She got off the train at Euston
One morning at five past nine
And she saw from the puddled platform
That the weather was far from fine.
She had travelled all night from Glasgow
With Lancaster passed by
And had barely glimpsed that city
Through the dim of her sleepy eye.
Her terminus was Manchester
At break of early day
But alas for her daughter’s meeting
The train didn’t go that way.
A careworn, widowed figure,
Her years beyond three score,
But still she bore them bravely
And could shoulder several more.
This night her mind goes backwards
To the days when they were two
Now Sunday after Sunday
She sits in a lonely pew.
Past Crewe and past Nuneaton
Meanwhile speeds the train,
Into the brick of Bedford
Into the slanting rain.
The buffet car is closed now
It has fulfilled its function
No chance of a tonic cup of tea
Till you’re well past Watford Junction.
At last at Euston station
Tired-eyed and unalert
her hand slips off the carriage door
Full of British Railway’s dirt.
Beneath her feet a puddle
Will cause a fatal slip
And a sharp click of a breaking rib
Like the crack of a cowboy’s whip.
In a pained, regretful moment
She knew she had been silly,
She should have taken the stopping train
To Manchester Piccadilly.
She thought of the excess to pay
She thought of her pensioned purse
Thin as it was it was thinner now
And about five pounds the worse.
They took her off to Casualty
And laid her in bed seven,
Which the matron thought convenient
As the corner nearest heaven.
She died at noon and never knew
It had rained that night in Manchester too.
|
