The End of the Line

The End of the Line(Jeff Glazier) The End Of The line. By Jeff Glazier




Michael once again found himself standing upon the deserted platform of the station at the end of the line. The images were still vivid in his seventy-eight- year old mind. It may have happened thirty years ago but it was still as clear and powerful as it was on the day it happened. And of all the memories of Bridget, his wife, now passed on, it was by far the most lucid. He never did tell her about it, he never had to. Nor did she tell him what happened to her. Their secrets stayed within them, though in a strange way shared.
1955 was the year it happened, the December, it was the turning point in their marriage. He stared at the rusting turning points on the track, they switched the train so it could go back the way it came. The main line stopped here, nowhere to go. So close was he to getting on the wrong track, even off the track, destination unknown. Michael looked around the now derelict station house, vandalised and stripped of doors and floors, littered with rubbish and graffiti. He walked, head down, hunched and heavy to the end of the scruffy, rubbish ridden platform. The wind tugged the last leaves off the tall blue gums, swirling them into untidy piles in corners, and blew balled up weeds along the track, bouncing along the sleepers, some flying against the paint peeled buffers. That was where the track stopped, but you could imagine it continuing into the distance, cutting through the red stone mountains.
Michael always left his car in the same spot. A service gate allowed him to drive almost to the platform. His car couldn’t be seen from the road, not that it matters now, but it did when he met with Camilla throughout that year of 1955. Met her every month after 10 at night with only the prying eyes of moths that clustered in the hot summer months around the weak yellow glow of the station lamps. Seven months it had been going on for, always on the day Bridget went to Paarl to visit her aunt.
“Eight, actually.” Camilla corrected him. She had lain back a little in the passenger seat, her glass of red wine almost empty. She was now more relaxed, better than the furtiveness of other occasions when she was so fearful of being seen. Maybe relaxed now because she was resigned to the inevitable? They were both anticipating, perhaps the nervousness was just hidden within the wine.
Camilla’s husband worked away in another town, Camilla didn’t want to move there, she needed to be at her school. She was a teacher, the kids needed her. She only saw her husband one weekend in a month, they had got used to the arrangement, they had a comfortable relationship, a convenience. In the last few months a smoulder within her had been ignited, she had tried to dampen it, she had so tried, almost right up until the last minute of each time before they met, but she always gave in, now they were where they were. Michael looked at her sitting next to him, long glossy raven black hair, dark expressive eyes closed, sensual lips, beneath her gossamer thin blouse he knew were full breasts with mahogany coloured erect nipples. Her erect nipples, set in the large chocolate brown circles of her areolas, they fascinated him. Maybe they were the only visible way that you could tell that she was a coloured woman, a classy coloured woman, mind. In fact her soft flawless skin was even lighter than his own.
They had first met at a seminar that ended up with cheese and wine, she was un- accompanied, so was he. Education, they had a common interest, Michael was a lecturer at the university. Camilla was doing a correspondence course to further her qualifications, in fact Michael was part of the faculty that put the course together, that’s how they got talking. He took an interest in her, her own husband was wrapped up in his own business. They met to talk, at first. It took three meetings before they kissed.
“Four, actually.” Camilla had dressed provocatively that night, the night they first kissed. Michael was respectful; he even asked if he could slip his hand under her blouse. She refused, of course, the first time.
They would sit and talk, sipping wine. Camilla liked red wine, but it had to be good wine, expensive wine, rich, plum red, like her lips. Michael would talk about Bridget, for seven months or so she had been distant, pre-occupied, he didn’t feel able to talk to her about it. Camilla listened though.

That night, that warm summer’s night in the December of 1955 Camilla had poured a glass of wine while her bath was filling. It stood filled again on her dressing table as she put the finishing touches to herself. She had chosen her clothes carefully. Cool, light, short, zips. She had felt the desire building up, desire and fear. The thrill of fear, of where this might lead, there could be little stopping it now. She hadn’t spoken to Michael at all since their last meeting, the tension was building.

Bridget had planned to leave in her car early that morning to Aunt Margaret in Paarl. Her aunt was still trying to be independent but frailty was catching up with her, so Bridget had said. They would go to the department store, have lunch there as well. Bridget would stop the night with her. Bridget was distracted that morning at the breakfast table.
“ . . . Sorry?”
“I said give my regards to your aunt.”
“Oh, yes . . . I will.”
“You seem a bit vague dear, are you all right?”
Bridget looked through him. “Are you all right . . . are we all right?” there was pain in her voice.
“I . . . er . . . don’t know what you mean.”
Bridget looked at her watch, almost as if to divert attention. “Oh, look at the time, we’ll talk later.” She drained her cup and looked round for her overnight bag.
Michael followed her eyes and went to pick it up. “You sound rather serious, in fact you’ve been a bit . . . well . . . offish for several months now, are you sure you . . .”
“Just me do you think . . .?
“I . . . I don’t know what you mean . . . , but I’d also better get prepared for lectures.
“Will you call tonight?”
“Will you be in?”
“Well I expect so . . . later, drive safely dear.” He handed her her bag and offered a parting kiss. She responded with a fleeting peck. Obviously upset she had her back to him when she uttered a resigned “Goodbye Michael.”
Michael had trouble concentrating on his notes for his morning lecture, before driving to the university. He preferred to live out of town, out in the country. In a village with a station at the end of the line, where he’d meet with Camilla that night. His thoughts flicked back to Bridget and what she’d said that morning, did she know? They say women sense these things. His thoughts went to the alluring Camilla. He never doubted that she would be there, he found himself thinking about the evening, her scent, her soft skin, sensuous lips, her dark, hard nipples . . .

Michael had poured a brandy before he left in the darkness to the station, quite a large one, and found himself topping it up. He was apprehensive – nothing like this had happened in the twenty-five years of his marriage, the apprehension was tinged with fear, he caught himself frowning, putting out of his head thoughts of Bridget and consequences of his actions.
Words just tumbled out nervously, breathlessly, as they greeted. Michael breathed in her scent that instantly filled the car, he resisted the impulse to pin her back on the seat and slide his hand along her bare smooth leg. She busied herself with the bottle of wine, a very good wine, and two glasses carefully wrapped in tissue paper. Michael reached for the corkscrew in the glove compartment. He felt a pang of guilt when he remembered Bridget had asked why he kept one there. His reply was inadequate. They drank the first glass quickly, was it to get courage or to blot out all the reasons as to why they shouldn’t be there? It was a heavy, strong wine, Camilla lay back a little more, her eyes shut, relaxed and inviting. Michael drained his glass and lay back himself, half turned towards her, his hand resting on her waist.
He had shut his eyes for a second, maybe the wine was having some effect. Strange, in the jumble of thoughts in his head he thought he heard a distant whistle – there it was again, a little louder this time. There can’t be a train this time of night, he must have imagined it. Then he heard the faint chatter of steel wheels, it wasn’t in his head. He looked out of the side window of his car to see a distant dim single light, shrouded in smoke. He opened the window, he could hear the engine now, pistons pumping hard, the light was growing brighter. He picked out the silhouette chasing towards him, the train was speeding up, it should be slowing down, this was the end of the line. Had someone made a mistake? The train was on the wrong track. It was pulling carriages, he could see them now as the train rounded the bend, seven of them, Camilla would have corrected him if she’d not been asleep, but he couldn’t move his arm to wake her, there were eight, all lit with an eerie orange glow. He could do nothing about it, he seemed to be paralyzed, in some sort of catatonic state. All of a sudden the big black engine billowing smoke and steam flew through the station and the carriages flashed in front of him. They flashed through yet somehow remained static, a bit like those comic books that when you flicked the pages quickly the scene moved, or like the ‘what the butler saw’ camera, in slow motion. He could see into the first carriage, Bridget was sitting reading, opposite her was a man, the carriage jolted, the next scene she was talking to him, and smiling. Then that carriage disappeared. The second carriage flashed in front of him, it looked like the dining car, but it was a coffee shop. Bridget was there, so, sitting opposite her at the table, was the man on the train. She was leaning forward towards him smiling and laughing, she looked happy, he hadn’t seen her happy in months. Then the carriage clattered off into the night. In the next one Bridget was walking in what looked like a park, in her red summer frock. The same man was by her side, he was tall, well built, well dressed. They sat on a bench for a while, then just before the carriage jerkily slipped out of view, they got up and walked away, he was holding her hand. The next carriage was a restaurant, a big expensive restaurant, huge chandeliers; waiters in black, white tablecloths, long stemmed wine glasses, silver ice buckets. Bridget looking radiant, she wore a sparkling necklace, which he’d never seen before, prominent on her black velvet dress. Three more carriages passed in a blur, he didn’t have time to see what was going on in them they moved so fast– maybe there was a car at a beach front? The last carriage came into view. It was a bedroom, a plush fancy bedroom, an expensive hotel bedroom. The good looking man was in the bed, he had an arm outstretched, pleading. Bridget was sitting, in her cream petticoat, on the very edge of the bed, she was weeping. Suddenly the carriage light went out, the train came to a halt with a squeal of wheels. What had gripped Michael left him and he managed to open his car door. He walked towards the last carriage. Smoke blown back blurred the image but he saw the carriage door open and Bridget step out onto the platform. She smiled at him and held out her arms and quickened her walk. He stepped forward to embrace her, but before he got there a light shone from behind him, then a voice calling his name, he turned, momentarily dazzled by the car headlights, then turned back to Bridget – she was gone, so was the train, he stared out onto an empty platform and a dark empty track.

As it was now, thirty years later, as Michael stared silently out onto the deserted station once more recalling the incident. When Bridget returned the next day she told him that she wouldn’t be going to Paarl anymore, her aunt was going to move far away. And Michael never again met with Camilla at that station at the end of the line.


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