Free The Last Dance by Fiona McIntosh

different shape this time.
    ‘There you go, Miss. Enjoy your journey.’
    She watched the guard blow his whistle and wave his flag. Obediently the Hastings-bound train grunted, jerked and then with a soft squeal eased with a gentle shunt out of Charing Cross Station, smoke billowing around them.
    Immediately they crossed the Thames and Stella worked out they were on the Hungerford Bridge. Now with her attention engaged she gazed out of the windows for a distant sighting of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
    Goodbye, London
, she thought and was surprised to feel no angst. She thought she might experience a wave of regret but in this moment the intense grief of the last month was fading, as familiar sights of London were left behind.
    Stella smiled to herself; suddenly the decision to work away from London felt right. It seemed like a pathway was opening and with it a fresh mindset for a new life.
    The train’s soothing rhythm appeared to be encouraging two people in the carriage to have a snooze already, but Stella had remained alert from nervous sucking on a penny’s worth of rainbow drops she’d thrown into her bag. The carriage wasn’t crowded but she looked away from the lacquered wood and small framed posters in the compartment urging her to take a Nightboat Train to France. It sounded mysterious and the perfect escape from her troubles but travelling the continent seemed well beyond her reach. Right now Kent was her destination and given that she’d spent most of her life in London, this journey could be considered exotic, surely?
    Looking out at the increasingly rural landscape, she ignored her newspaper and eased another sweet into her mouth. Yesterday she’d also bought a block of Cadbury’s Milk for Georgina, some tiny jellies for Grace and a box of Black Magic for their parents. The latter, by Rowntrees of York, had set her back the frightening amount of nearly two shillings, but given the generosity of the Ainsworths, she felt it important not to arrive empty-handed. Her gaze tried to lock onto one image but colours blurred as clarity dimmed and the familiar world she knew began to shimmer and hint at its new shape.
    The land had changed from the grimy, built-up areas of London to more park-like lands beyond Bankside Coal Power Station. The train stopped briefly at London Bridge Station and then it really was farewell to the city as Stella gazed sentimentally at Tower Bridge and the retreating Tower of London. The train began to accelerate, it too beginning to feel free of the big city pull, and it commenced its long and steady climb through suburban London. Stella noticed that regular travellers in her compartment were already lost to books or newspapers, while she was still leaning forward and entranced by the cityscape giving way to less crowded streets.
    She watched trams grinding along, while cars like shiny beetles manoeuvred around them and the old guard of horse-drawn carts continued to move at their slow pace within an ever-increasing mechanised world. She’d heard about the new-fangled electric trains servicing outer London and wondered if she would glimpse one from this higher vantage.
    Her train was gathering more speed and the man reading the newspaper was now only pretending. She could see his jaw relax as he drifted to sleep but she was still alert as they sped through stations without stopping. The names of Hither Green, Grove Park and Elmstead Woods moved by her gaze.
    Stella had to admit her shoulders were beginning to relax and she sensed she was secretly escaping her duty to grieve.
    ‘It will be worth the tears,’ she promised in a whisper to the glass she stared through, watching her breath condense against the cold pane. Sitting back, she was glad that the fellow opposite in his tawny, checked three-piece suit was fast asleep, his newspaper sprawled against his belly. He looked like a squire from the
Country Life
magazines she’d seen.
    At Orpington the guard on board