Free Like a Charm by Karin Slaughter (.ed) Page B

to give many stations and branch lines the axe. In my opinion doctors should stick to looking after people, and not waste their time fiddling about with our trains.
    After Basingstoke (shed number 70D, Southern Region) nearly everyone got off the train. We were travelling on 80031, a standard 2-6-4, 88 ton 10 cwt locomotive with a 5 foot 8 inch driving wheel. When I boarded the train at Waterloo I went to the buffet and treated myself to a sandwich and a cup of tea. I like the tea on trains, but most people do not.
    When I was finished I moved along and sat in a crowded second class slide-door compartment. But at Woking all the ladies in the compartment got out, and I was left on my own with two men in bowler hats, so I moved along and found one near the back of the train with only two women in it.
    Rosemary, in the pink pullover, was reading a magazine about pop music. Every time she turned the page her gold bracelet jangled. I couldn't take my eyes off the bracelet because it was all gold charms, and one of them was a wonderful train. It was a very early locomotive, maybe even a model of Stephenson's Rocket. There were other charms on the bracelet but I wanted to look closely at Rocket. One day I will go to the Science Museum in London and see Rocket, maybe even touch it if there is not a fence in the way.
    The woman Rosemary sighed when she saw me watching her and pulled at her jumper, so I looked down at my lap. I had bought myself a copy of The Eagle at Waterloo, and read that, trying to sneak glimpses at the charm over the top of the comic. Dan Dare, pilot of the future, was as usual in a good adventure, fighting the Mekon.
    The lady who was sitting beside me on the window side started to make a noise like tch tch. She was quite old, probably about thirty-five, and fat, and wore a tweed suit like Daddy's secretary wears, but Daddy's secretary is even older and fatter than this woman. The fat lady was staring at The Eagle, so I thought maybe she wanted to look at it. I held it out to her and said: 'Perhaps, madam, you would like to read it when I am finished.' But she made a noise like a steam locomotive when it comes to a station stop, and turned her back to me. Rosemary giggled when the fat lady made this noise and gave me a wink, so I winked back and pulled a face to show I knew I was in trouble with the fat lady. Rosemary rolled her eyes in a conspiratorial kind of way, and then returned to reading her pop magazine.
    I did not think that Rosemary would turn out in the end to be so horrible. If anyone was going to be unpleasant I would have thought it was the fat lady, but the fat lady got out at Basingstoke.
    I think Rosemary is what Mummy would call a common little tart.
    As the train pulled out of Basingstoke station it started to rain. The windows were grimy, and the water came down in clean lines cutting a diagonal pattern in the dirt.
    I shuffled along into the fat woman's place near the window and started to look out. Sometimes at Basingstoke there are some good locomotives waiting in the sidings, sometimes even rows of Pullman cars.
    'Perhaps you'll let me read your comic,' said Rosemary, out of the blue. I handed it to her.
    'I like the train on your bracelet,' I said. 'Is it articulated?'
    She pulled her sleeve down again, almost as though my mentioning the bracelet made her feel she had to hide it. Perhaps, I thought, she took me for a jewel thief or a robber who would overpower her, rip the bracelet from her petite wrist and leap from the train with my ill-gained booty.
    She turned the comic over and started to read the back page. It was a special cut-out article on the TSR2. She seemed to be very interested.
    'Do you like planes?' I asked. 'I live near Boscombe Down.'
    'My boyfriend is a pilot there,' she said. 'He's been working on this plane.'
    'So does my daddy.' I clapped my hands together with excitement. 'Do the wheels on the train move?'
    'I should bloody hope so,' said Rosemary, 'or we'll never get