‘I don’t know, sir. I never knew the man at all. All right for you, madam?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘He used to go back to the kitchen, Mr Atkins, and tell the cook that the couple from Ashleigh Court were on the train again. He’d lean against the sink while the cook poked about among his pieces of meat, trying to find us something to eat. Your predecessor would suck at the butt of a cig and occasionally he’d lift a can of beer to his lips. When the cook asked him what the matter was he’d say it was fascinating, a place like Ashleigh Court with boys running about in grey uniforms and an undermatron watching her life go by.’
‘Excuse me, sir.’
The waiter went. Carruthers said:
‘ “She makes her own clothes,” the other waiter told the cook. “She couldn’t give a dinner party the way the young lad’s mother could. She couldn’t chat to this person and that, moving about among
Miss Fanshawe, with an effort, laughed. ‘Because she’s qualified for nothing else,’ she lightly said.
‘I think that freckled waiter was sacked because he interfered with the passengers. “Vegetables?” he suggested, and before he could help himself he put the dish of cauliflowers on the table and put his arms around a woman. “All tickets please,” cried the ticket-collector and then he saw the waiter and the woman on the floor. You can’t run a railway company like that.’
‘Carruthers –’
‘Was it something like that, Miss Fanshawe? D’you think?’
‘Of course it wasn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ve just made it up. The man was a perfectly ordinary waiter on this train.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘I love this train, Miss Fanshawe.’
‘It’s a perfectly ordinary –’
‘Of course it isn’t.’
Carruthers laughed gaily, waiting for the waiter to come back, eating in silence until it was time again for their plates to be cleared away.
‘Trifle, madam?’ the waiter said. ‘Cheese and biscuits?’
‘Just coffee, please.’
‘Sit down, why don’t you, Mr Atkins? Join us for a while.’
‘Ah no, sir, no.’
‘Miss Fanshawe and I don’t have to keep up appearances on your train. D’you understand that? We’ve been keeping up appearances for three long months at Ashleigh Court and it’s time we stopped. Shall I tell you about my mother, Mr Atkins?’
‘Your mother, sir?’
‘Carruthers –’
‘In 1960, when I was three, my father left her for another woman: she found it hard to bear. She had a lover at the time, a Mr Dalacourt, but even so she found it hard to forgive my father for taking himself off.’
‘I see, sir.’
‘It was my father’s intention that I should accompany him to his new life with the other woman, but when it came to the point the other woman decided against that. Why should she be burdened with my mother’s child? she wanted to know: you can see her argument, Mr Atkins.’
‘I must be getting on now, sir.’
‘So my father arranged to pay my mother an annual sum, in return for which she agreed to give me house room. I go with her when she goes on holiday to a smart resort. My father’s a thing of the past. What d’you think of all that, Mr Atkins? Can you visualize Mrs Carruthers at a resort? She’s not at all like Miss Fanshawe.’
‘I’m sure she’s not –’
‘Not at all.’
‘Please let go my sleeve, sir.’
‘We want you to sit down.’
‘It’s not my place, sir, to sit down with the passengers in the dining-car.’
‘We want to ask you if you think it’s fair that Mrs Carruthers should round up all the men she wants while Miss Fanshawe has only the furtive memory of a waiter on a train, a man who came to a sticky end, God knows.’
‘Stop it!’ cried Miss Fanshawe. ‘Stop it! Stop it! Let go his jacket and let him go away –’
‘I have things to do, sir.’
