On the Blue Train (2 page)

As she lay back into the animal contentment of a hot bath, she noted a twinge of lumbago, and quite a severe pain in her right shoulder or the side of her neck. Though these began to fade and she saw the view from the train again. The winter fields all lilac drifts of spindly trees and dark mists of hedges in the advancing night.

The only other tardy diners, she observed from a small table in an expansive, gracious room, were an elderly couple appearing to wear age rather pertly and a man who, while seated at their table, maintained a certain apartness. Dark brown hair, barely silvered. Eyes set deeply in a face between thin and gaunt.

The younger man, likely a year or two older than she was, that was to say, than Teresa, negotiated what seemed to be a
vast pudding carelessly. He was also reading a newspaper—a stratagem for independence—with a studious but unstuffy aspect. Then he raised his eyes and nodded to Teresa so gravely and minimally that, had there not been a fugitive smile for confirmation, she'd have doubted having seen it. Her dormant hunger was roused. She ate a rabbit pie and two helpings of bread and sublime butter with relish. It was tasty, well-prepared country food, and she congratulated herself once more on having reached the Hydro. She only wished she had a book to hand. She toyed with the idea of taking some alcoholic drink—quite unlike her, a loather of the flavour of the stuff. She wasn't particularly fond of the drinker's bonhomie, either, which could be somehow eerily self-pleasing. But she'd sometimes regretted her aversion and it might have been a notion of ceremony or play-acting that was attractive that evening. Still, her travels had left her in enough of a stupor as it was, so she contented herself with water.

The elderly couple stopped by her table as she was relinquishing knife and fork. ‘Good evening,' said the woman, amiably formal. ‘I am Mrs Jackman. And this is my husband. We were adjourning to the drawing room. I don't suppose you'd care to join us there for coffee?'

Mrs Jackman conferred on Teresa that radiant, almost beatific smile that some older women possess, while Mr Jackman nodded chivalrously. Teresa wondered how to express her intention to retire to bed with diplomacy. However, she
had noticed their vain efforts to persuade the younger man to accompany them to the drawing room, their eagerness for company only too plain. She herself had gone a long time without it, and maybe this fact too swayed her resolve.

‘I'm a widow,' she said once they were seated, as if to clarify her position.

‘Oh, I'm so sorry.' The good lady blinked in stately sympathy. Her husband rearranged his serviette on his knee. ‘I hope you don't mind my asking,' ventured Mrs Jackman tremulously, as if constrained to put the question, ‘whether you have any children?'

Feeling a touch in jeopardy, Teresa studied the pretty white flowers in the vase on the chimneypiece. She might have stood and left them with a vague excuse, but it was in her character to be socially meek. She sipped her coffee.

‘My baby girl also died.'

‘No!' exclaimed Mrs Jackman, spellbound. Her husband's leather armchair creaked as though communicating in its old, softly world-weary way a pity he could not formulate.

Mrs Jackman: ‘Illness?'

‘Accident.'

The older woman asked no more. She would imagine—vividly, judging from her brightening, suddenly ageless eyes. Treacherous flight of stairs, unfortunate motorcar, rebellious horse. Mr Jackman's despondent effort at a smile suggested he'd had experience of grief. It was commonly observed that
men wouldn't speak of emotional suffering. Indeed, it could be as if they
had
no words for it. They were still waiting on the arrival of that particular script. In fairness, Teresa too had come to distrust words, since Mummy had gone. What did anyone have to say about pain? What could be said?

This was their annual
cure
at the Hydro, Mrs Jackman explained, taking the burden of the conversation onto her own capable shoulders. She elaborated that they did not approve of diet meals and eschewed them. All three relaxed a little. The Jackmans wanted to know if this was Teresa's first visit, and assured her she'd enjoy Harrogate. It was so restful, and beneficial for rheumatism. There was excellent exercise to be taken, many charming hours' occupation to be found in Valley Gardens and on the moor. The healthy air made you ravenous and devoted patrons of Bettys Café Tea Rooms. They were mad for the Royal Baths. So well appointed. The firelight endowed their cheeks with a renewed rosy youth.

‘We try it all,' stated Mr Jackman.

‘There's the nicest Turkish bath suite you've ever seen,' his wife emphasised. ‘You come out as fresh and bewildered as a babe. We
must
go together.'

‘I'd like that.'

The prospect of receiving curative treatments, of some self-indulgence, was not unappealing. Such a lovely word,
convalescence
: susurrating, dove-grey, respectable but steeped in sanatorium romance. Oh, to lounge and be coddled.

‘It's decided. And you'll be taking the water?'

‘I think I will.'

‘Pretty strong flavour,' offered Mr Jackman. ‘Like old eggs. Or gunpowder. Not that I've tasted gunpowder.'

‘Salty. But you grit your teeth, you get used to it. There's no question about it,' Mrs Jackman ended, ‘it's rather nice to be taken care of.'

A short while later, Teresa approached the foot of the staircase, about to retire to her room. The solitary man from dinner was passing in through the hotel's entrance with a slow thoughtfulness, as if concluding a leisurely stroll. Was he given to reverie? It could be a mistake to assume a poetic spirit in a man, and to trust him, of course. But she lifted her hand, more a reflex than a conscious action. He returned her wave quite naturally. He had the face of someone you might have met before, with those deep-set eyes that appeared to be brown. Meeting them, she had to reach abruptly for the banister. It was the exhaustion, slinking up on her.

Without further delay, she would write to her husband.

Who was very much alive, contrary to what she'd said. Even if it wasn't often owned to, it was reasonable to conceal aspects of oneself. Imitating the great icebergs was a prudent modus operandi—only the tiniest portion exposed and the rest of your leviathan self gliding beneath the waterline.

She seized the pen with a pang. How she longed to again be juggling sentences like so many flashing knives. Busy at that, she was always in her right mind. Like a child perhaps, being bold, but prettily, for the most part, and so quite getting away with it. However, this was a different business altogether. Peter was
not
at his usual station beneath her writing table: no gentle aroma on the air of wire-haired terrier, no torpid barrel of him warming the hollows of her feet. The pen was poised like a person, just beyond the threshold of a room, who has forgotten the task they came there to complete. For hours she'd been scrabbling aridly in her mind to compose a letter. Now she was compelled to test its possible parts sotto voce before she could risk entrusting them to paper.

Darling.

Do forgive me for my last rushed note. I was in something of a state. You know I haven't been myself. A cure will be just what the doctor ordered, then I'll be as good as new. The idea of our reunion sustains me. Know that, darling.

None of it was right. Her pen had been thoroughly infected by the ugly inadequacy that had stalled her Wretched Book.

Sleep refused to snuff her out in a nice bed in the north of England. Her brain hummed on. She had difficulty taking deep breaths, something she'd learned to recognise as the
presage of a bad night, that and the crouching sense of catastrophe. A brutal malediction, a brain not able to rest when it most needed to, resisting comfort. If it were to be so, there would be no mercy, no place to hide at all.

3

THIRD DAY

‘I beg your pardon, ma'am,' the maid said, quietly but decidedly. ‘I've woken you. Shall I draw the curtains and have a fire going?'

‘Oh, please. Is it late?' She rose onto her elbows, narrowing her eyes at brusque daylight. Teresa had slept—solidly. Astonished, she observed the springy mind that lifts from true rest. Recalling last night's unease, she felt washed clean, hugely improved.

‘Ten o'clock, ma'am.'

A
grasse matinée
! The nightdress she'd broken in had a scent of pristine flannel. This and the regenerative sleep gave things a hopeful Christmassy aura.

Without being pretty exactly, the maid was youthfully willowy, her darkish blonde hair captive beneath a bonnet. At this age she could get away with violet depressions under the
eyes, fatigue for now a touch of spice. Those eyes did not look at Teresa quite directly, yet they paid attention. They were keen. An observant eye wasn't necessarily ideal in a servant. One rather preferred them less alert, at times.

‘Would you care for a newspaper, ma'am?'

Was there something strained in her tone? Teresa wasn't ready for the wide world. ‘No. I don't think so. Thank you.'

‘Your breakfast, ma'am—will you be having it downstairs, or wanting it here?'

She pictured the lazy curiosity of a gathering of recently woken hotel guests. ‘Here. I'll take it here.' Her imagination wandered to sausages, black pudding, a gay breakfast. However, her eating having been off, and after the previous night's good meal, she ought to be cautious. ‘Something light?'

‘The slimming diet? Split toast and grapefruit, ma'am?'

Reluctantly, she accepted.

She ate in bed, blank-headed, then lingered over a makeshift toilette. She dared to peek into the glass and wasn't unhappy with its cool truths. Genuine sleep had given her a cleansed, peaceful look. She thought of a pale river stone, of the River Dart—this pleasure disturbed by a flicker of disgust at having to wear the same old green jumper, grey stockinette skirt, grey cardigan and velour hat. How abject, one's own mustiness. She'd
have
to see about new clothes. And books! But it was Sunday, so patience.