The Enginemen, Chapter 20

Chapter 20: March 1963

“Shirley,” said George, “I’ve a big favour to ask of you. Next week I’m off on a course for four weeks – just the weekdays, I’ll be home at weekends. What do you think about the possibility of you sleeping here overnight from Monday to Thursday night to keep Eva company? I’d pay you extra of course.”

George waited. He could hear the strains of some pop song Eva was playing upstairs – from a group called the ‘Beatles’ who seemed to have supplanted her previous favourite, Elvis Presley – and wonder how she could do the homework Shirley had set her with that noise going on. Even more he wondered how it was possible for Annie to sleep through it. The child would grow up needing such a racket all the time as silence would seem unnatural to the poor girl.

Shirley was thinking. “Yes, I think so, George. I’ve only one possible evening commitment next week and I could change that without any problem. But on one condition,” she added, “I’ll do it for free. I’m not accepting any payment for that. I’ll do it as a friend.”

George got a bottle of wine from the back of the cupboard – it had been there a long time, given to them on some obscure occasion and never brought out as Florrie had been a teetotaller – and poured them both a drink. For the first time they began to share significant reminiscences of their family lives, of their childhood, delving into the tragedies that they’d both suffered in recent times. They talked for hours until Eva came downstairs, gave an old-fashioned look at her father, finding Shirley still there, and got her supper before going upstairs to bed, leaving them alone, grinning to herself.

Shirley spoke more about the last holiday they’d had in Newquay and the drowning of her husband and her six year old son.

“It was the first real holiday we’d had for several years, the first that Richard would remember. When we got to Paddington both my men were so excited. They couldn’t wait. They dashed off ahead of me and found our seat and then both went to look at the engine. Dickie was thrilled at the diesel engine on the next platform to us and was disappointed when we got a steam engine. Ted, my husband was pleased, I remember, and the boy made me get out to come and look. While they were running around I remember looking at our engine – I can see it now, I can even remember its name, ‘Nunney Castle’ I remember chatting to the driver…”

George stopped her. He looked shaken.

“Shirley,” he exclaimed, “so it was you. I’ve always felt that I’d seen you somewhere before. Now I remember. I was that driver.”

Shirley looked at him in astonishment. Her eyes watered. She burst into tears and George got up and they embraced. George held her a long time.

When she’d stopped sobbing and wiped her eyes and said she’d no idea why she had broken down like that, George said simply, “Will you marry me?” And Shirley just said “Yes.”

Life goes on.