What happened at the Railway Hotel?

[Short story, Part I]

I woke up in my room over the saloon bar at the Railway Hotel, Woodford Halse. How I got there I knew not – I checked my wristwatch, it said ten. Ten? Nonsense! Ten? It felt like eight. I jumped out of bed, feeling unusually bright and full of energy. I glanced across at the electric clock going tsyck... tsyck... tsyck on the mantelpiece. It also said ten. Ten a.m.! It seemed... quite wrong.

Pulling back the curtains, I surveyed an overcast day, terraced houses on either side of a B-road, the wind rattling in from the west, pushing the rain clouds across a leaden sky. In the distance I could see a steam locomotive hauling a long freight train.

What had I been doing? My head felt fine – this morning no hangover, no aches. I sat down on the edge of the bed, covered in a lilac-coloured candlewick bedspread and pondered. I had no recollection whatsoever of the previous evening – none. In fact, everything after breakfast the previous day was a blank.

I remembered arriving by train at Woodford Halse on Monday evening, the thirty-first of October, and my first day here – visiting the railway motive power depot and the marshalling yards, talking to the manager about the installation of new signalling equipment.

But yesterday? Wednesday... What happened yesterday... ? I sat there for a while and sorted the things in my suitcase. I switched on the wireless on the dressing table, BBC Light Programme, Northern Dance Orchestra playing some Duke Ellington tune. But about yesterday. What happened then? I stood up, tidied the room a bit, had a wash and a shave using the small basin in the room, all the while trying to piece together a picture of the previous day. And failing. It would soon be opening time downstairs. I made my way along the landing, then down the creaking wooden staircase, straightening my tie, and came across the landlady getting the bar ready.

“Good morning, Mr Langdale!”

“Good morning, Mrs Frobisher.”

“How did you sleep? It was a most unusual night last night – did you... see – anything?” asked the landlady.

“No, I slept unusually soundly,” I said, unable to conceal my curiosity.

Mrs Frobisher seemed agitated, concerned.

“D'you know, I woke at around three – the dogs were unsettled, the light switch in the bathroom was broken, I went downstairs – none of the lights were working – so I went back up and looked out of my bedroom window and I couldn't see any street lights – just the whole village in the moonlight. Very unusual; I felt troubled – anxious, didn't know why.”

Mrs Frobisher running up and down the house in her nightie... it was a pleasant enough fancy.

I replied. “I slept right through the whole night”, I replied. “Strange dreams, puzzling dreams – I couldn't make sense of them... But I've also got something unusual to relate. Tell me please, what had I been doing yesterday evening, Mrs Frobisher? D'you know, I – I don't remember. I remember, well – I remember breakfast yesterday morning, but that's about it, really, nothing afterwards! A complete blank...”

I felt foolish admitting it, but I had to know what had happened.

“Well, you weren't overdoing it or anything – it's not as though you were drunk or even tipsy,” she giggled. 

“Was I with anyone?” She looked at me strangely before replying.

“You were with those two people, remember, brother and sister I guess – they looked Norwegian or Icelandic or something, very tall, wearing cagoules.” 

“What were they like?”

“Nice, polite people – I could hear them clearly – you sat with them over there in the snug all lunchtime – she drank orange juice with soda water, he drank light and bitter, like you did, two pints. I served you with cheese and pickle sandwiches, you ordered some pork pies and a packet of crisps, then, after closing time, you told me that you were going for a walk – and you came back together just as I was opening the bar for the evening.” 

“What happened then? I'm sorry, I can't recall any of this!”

“You ordered exactly the same as you'd had at lunchtime, and sat there with them, all evening, chatting calmly – then some apprentices came in from the depot and had a rather rowdy game of skittles in the games room, but they didn't bother anyone, then came last orders, they went, your guests went their way, you retired to your room – that was it.”

Who were those two people? Blimey. 

Why couldn't I remember? 

According to Mrs Frobisher, I'd spent the best part of 12 hours with them, including a two-hour walk. Four pints of light and bitter. A man and a woman – brother and sister? – Scandinavian in appearance – I knew no one like that. Why would I be spending time with them here? I felt a strange blend of emotions – I was perplexed and yet there was a persistent feeling that I knew them, or at least knew of them, like someone recounting a faded dream they'd once had. It rang true. But details... I had no details.

“You said you could hear us talking – do you remember what we were talking about?”

“Yes – just snippets, you know – you were talking about nature mostly – jungles, deserts, the planet, icebergs, very clearly spoken, slight foreign accents – nice polite well-spoken people...”

The more she related of this meeting, the more frustrated I felt. Yes and no – it felt to me like something that happened many, many years ago; like a film I watched in my youth, whose plot and actor I hardly remember, yet I know I'd seen it – and here was an event that had happened just yesterday and – this blankness.

The large clock over the bar showed that it would soon be time to slide back the bolts on the doors and pull the towels off the taps. A middle-aged regular in flat cap turned up, on cue. A nod of acknowledgement; Mrs Frobisher poured him a pint, the beer spluttering and hissing reluctantly at first.

"Did you see it, love?” he asked. “Comet or something, meteor – maybe a Russian rocket, lit up the whole valley for a second or two, then it disappeared over towards Daventry.”

“Didn't see that, but we were without electricity for a while, and the dogs were behaving strangely, still, all was fine this morning,” replied the landlady.

"Bit early for Guy Fawkes," I joked.

“Oh it's you,” said the man turning to me. “Them foreigners left, 'ave they? 'Ere all day they was. Been wondering who they were.” 

“They were here on holiday – walkers,” I replied, trying to elicit more information from him.

“Oh.” And then: “Well, they're gone now. Anyway, seemed nice enough people. Not like the student rabble from the Polytechnic.”

And that was that. Nothing more to be said on the subject. For God's sake – why couldn't I remember anything more?

I ordered a ham sandwich and a pot of tea. Having finished my late breakfast, I settled up with Mrs Frobisher, said goodbye, and set off to the railway depot, a short walk past rows of terraced houses. As I did so, I became aware of that tickling sensation you get in the roof of the mouth, where the palate meets the sinuses, that I usually associate with the start of a heavy cold.

“We'd thought you'd gone back to London yesterday, only you hadn't signed out, sir,” said the foreman from behind the desk at the front gate. He got up to poke around in the coal fire warming the small room.

 “Well, I'm here to do just that, then I'll be on my way,” I replied. He pointed at the book, and I signed it in the appropriate place.

“Everything went well?”

“Yes – we'd finished up over there. All done!”

“Did you have a power cut overnight, sir? The rest of the village did. The night watchman reported a short power outage, the electricity people must have fixed it really quick, before he'd had time to find an oil lamp, he said. Also said he saw a shooting star around that time. Odd that was – d'you know, my dogs wouldn't stop yapping half the night?”

I signed the paperwork with the foreman, said my goodbyes, and set off to Woodford Halse station to catch the 1:05 to Marylebone.

The wind whipped up. I shivered. Surely it's not that cold, I pondered. Dark clouds scudded by as I stood on the 'up' platform, holding on to my hat, collar turned up against the weather. Heavy drops of rain began to fall. In the distance I could make out a plume of smoke blown sideways by the wind; my train to town? It was indeed. Hauled by a grubby engine that hadn't been washed in years. At least it was on time. It gave a short whistle as it approached the station. I got on, double-checking my travel warrant – indeed, I was permitted to sit in first class all the way to London. I found an empty compartment and took my seat. An early copy of the Warwickshire edition of the Coventry Evening Telegraph lay on the seat opposite.

There was a delay up ahead, the semaphore signal was set against us; the train sat at the platform as I scoured the paper looking for any mention of odd goings-on overnight. Nothing. Not a paragraph. While I was turning the pages, a northbound train pulled in heading for Rugby. I gave it a cursory glance – and there in the window a pair of blond heads – a man and a woman, around thirty, perhaps thirty-five. They both looked up and across at me in unison. Benign faces, solemn, yet kindly. For a second or two they held their hands up, palms facing me, fingers together – then the two locomotives whistled simultaneously and jolted forward in opposite directions, steam hissing.

[For conclusion of this story, click here...]

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