The Train Set

The Train Set

The bathroom door behind Jim opened and there stood a small boy holding the carriage of a toy train. “You fix things. Can you fix my train,” he asked. Jim noticed the boy had a quiver in his voice as if asking for help was discouraged. “Where’s the rest of it,” he asked getting to his feet.
“I keep it hidden in my bedroom wardrobe.”
Jim’s hand which had started to reach out towards the boy stopped in mid-air. What was a toy train doing at the back of a wardrobe in his bedroom? Now that would cause a problem. “Did you get it for Christmas,” he asked letting his hand fall to his side..
The boy shook his head. “It belonged to my daddy when he was like me.” Jim noticed as he mentioned his father, the boy’s head dropped onto his chest and he clutched the piece of the train tighter.
“Where’s your daddy now,” Jim asked gently.
The boy’s lips quivered again. “Mummy sent him away.”
Jim sighed. It was a familiar enough story.
“Tell you what, why don’t you bring all the bits of your train to the kitchen table and we’ll see if it can be fixed.”
The boy’s face brightened and then fell. “”Mummy won’t let me have it in the kitchen. I can only keep it if it stays out of sight in my bedroom. She says the best place for it is the dustbin.”
Jim surveyed the forlorn looking boy. Standing in his pyjamas his brown hair tousled from sleeping he looked so lonely and dejected.
“No school today?” Jim asked starting back to his work.
“I had a pain in my tummy. ‘Cos you were coming mummy let me stay at home.” He gave Jim a small hopeful smile. “If you come back tomorrow will come to my bedroom and fix my train?”
Jim missed the joint in the pipe and hit his thumb with the hammer. He swore under his breath as the pain shot up his forearm.
Going to the boy’s bedroom would be the last thing he’d be doing. It was the fastest way to lose this new customer. And become unemployable before his new plumbing business even got right started.
“I think I hear your mother calling you,” he lied.
“Will you be here tomorrow? Will you fix my train?” the boy persisted coming to stand where Jim had his head and shoulders inside the airing cupboard.
Jim looked out of the corner of his eye to where pyjama bottoms trailed over two small bare feet red with cold. He guessed the boy was about five, just the age I was when my father abandoned my brother and me, he thought.
Without warning his mind reeled back. He recalled the desolation in his mother’s eyes when his father left and the terrible anger that consumed her when she learned he wasn’t coming back.
The next time he’d seen his father he was sick and old. He shook his head. He had known very little about his father. His name wasn’t allowed to be mentioned in the house. His father’s leaving had turned a kind mother into an embittered woman who yelled at him and his brother as if it was their fault.
But Jim knew his love of trains had been inherited from his father. He had a vague memory of being on his father’s shoulders watching the train pass by the end of their allotment.
The pipes he was working on loosened sending a small stream of water over the boy’s feet.
“You better get back to bed before your mother finds you standing in that puddle of water” Jim advised.
“A cup of tea,”
Kirsty, the boy’s mother said behind him. Startled, Jim hit his thumb again.
“That would be lovely,” he said politely.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Jim looked around remembered the boy saying about his mother not allowing the toy train in the kitchen. It was a very modern high spec kitchen with gleaming cream tiled floor and matching marble worktops. He glanced at the cooker. It obviously didn’t see much cooking.
Carefully, he placed his tea mug on the table mat and held his lunch box as close to his chest as he could to catch the crumbs from his ham sandwiches. He tucked in wondering how he could bring up the subject of the boy and the broken train.
Then the opportunity presented itself as the radio presenter began to interview a man about trains and turning old railway lines into walking lanes.
Kirsty’s heart hardened and she hurried to change the channel.
“Can you leave it… would you mind if I listened to that,” Jim heard himself say past a mouthful of crumbly bread.
Kirst arched her eyebrows and looked at him.
“It has my two pet hobbies – trains and walking, “he explained as he tried to keep the crumbs from falling on to the pristine floor.
Kirsty thinned her lips. He wasn’t her usual plumber. The other man knew to refuse her polite offer of tea and have his sandwiches in his van. Now, in addition to having Billy off sick from school with stomach ache this guy wanted to listen to an interview about trains, she thought angrily
Will’s abandonment of her and Billy broke through her carefully constructed air of aloofness and struck her as forcefully as a physical pain.
She wiped down the already sparkling worktops and looked with unseeing eyes out into the garden. Strange, Billy bringing out his father’s old train set and then the plumber‘s request to listens to a story about trains and old railway tracks.
Her stomach muscles tightened and a tremor pass through her as a thought leaped into her mind. Could Billy’s stomach pains be because he missed his father – and the times they spent together watching the trains?
Her way of coping with Will’s leaving had been to revamp the kitchen and dump everything in the house that reminded her of him. But Billy had retrieved the old train from the bin and hidden it in the back of his wardrobe. She hadn’t even known it was there until today.
Jim observed her as she seem to fold in on herself. “Turn it over, if it upsets you,” he said gathering up his mug and lunch box. “I need to get back to work anyway.”
Kirsty struggled to gather herself. “My husband left me…and Billy,” she said hoarsely swiping at the tears sliding down her cheeks.
Jim hesitated. “Was he a railwayman – into trains?” he said feeling embarrassed.
Kirsty gave a mocking laugh. “He said he was. But it was only a cover so he could see other women,” she choked out.
Jim gave an uneasy self-conscious cough at her obvious distress. “Sorry to hear that,” he said wishing he could escape and finish his work.
He rattled the lunch box in agitation. Should he mention the boy’s request about fixing the train? Or, would she see it as him interfering in her private affairs?
The image of the small boy clutching the train’s wagon to his chest rose before him. “Your son wants me to fix his father’s old train set,” he blurted out.
Kirsty turned. Two red spots stood out on her tear stained face. “No! I want you to do the job I employed you to do. Mind your own business. Leave my son and me alone,” she cried rushing past him to attack the crumbs on the floor.
“Fair enough,” Jim muttered. Working quickly, he fitted the boiler in record time, anxious to get away before the boy came back again. Usually, he would brush up and leave the place tidy but today he wanted to get away. It’s not your problem, he kept telling himself. Just finish the job and go.
“I’m sorry, about my outburst earlier.” Kirsty said as he dumped his tools in the back of his and slammed the doors shut. “Not a problem,” Jim scowled.
Behind her he could see Billy’s anxious face peering out of the window.
“I can’t stand to see the train in the kitchen …but could you come to my son’s room and see if you can fix the train set there. You said it was your hobby. I’ll pay you…”
Fury against this woman: against his mother against the father, he had never really known and against Billy’s father who he would never know rose up in Jim.
Angrily, he turned on Kirsty. “It’s not your son’s fault your husband left you. You’re making that wee lad’s life a misery just like my mother made my brother and my life a misery when our Dad left us.”
Kirsty’s face paled making the two red spots on her cheeks stand out even more. “How dare you talk to me like that? And don’t think I’m paying you. Did you see the mess you left?”
All the years of hurt pent up feelings washed over Jim like a tidal wave. “Don’t you know anything woman? There is not one thing in that house of yours that shows Billy’s father ever existed; never mind ever lived there.”
Kirst gasped as if he’d struck her.
“You can never erase the memory of his father.” Beside himself now, Jim gripped her by the arms.
He was aware of Billy calling his mother’s name and banging on the window. But it was as if all the years of Jim’s pent up hurt at his mother’s injustice and his father’s abandonment had all at once crowded in on him. He felt Kirsty tremble beneath his hands but he couldn’t stop.
“He will never, never forget him. Do you not get that? He’s his father!”
Just as quickly as his anger rose it dissipated. “I have another job to do,” he mumbled jumping into the van. Quickly he began to roll up the driver’s window.
Kirsty stood where he’s left her feeling stunned. Then, she stepped towards the window and curled her fingers around the ascending glass.
“I have hurt him more than his father leaving, haven’t I,” she whispered. She leaned her head against the window. “I’m sorry – sorry for everything. Sorry I was so wrapped up in my own pain I didn’t stop to think about how Billy was coping with his father…” She gulped. “He left Billy too.”
Wearily Jim listened to the van’s engine ticking over. “I don’t usually manhandle my customers,” he said looking shamefaced at her. With a decisive thrust he turned off the ignition and pocketed the keys.
“Let’s get your son’s trainset back on its tracks,” he said. “And if it’s OK maybe I could take you both to an early dinner by way of apology.”
Kirsty open her mouth to refuse and snapped it shut again. “Let’s get Billy’s train fixed first and then I’ll make dinner for all of us,” she smiled.

Gemma Hill 2019 copyright