They met with a single glance, as if the world had paused.
Free?
Of course! May I help with your suitcase?
Thank you Oh, its so stifling!
Shall I open the window?
Yes, if youll.
The wheels clattered, and night settled like a thick curtain outside the carriage.
Im Ethel, by the way, she said.
Andrew Whitaker, he replied.
Thus began a simple railway conversation between two strangers, two youths. She was twentytwo, he twentyfive. An hour passed. Then another. Then a thirdyet it felt as if they had known each other for lifetimes, though three hours earlier they had not even imagined the other’s existence.
What did they talk about? In a dream, nothing and everything at once. As is customary on trains, they started with the weather, drifted to pricesHow are things in your town?and then, inevitably, to life itself.
Andrew spoke first, recalling his childhood, his parents, his work as a musician with the London Philharmonic, a drummer in a brass ensemble. He rummaged through a battered portfolio, pulling out photographs titled Blue Sparrow, Gemstones, Merry Lads. He was among those shining stars.
Fascinating! Ethel exclaimed.
And you, Ethel?
I work for the National Youth Council in Westminster! she said, eyes bright.
Really? In the heart of London? Andrew was stunned.
Yes, but I have no pictures with me. Im on a brief leave, back to my familys old cottage in the Cotswolds. It would take ages to explain how I ended up in London.
Then tell me. Where shall we be heading?
He told her how hed joined the ensemble, the long nights spent rehearsing, the endless chatter as they faced each other, eyes locked.
At dawn, Andrew escorted his new acquaintance to an empty platform, waved a farewell, and vanished as if swallowed by the morning mist. From that moment he could not speak to any woman without seeing Ethels nighttime face hovering over his thoughts. No other woman could stir his heart.
He called out to women whose backs reminded him of her, blushing like a schoolboy, apologising later. He wrote countless letters that never left his deskwhere to send them? To London? To the Youth Council? He didnt even ask for a surname.
It grew absurd: during every concert, seated behind his drum kit, he scanned the audience through stage lights, wondering if she might be there, sketching her portrait from memory, placing the drawing above his hotel bed. All women faded; only one remainedEthel, the solitary figure in his dreamscape.
Time rushed by like a train on a highspeed line Thatchers reforms, the miners strike, the crumbling of old empires, the disappearance of old party headquarters. Musicians, however, kept playing under any regime, their lives forever on wheels.
On another tour, Andrew found himself in the dining car of a night train. And there, at a corner table, sat the very Ethel who had haunted his nights for years, alone, no men in sight. He froze at the door, his chest tight.
Well, Sasha, Andrew said, lighting another cigarette, pouring the last of his pint into a glass, and continuing, thats when, in the restaurant carriage, I finally understood what hit like a hammer on the head really means. My ears rang, colours swirled, my legs gave way, but I stood there, a fool in the dark. Ethel rose, came over, rested her head on my chest and, like in an old film, whispered, Ive been looking for you forever.
Thats the whole story, Sasha. I took her up to the Highlands, and it turned out shed spent all those years wandering city streets, watching men pass, attending almost every variety show, always eyeing drummers. She, like me, hoped that one dayone brilliant dayshed meet the man shed been searching for.
When my cigarettes ran out on the train, I went back to the restaurant carriage for more. The rest, you already know, Sasha.
I learned the entire tale from my old schoolmate, Andrew Whitaker, on the second day of his and Ethels wedding. We were sitting in a kitchen after the guests had left, Ethel resting in her room. I had bumped into Andrew weeks before the wedding during a gig, and hed invited me as a guest.
So that is the railway romance that unfolded, and they live on, you see, even now.
And life rolls onward. The steam still rises from their teacups on winter mornings. They speak little of chance, but often of trains. Every anniversary, they ride the same line, to no destination in particularjust forward, side by side, watching the fields blur into memory.
