackled overhead, dangerously out of reach. She walked underneath them, heard the static charging down the lines and thought how it must be harmful to her baby’s brain.

The metal gate guarded the route across the tracks and next to it the sign gave its warning. She opened the gate and wheeled the pushchair through. Her baby was asleep. The momentum of the journey had rocked him off. She shut the gate behind them and then, moving the pushchair ever so gently so as not wake the baby, she parked it directly between the nearest set of rails. She put the brake on and then carefully leant forward to touch the little boy on his cheek. She stroked the soft skin for a brief moment, then taking her hand away almost reluctantly; she turned and squatted down next to the pram. She sat there between the metal rails, cross-legged like an Indian squaw. The two of them were waiting, one asleep, and the other out of her mind, waiting to catch the express train.