Hello!
Here is Part 4 of this very long short story
Part One is here
Part two is here
Part three is here
I hope you enjoy it!
Part 4 – The Concourse of Kings Cross Station
A limp Brass Band rendition of Hark the Herald Angels, an admission of the approaching festive season, played over the public address system, regularly interrupted by the echoing information detailing train departures, arrivals and security announcements.
The sense of awe she recalled as a child from the steam engines was now replaced by the heady smell of diesel and fast food. The lighting gave the atmosphere a soiled, used feel. She looked down to the floor and saw it pocked with discarded chewing gum like a grubby Dalmatian pelt.
She had studiously spent most of her life avoiding these situations, eager to avoid the pitiful stares and no doubt whispered cruelties and gibes of those who saw her gait. Those paper vendors cries of “Cripple! Cripple!” were a constant menacing whisper in her imagination when she ventured into public and convinced her that a life apart was a much more satisfying path to take and thus avoid ridicule by all and sundry. As a consequence, Eunice took consolation in her own brittle company and a highly select coterie of relatives and friends who visited her in Kensington.
Now this small number either as a result of death or her insults had been whittled to one. Francis.
Eunice looked around the milling humanity seeping out of the station’s nooks and crannies.
“Nobody wears hats anymore Francis. A lack of headwear is a sure way to spread communicable diseases. People used to doff their hats too as a mark of respect. That all stopped after Suez. Where can I sit?”
Francis directed her to a metal bench near the WH Smiths concession.
“Excuse me are these seats free?” Eunice asked a man sitting on the bench. He shuffled along the bench.
“Thank you.” She sat, tucking her legs neatly under her in a demonstrable display of poise and ladylike gentility. Francis placed the suitcases on the floor and sat, kneading his hands in an attempt to lose the stinging sensation the luggage had foisted upon them.
The beggar who had asked her for money now approached a knot of Japanese tourists.
“The beggar is after the Japs! You can almost hear their discomfort as he approaches them. But, the defensive square they have adopted to repel his onslaught would have drawn admiring glances from Wellington. Say what you like about the Japs but they are instinctive soldiers. The beggar cannot find a way to isolate any member of the group and pounce. Text book operation.” The beggar sidled away from the tourists flailing his right arm towards them and levelling a volley of oaths and curses which thankfully they all appeared to be totally nonplussed by.
She retrieved a ten pound note from her purse and held it out for Francis to take, withdrawing it slightly as he reached forward to take it. Their eyes met. “Run along and buy me a cup of tea. Exact change.”
Francis sneaked a furtive glance at the chest of an attractive woman as he waited to be served at the Coffee Shop. His thoughts turned to the pleasures of confinement over the Christmas period. She would be out of the way with the McVities. Callipered and two weeks in the box. All by himself. He checked his watch and stared at the back of the head of the tall man who stood in front of him, studying the spiral of hair running down the nape of his neck.
“You are that weather man off the telly, Ian Kidney,” an elderly woman said to the tall man.
“That’s right,”
“You ruined my cabbages this year you did – Spring frost. Ruined. All because of you.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. We all make mistakes you know.”
“Especially you,” replied the woman before walking off.
Francis racked his brain for the name of Ian Kidney. Nothing registered. He ordered two teas, pocketed thirty pence in change for himself and returned to Eunice, gazing slyly at the breasts of another attractive woman standing nearby.
“Will you stop leering Francis.”
He flushed.
From his earliest days, Francis had failed to inspire Eunice. As a child, he had seemed a quiet, withdrawn and overly preoccupied with his own thoughts. He was a listless and pale specimen and she had little hope that he was to be the one to restore the family’s fortunes, still reeling Bertie’s foray into Theatre.
Francis hated his childhood visits to aunt Eunice’s often being literally dragged to the house by his mother, Eunice’s cousin, who had accepted the importance of sustaining family ties even when faced with the belittling onslaught that commenced as soon as they crossed the threshold and only ceased when they made their way home to Amersham.
In fact the only time the pallid boy had shown any animation was when Eunice discovered him as an eight year old marching around her bedroom in her old caliper. To him it was a marvellous toy, to her a confirmation that the boy was peculiar.
Although he had received a severe admonishment from his mother about the incident, the feeling of a tightly strapped brace made a lasting impression on Francis. Confined yet supportive and strong, a feeling that he grew to love and yearn for in his lonely, reasonably pathetic adult years.
He rediscovered the caliper four years ago in the loft of the house, where he had been rummaging for artefacts that could be sold to the antiques dealer. He cleaned, oiled and polished it and felt that same feeling of security he had all those years ago when first wearing it. Eunice would hear from Francis’ room the sound of straps being tightened, the squeak of metal joint for so long still and her great-nephew crashing into his wardrobe with a stifled moan, but she decided not to comment about these nocturnal activities. Secretly she was glad of his company and allowed him his privacy.
She took a sip from her tea, “Disgusting.”
