The Goodbye Railway
He first had the idea in their eighth year of marriage while on holiday in the coastal town of Swanage.
I wish to build a model railway, he thought. A model railway which will line the walls of my study and calm my disquieting thoughts as I sit in solitude and ponder the multifaceted ribbons of life.
I already have the model engines and carriages from my youth. I particularly love the Flying Scotsman in its timeless green livery. All I need is some new track, and lots of it, and some new electronics.
Yes, I shall build a model railway, he thought.
His wife was three years younger than him – a calm type, astute in her understanding of the world, a suitable match. They were distinctly dissimilar. This afforded them the opportunity to complement each other in ways that married clones would find incomprehensible. Opposites attract and all that.
They had two children; one aged three, a little girl with the chubbiest cheeks and the cheekiest grin; the other only six months old, a boy with blue eyes and a shock of blonde hair.
It was his wife’s idea that they should take a ride on the railway before they returned home from their holiday. He thought it was a splendid idea.
He smiled both inwardly and outwardly as his family accompanied him along the platform. Zesty posters from the early days of the railway clung to the ticket office wall.
After they had procured tickets and boarded the train, they settled down in the viewing car. Panoramic windows and a front row seat to the efforts of the 4–6–4 engine. The whistle and the steam, the first shunt, the tension, the hissing, the clanking, the chug-a-lugging.
The sound sparkled around his ears. His eyes sparkled at the view. Colour and light, all around. Even the black of the engine exuded a vibrance he had not seen before.
After arriving home that evening with his family, he realised that he had been happy. It felt like he had experienced contentment and joy for the first time in his life. He found this exhilarating at first but unsettling once he began to appreciate what this meant about his life up until now.
He decided to try and focus on the future.
I shall build a model railway, he thought. Then I shall be happy and my family will be happy and everybody will be happy.
He never made time to build his model railway.
His wife died two days after their twenty-ninth wedding anniversary.
Five days after her death, he sat alone in his study in a ponderous mood. Melancholy hung upon him like a wet towel smothering the fire that once burnt within him.
I shall build a model railway, he thought. Then I shall be happy. He blinked slowly and continued to stare out of the window.
The door to his study opened slowly and a sombre figure filled the frame with youthful good looks and a shock of blonde hair.
“Are you ready dad?” asked the son to his ageing father. “Time to say our goodbyes.”
The son and father wore matching suits – black, ceremonial. The father’s eyes had begun to tear up. The window looked as if it was beginning to fog over.
“Goodbye, railway,” he whispered, before heaving himself up from his chair and walking out with his son who softly closed the door behind them.
