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Short Stories
Albert & Ebenezer
Sample
…Her eye lit on two elderly coves deep in conversation at a table. After surveying them with a look like a hovering hawk eying up a couple of mice, she swooped for the kill:
‘Excuse me, but are you gentlemen going all the way to London?’ she asked in a sharp, penetrating voice that could de-rust a bicycle chain.
The two old boys jumped in mild alarm and affirmed that they indeed were.
‘Mind you, we’re not sure in which century, but we do expect to end up in London some time tonight,’ one of them said. The remark seemed harmless enough, if a little silly, and Aunt Doris smiled wanly, the unaccustomed upward movement of the corners of her mouth causing small flakes of centuries-old make-up to break away from her cheeks like slabs of ice from the Arctic in summer. Tom thought it an odd thing to say. Little did he realise how much it was going to mean before his extraordinary journey was over that night.
Aunt Doris asked them to keep an eye on her nephew, said her goodbyes and scurried off just before the final door-slam, the whistle and the first lurch of the train pulling away from the platform. The two men acknowledged Tom with a smile and resumed their hushed conversation, giving him a chance to check them over.
The one next to him was dressed in an old fashioned cloak with moth holes in it and a slightly musty smell that emanated either from the cloak or the old man himself. He had a prominent hooked nose and lean, craggy features which would have given him a mean, almost cruel look were it not for an invisible aura of human kindness. Tom couldn’t say why, but he felt comfortable sitting next to him – and even had the vaguest feeling that he’d seen him before somewhere, some time.
The man sitting opposite the one in the cloak looked positively barking – also in a kindly, eccentric sort of way. Every bit the mad professor, his eyes twinkled mischievously and he sported a bushy moustache. But his most prominent feature was a mass of white hair that seemed to have developed a life of its own and was trying to leave his head under its own steam. The last time Tom had seen anything like it was when he’d rubbed his plastic comb on the nylon carpet and held it over Pippa the cat’s fur. ‘Mummy, Tom’s torturing Pippa,’ sister Emily had squealed and he’d been told off, even though the cat had slept throughout the whole drama. It was worth it, though, just to see her fur sticking up like that.
Tom sneaked another glance at his travelling companion’s wild hair, then engrossed himself in a magazine so as not to be caught staring. It was going to be a long journey and he got the feeling that the two men would chat to him in due course, but for now they had some conversation of their own to finish. It was getting dark so there was nothing to look at outside. He stifled a yawn and snuggled into his seat.
The first break in the monotony came with the arrival of the ticket inspector. He glanced at Tom’s proffered ticket, then looked enquiringly at the two men. ‘You’ve seen our tickets,’ one of them said in a quiet, convincing voice.
‘Oh yes,’ said the inspector, looking unconvinced that he actually had seen their tickets but not sure enough to argue. In fact, ever since he’d got on the train that day, for some reason he hadn’t felt sure that he was sure about anything. His sense of confusion was trebled a moment later when he’d moved on to the next table before the one with the sticky-up hair called after him in a thick German accent:
‘Young man, when does the next station arrive at this train please?’
By now, the poor ticket inspector’s brain was so befuddled that he knew there was something odd about the question but couldn’t think what it was. He looked at his watch.
‘In about twenty minutes,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ said the wild-haired one. He drew a magnificent silver fob watch on the end of a chain from his waistcoat pocket and checked the time. The only time Tom had seen a watch like it was on the white rabbit in ‘Alice in Wonderland.’
Tom could contain himself no longer:
‘Excuse me, Sir, but didn’t you mean to ask when this train arrives at the next station?’
The gaunt-looking one buried his head in his hands and muttered ‘Don’t get him started; don’t get him started.’ Wild-hair looked at Tom.
