The Enginemen, Chapter 12/1

Chapter 12: March 1962

George had been up all night and was feeling dog-tired. They’d been down to Wolverhampton on the night passenger via Oxford and got onto Stafford Road Shed at a quarter to three in the morning, then had turned and watered 5034, leaving her in the hands of local labouring staff to clean the fire while they went to the messroom to eat their sandwiches. Florrie had made George a very tasty ‘ploughman’s’ which he’d devoured despite the late hour, fearing that his digestive system would probably incur unfortunate consequences later. They found the messroom buzzing with chatter – the Orpington by-election result had just come through and the Tory had been thrown out, his predecessor’s huge majority being demolished. George woke up.

“A Socialist in Orpington! If Labour can get in there, we can win anywhere. It’s the end at last for Macmillan’s government – he can’t recover from that.”

Someone put him right.

“No, not the Labour man, he lost badly. It was a Liberal, Eric Lubbock. Don’t know what he stands for, but if he’s anti-Tory, that’s good enough for me.”

“Aye, I’ll buy that,” said George and he and Wyn Griffiths settled themselves round the table with a couple of ‘spare’ Stafford Road drivers and talked politics until it was time to make their way back to their engine and go off shed for the Salop Parcels. Now this train was a notorious bad runner and George and Wyn had expected the chance to get their heads down for a couple of hours, but the Running Foreman said it had been reported ‘time’ off Shrewsbury and they’d better get a move on to take over from that depot’s engine and men at the Low Level station.

The Parcels was already in the platform when they ran through Wolverhampton station on the centre road, and the staff were busy loading mails as a Salop ‘County’ slipped passed them tender first ready to turn for its return working. They’d only been coupled up for five minutes and just tested the brake when the guard said that the platform work was finished and they were ready to go when the pegs came ‘off’. 5034 was sizzling nicely, safety valves just feathering and George was rash enough to forecast to his partner that for once ‘this bugger of a train’ might actually get to Paddington somewhere near scheduled time and they could get home to a big cooked breakfast and a long sleep as they were both ‘Rest Day’ until the Swansea Newspaper train a couple of nights hence.

He realised that he was tempting fate as soon as he’d said that and sure enough they were held twenty minutes overtime at Snow Hill while mountains of mail bags and parcels on a grid-lock of barrows on the platform were eventually discharged into their vans. Then they were behind an early morning workman’s train to Leamington and more overtime there, not getting a clear road until they’d passed Banbury and took the Oxford line at Aynho Junction. Despite 5034 behaving perfectly satisfactorily, they were a good hour late into Paddington and the winter sun was already coming up when they parked their locomotive and went to book off.

As soon as they entered the shed building they passed a driver, Joe Fletcher, who called out, “George, Frank Minks wants to see you urgently. He’s got a couple of ‘spare’ lads scouring the depot for you.”

“What’s he want?”

“No idea. He just said it was urgent.”

George turned to Wyn, and grimaced.

“It’ll be just my luck if more trouble’s brewing. I want to get home to Florrie’s big breakfast and get some shut-eye. I don’t fancy having to hang around the depot all day to sort out some stupid dispute. I trust that idiot Peplow’s not caused more problems. I spent most of last month trying to persuade different firemen to partner him after Pete Ashcroft opted to work with Percy Steele. How’s young Plunkett getting on with him, by the way? Has there been any gossip?”

“They say he’s surviving, but not enjoying it much. Peplow’s been hammering his engine and Plunkett too by all accounts. I know he’s always been heavy-handed, but they say he’s got worse recently.”

They reached the lobby door, and Wyn went to book off at the window.

“See you on the Newspapers then. Have a good sleep. Going on the town tomorrow night?”

“No, it’s an opportunity to get back home and see Sheilah and Rhiannon. And Sheilah thought she might be pregnant again last time I was home. She’ll have been seeing the doctor today and might have some news for me.”

“Good luck with that. I presume it’s what you both want. I’m still trying to get used to my Eva having a baby. It’s due in a couple of month’s time and she’s really showing now. She won’t go out at all because she doesn’t want her friends to see her and it’s sending Florrie round the bend coping with her moods. Anyway, see you at the end of the week.”

As soon as he entered the Running Foreman’s office, he was beckoned to follow Frank into the governor’s office. ‘It must be bad’, thought George, ‘he’s not usually that discreet.’ As they went in, Frank called to the clerk at the booking on window, “Brew us some tea, Fred. We’re going to need it.”

“Sit down, George. You’ve been on the go since yesterday teatime. How are you feeling?”

“I’m bloody tired, Frank. Can’t we get this over so I can get home to Florrie – she always goes to the church to take charge of their coffee morning on a Wednesday. And she can’t leave Eva in the house on her own at the moment.”

“That’s the problem, George. I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news for you. We’ve been trying to get hold of you, but the Salop Parcels left Wolverhampton on time for once. Your daughter-in-law rang in the middle of the night to say that your Florrie had been taken ill and had been rushed to hospital with a heart attack. We’re fixing a taxi to take you straight to Ealing General Hospital where your son Paul will meet you. His wife is looking after Eva.”

George’s mouth had dropped open and he’d gone deathly pale. He struggled for words, and eventually managed to get out, “How bad is she? Is it touch and go?”

“They said it’s bad, George. They want you at the hospital as soon as possible.” The tea was brought in. “Get this inside you, George. I’ll fix a taxi for you while you’re drinking that.”

George picked the cup up and some tea spilt. His hand was shaking. No, not that. He just could not believe it. He wasn’t sure whether he believed in prayer despite his membership of the chapel. But he prayed now.

Frank went with him through No.1 roundhouse past a couple of ‘Castles’ and a ‘King’ already stirring ready for their morning assignments, but George did not see them. Frank just held him back in time, as the electric turntable whirred into action and steered him clear of the escaping steam from the cylinder cocks of the locomotive that was being aroused to move forward onto the turntable. The taxi was already there in the driveway at the entrance to the engine shed and Fred ushered him inside, had a quick word with the driver and then said to George,

“I’d come with you, mate, but I can’t leave the office at the moment. I hope you find it’s better news when you get to the hospital. Your daughter-in-law said you’d find Paul in Ward 2. It’s near the main entrance. Don’t worry about paying the driver – I’ve already put it on the depot account.”

He shut the door behind George and taxi took off swiftly through roads that were beginning to fill with the morning rush to work, but, thank heavens, were not yet so clogged as to delay him further. He felt sick with apprehension, numb, telling himself over and over that he was experiencing a nightmare from which he’d wake any minute. The taxi drew up at the hospital entrance and he stood in the cold morn, confused like an old man. The taxi driver got out and directed him into the hospital to a reception desk and made sure that he was being attended to, before returning to his vehicle. He supposed they’d told him the way to the ward as he stumbled along cream antiseptic corridors, lost. He asked a nurse who fetched a porter who took George by the arm and led him back – he’d missed a turning – and delivered him to the entrance to the ward. There was no-one there. He sat for a moment at the desk, his head swimming, wanting to shout for someone. Eventually a nurse appeared.

She said, rather brusquely at first, “Who are you? What do you want?” Then realised instinctively who it must be visiting at this hour, and added more gently, “Are you Mr. Munday?”

George nodded his head.

“Your son is here. If you go along to the day room just down the corridor on the left, I’ll get him to come and join you.”

“I’ve come to see Florrie, my wife. Can’t I see her first? How is she?”

“I think it’s best you see your son first. He’ll tell you.”

His heart sank. They were keeping him away from Florrie. He felt a rising tide of panic as he sleepwalked to the dayroom and entered it, finding it bare and empty, the curtains still drawn keeping the emerging daylight out. He sat, then immediately got up and started pacing the room. He drew back a curtain and stared down into a tiny courtyard which had a flower bed with some brown looking bushes and bare earth still awaiting spring. The door opened and there was Paul looking dishevelled and red eyed.

“How is she Paul? Can I go and see her now?”

“Oh, Dad! How can I tell you? I’m afraid it’s bad news, Dad. She died in the ambulance on the way here. They tried to resussitate her, they tried for a long time, but she’d been gone too long. I’m sorry, Dad, I really am.”

George clasped Paul and shook. He must have feared this moment all the way from the depot – all the signs foretold a bad outcome, but it was still a shock to hear it from his son’s lips. They held each other for a long time. At first nothing came, then suddenly a low keening groan came as if from George’s belly and he began to sob, great wracking heaving tears. His son was crying too, silently, afresh, because he’d already been crying for several hours since he’d accompanied his mother in the ambulance while one of the ambulance-men had tried to keep his mother alive.

“I want to see her”, George eventually murmured and Paul led him back to the desk and whispered to the new nurse who’d just come on duty. They went down to a single room at the side of the main ward and found Florrie lying there on her back, looking as though she was just asleep. George stared at her for a few moments, then moved forward and clutched her and drew his head to hers and started back in shock because she was already cold.

“I should have been here. I should have been at home. If I’d been there when she was taken ill perhaps we’d have got help quicker and they’d have saved her.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Dad. I don’t think there was anything you could have done. Eva had already gone to bed, but she heard her mother fall on the landing outside her bedroom door and she phoned us immediately and we phoned for an ambulance. I got round at once and told Maggie to ring the depot to get a message to you. Mother had collapsed and I could see she was in a bad way so I stayed with her until the ambulance came. Eva was in a dreadful state so I rang Maggie and she got a neighbour in to look after our Andy so she could come and cope with Eva. She took her back to our house and I came with the ambulance here.”

George sat down by her bed, searched for and held her cold hand. He was confused and kept trying to say something to Paul, but the words did not come out right. Paul sensed that perhaps his father wanted to be left alone for a minute and slipped out to speak with the nurse. George sat there trying to come to terms with the magnitude of what had happened, of the irrevocable change to everything he’d known. He wept quietly to himself, muttering under his breath to the lifeless body that had been his wife, “I’ll look after them, my love, I’ll try to help them all as you helped them all.” Then he would be caught by a new spasm of weeping and murmuring between the choking sobs, “It should have been me, not you. You were always so fit, you were never ill, you looked after all of us when we were down or sick.”

He sat for a while squeezing her hand as if he were trying to restore some warmth to it, then he thought of his children, especially Eva, and thought that ‘she must need me now. I must go to the living.’ He bent and kissed Florrie on the cheek and on the forehead and turned and struggled with the door which he tried to push open, not realising that it opened inwards. His brain was not coping properly with the mundane, the picture of Eva finding her mother crumpled on the floor took precedence and he crashed through and nearly knocked the nurse over who was standing conversing with his son.

“Paul, we’ve got to get home. I must be with Eva. We must tell Derek.”

“Dad, take it easy. Of course we’ll go home when you’re ready. Maggie’s looking after Eva and I’ve already managed to phone Derek and he’s coming home. Don’t worry about those things. I can look after them.”

“But, son, it’s been a shock to you as well. I should have asked you how you are feeling. You’ve been up all night, it must have been a shock to you too.”

“Of course, Dad. But I’m coping. With things to do and occupy my mind, I can cope. You’ve been up all night yourself and you must be in shock. The nurse says I should get you home and get you some rest, but before we go, she’s made us both a cup of tea.”

“No, son, let’s get going. We must get home.”

“Father, calm down and sit down. Take your time and drink this tea. A few more minutes will not make any difference.”

“It’s too hot. I can’t drink it this hot. Let’s go now.”

“Dad, just wait. Of course it’s hot. Take these pills the nurse has given me for you – they’ll calm you and let you get some rest.”

“I don’t want no bloody pills, Paul. I want to get home.”

Paul put his arm round his father and squeezed him. George sat back and let himself be ministered to. He gave in. He was suddenly too tired to argue. He began to sip the tea and when it was cool enough he swallowed the two pills and drained the cup.