First pages

Wit’s End

The train pulled up at Peartree station. The platform was desolate; a blank board stood at the verge between the concrete and the trees and an empty glass bottle lay abandoned on its side next to it. The conductor got off the train and walked to the opposite end of the platform, stopped, drew a deep breath, spat, sniffed and got back on to the train. The doors closed and the vessel was soon gone, melting into the dark tunnel ahead.

The one passenger who had left the train that day stood with his back to the track and pulled his coat up around his shoulders. The air was colder here, deeper and more subtle. He couldn’t quite tell whether it was raining or not. There was a silvery mist which hung in the air, almost as though it were raining within the air and not from the clouds above.

The man bent down, picked up the bottle so that it sat on its base and placed in it a single lily from the bunch of flowers he was holding. He then stood up, straightened his hat and turned to the stairs. As he left the station the only noise left was the slow and dulcet tap of water hitting the inside of glass.

He always carried flowers. Every time he went to get on a train, which incidentally had become more and more frequent these days, he would buy a bunch of flowers and sit throughout his journey weighing up the pros and cons of giving the flowers to each individual in the carriage. The most prevalent case was that the flowers would end up in the lap of a pregnant woman, as he saw no greater joy than having a child of ones own. To reproduce was to him essential.

Sometimes there didn’t seem to be any worthy candidates in his carriage and he wondered if he should trawl the whole train from coach A to J and first class too. Maybe, by staying in one coach he was being unfair, people deserved a just judgement and he was denying them this. But usually he found an individual who fitted the requirements and he would quietly walk up to them as he walked towards the doors to leave, place the flowers on their lap and utter a quick and almost silent, ‘Thank you’, before shuffling quickly off the train and darting towards the exit of the relevant station.

Rarely, but nonetheless tiresome, the queue to leave the train was longer than he had anticipated and the flower receiver would have time to get a good look at him, usually of disbelief or sometimes a kind of pity. Mainly they would stare and just say ‘Excuse me, you left your flowers.’ But then he would just reply, ‘No, I meant them to be for you. They’re yours now.’ To which the main answer was (and with a worried expression to match), ‘What’s your name?’
He never told them his name. He didn’t want to familiarise himself with the people, just in case it turned out he had judged them wrongly. So usually he smiled and repeated, ‘They’re yours now.’ By which time he was usually able to escape.

There was one occasion, fairly recently, when he had not been so lucky and the receiver not so pleased. This event had resulted in the arrest of Clement and the dismissal of his employment at Harper-Wooster & Co, as, unfortunately for Clement the woman he had bethroved the flowers to that day was the daughter of his employer and was just coming back from the toilet to find his daughter having flowers shoved towards her by a seemingly mad young man. It was only when Clement turned to see his blotchy faced boss that he knew he should have given the flowers to that man who was reading The Bible to his son, even if he purveyed false hope at least he showed genuine courtesy.

It was with this incident that Clement found himself jobless and with a harassment note on his criminal record. Life goes nowhere without money, and so Clement resolved to find himself employment. A competent and eager hand in most anything he decided to apply for a job as a farm hand advertised in the national paper. He applied on a Monday and to his great shock on the respective Tuesday he received a call from the head grounds man at the house in question.

‘Mr. Worth?’ came an intrusive voice, which spat through the receiver and cleared it of its dusty inhabitants.

‘Yes.’ Clement replied in his quiet voice, not used to being addressed so formally.

‘You enquired about working here?’ And then without waiting for a reply, ‘you start on Friday. And don’t be late.’ The voice on the other end of the line was gruff and sullied by years of toil outdoors. Clement who had not the faintest idea of whether this was indeed the job he had applied for gave a short, ‘Thank you sir, but I am afraid that I do not know where to go.’

The voice replied, ‘Peartree station.’ Followed by a short pause and then what sounded like a low laugh, ‘You’ll know from there.’

‘Oh, thank you. Is there anything I should bring with me?’ said Clement not wanting to be too inquisitive

There was more of that same low gurgling laugh and then, ‘Oh, anything will do here. It’s quite a grand estate mind, so make sure you bring a hat and don’t bother coming if you haven’t any manners.’ And with that he hung up.

Clement was taken a back, but couldn’t help but be relieved. The body he had conjured in his mind was headless.

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The house was crumbling. The inner shell was whole, but the exterior left sorrow in its surroundings and bashful deceit sat atop its chimneys with a grin upon his face. The soul of the place was cloaked in a deep ash like mist. A sinister smell lurked beneath the blossoming trees that lined the drive and the large sign that read ‘Wit’s End’ was slowly being devoured by a blanket of moss and grubs.

Clement had climbed the stairs at the station and expected to find a pleasant village, maybe somewhere he could buy a drink. The train had been stuffy and his flowers had begun to wilt. There had been no contenders for his flowers on the train that day, and secretly he harboured the thought that maybe there would be someone at the farm whose day he could brighten with the lilies his clammy hands grasped to.