Free A Station In Life by James Smiley

game and returned to their own, much larger footplate in readiness to run
around the vans remaining on Platform One.  By this manoeuvre did they make up
the 8.46am goods for Blodcaster.
    “Shall I wait in your
office, Horace?” Miss Macrames called to me.
    Foolishly I was tempted
to grant her permission for this but company rules forbade unsupervised access
to places where confidential documents were filed so I shook my head.
    “The Waiting room will
suffice,” I called back without interrupting my vigil.
    Suddenly Miss Macrames
waved to me as if we had only just met and tricked my eye into lingering on her. 
With the advantage of height I could not resist forming a greater appreciation
of her attributes and the sensually confected dress that contained them.
    “It’s unusual to see
Herod pulling a goods train,” she observed.  “They usually put her on the fast
Mail.”
    These words cast an
immediate spell upon me, for it seemed that the Heavenly Miss Macrames understood
railways!  Cupid had joined the fray and was clearly not bound by the
Queensbury rules.
    “The Bristol and Exeter
sorting train,” I confirmed with boyish excitement.
    Miss Macrames emitted a titter
of triumph and left for the Waiting room.
    I settled myself and
glanced at my fobwatch, noting that with Herod’s truncated goods train ready to
depart, workings were back to schedule.  Lacy’s task now was to shunt the
twenty or so timber empties to Bessam forest for loading with pine so that they
would be ready for Herod’s next visit.  Timber, most of it destined for a large
sawmill in Salisbury, was an important source of revenue for the railway.
    I descended the
footbridge steps and peered around various office doors to make enquiries about
the lost parasol, then scrutinised numerous dusty nooks and crannies into which
it might have fallen.  Unable to return to Miss Macrames with good news I
widened the search beyond the station, and drafted a letter to the Lost
Property clerk at Headquarters.  Miss Macrames’ approached me again, apparently
no longer interest in her parasol.
    “So how are you finding
Upshott station, Horace?” she enquired keenly.  “I know railway work is very
demanding.”
    “Indeed it is, Miss
Macrames, but it is something in which a man can take great pride,” I
responded.  “I would rather serve a railway than till a squire’s land or turn
an industrialist’s wheel or claw minerals from a speculator’s pit.”
    Miss Macrames gave me
another of her knowing smiles, suggesting that she found me a trifle pompous.
    “I’ve told you, Horace,
call me Rose,” she reproved me mildly before regaling me further with her
knowledge of railways.  “Do you know, I read in the Cornhill that the London
& South Western railway company has negotiated purchase of the Devon &
Cornwall’s new line from Lidford to Devonport.  I expect you approve of that,
Horace?”
    “I do, Miss Macrames,” I
confirmed.  “An act of Parliament approving the change of hands is in its final
stages, and is the prelude to the London and South Western’s long anticipated
London to Plymouth line.  I believe an alternative route to Brunel’s broad
gauge is much vaunted by the businessmen of Plymouth.  Broad gauge is an
inconvenient legacy to say the least.”
    “Hoorah!  So the Great
Western’s monopoly over trans-Atlantic traffic is doomed,” she celebrated
unexpectedly.
    Was I dreaming?  I had
not enjoyed a conversation like this since Elisabeth, back in the days when I
did not have to conduct both sides of the conversation.
    I was about to applaud
Miss Macrames for her appreciation of railway affairs when a pretty young milk
maid from Harvey’s farm was ushered into the Waiting room by Humphrey Milsom.  A
freckled little thing, she curtsied dutifully and waited while Humphrey asked
me, on her behalf, if I knew of a complaint about a leaking milk churn.  Before
I could declare my ignorance of the matter, Miss Macrames rounded